Pushpay Versus Vanco? The Best Choice for Your Church

Why Do Churches Look for a Pushpay Alternative?

With all these products, services and features, Pushpay initially looks like a logical solution for churches that want to streamline and improve their online giving tools and processes. But there are also potential pitfalls.

Here are ten reasons that churches shopping for online giving platforms — or already using Pushpay — might look beyond Pushpay for solutions.

1. Cause-based Visual Storytelling

Churchgoers want to give to causes they can visualize, and they want to understand the impact of their donations. Without this detail, they might lack the inspiration to give. This is supported by the data in Vanco’s 2023 Churchgoer Giving Study and Giving USA’s data showing that religious organizations are receiving lower percentages of total donations year over year.

Pushpay's limited drop-down menus provide only brief, vague names for various church causes, providing little encouragement and motivation for potential donors to give to specific causes they care about.

2. Cost Concerns

Pushpay can be expensive. It’s one of the most common complaints churches have when they consider Pushpay versus other providers.

3. Pricing Transparency

Pushpay doesn’t publish pricing on their website. Instead, they show packages that are difficult to compare. The only way to get more information is to request a demo and spend a good deal of time going through their sales process. Additionally, churches often don’t know what they’re paying for, including hidden fees and features they don’t use.

4. Customer Service

Churches using Pushpay can have trouble getting help when they need it. Rather than simply picking up the phone, sending an email or using other channels to contact a real person quickly, Pushpay customers complain about waiting more than 5 days to get help when they have problems.

5. Value for the Money

Churches making investments in new technology want to know where their money is going. According to their own 2022 Annual Report, nearly a third of Pushpay’s annual revenue comes from the high subscription fees they charge customers. Churches pay this fee regardless of whether they bring in a single online donation. Also, it doesn’t matter how long it takes a church to get Pushpay up and running and rolled out to members, expenses begin accruing the moment they sign their contracts.

6. Contracts

Church customers must closely track when their contracts expire. If they don’t let Pushpay know of their intent to cancel within 90 days, their contracts are renewed automatically.

7. Large Church Emphasis

Pushpay puts most of their effort into serving large churches (1,100 average weekly attendees or more), rather than enabling churches of all sizes to meet their goals. While Pushpay reports to investors that it plans to expand and serve churches that are smaller than their core customer base, our research shows that they’re still experimenting with pricing structures to successfully expand into that segment. This suggests that it will take time before their solution is developed enough to serve smaller churches.

8. Implementation Support

Pushpay’s hands-on implementation support is reserved for large churches. Many online reviews for smaller churches state that they had no implementation support and had to use an “online university” to get up and running. This is supported by online searches for “Pushpay implementation specialist,” which yield results with job openings for Implementation Specialists for Enterprise (large) churches.

9. Integrations

Pushpay has a limited number of integrations with management systems preferred by many churches. When you look at Pushpay versus competitors, explore whether it is integrated with your church management system.

10. The Fine Print

Pushpay guarantees 5% growth in giving during the first year, or they will return the first year’s annual fee. An offer like this is attractive to any church. However, according to many online reviews, it’s extremely difficult to get Pushpay to honor the guarantee because churches missed a step in the fine print, but Pushpay offered no coaching along the way to ensure customers would meet all the requirements.

Why 25,000+ Churches Chose This Pushpay Alternative

For many reasons, finding the right online giving platform for your church can be a challenge. When you consider Pushpay versus the many alternatives, it’s easy to get bogged down in details. But many churches have already done this work and have found solutions that work well for them. In fact, more than 25,000 churches have found a Pushpay alternative that meets their needs — Vanco.

Here are ten reasons why Vanco is a great alternative for churches looking to enhance donations and nurture closer connections with their church communities.

1. Inspiring Details

With Vanco, churches can use engaging visuals and descriptive storytelling that inspire members to give and show them how their dollars will make a difference. This kind of detail increases donors’ generosity.

2. Competitive Cost

Vanco has competitive fees and low monthly rates ranging from $0 to $49 with no setup fees. This is true no matter how many Vanco solutions your church uses.

3. Clear and Simple Pricing

Vanco provides straightforward pricing, and the details are available to the public. No hidden fees, no guessing and no confusion over plans. Just simple comparisons. Also, you won’t be forced to invest a lot of time and energy in the sales process to learn the overall costs.

4. Robust Support

Vanco is known for quick, responsive support. You can talk to a live person when you need help, and connect with us your way, by calling, emailing or using the chatbot.

5. Good Value for the Money

Vanco’s monthly plans are straightforward and much more affordable because our business model doesn’t rely on charging high subscription fees.

6. No Contracts

Vanco wants to earn your business every day. For that reason, we don’t lock you into contracts — you can cancel at any time.

7. Service for Churches of Any Size

While Vanco serves large churches, we also focus on enabling churches of all sizes to meet their goals.

8. High-Touch Implementation Support

Vanco provides hands-on implementation support for every customer, with a focus on speed to value. This means you’re not stuck for months trying to find answers online about setting up your solution and worse yet, being charged for those months. Instead, an implementation specialist will give you hands-on guidance and support, along with plenty of marketing materials to help your members embrace Vanco.

9. Extensive Integrations

We integrate with over 60 church management systems. Churches can easily route each donation to its intended cause and bookkeepers will find reporting takes a fraction of the time.

10. Meaningful Guarantees

Vanco is a flexible and supportive partner, and we’re completely invested in you. If we offer a guarantee of any sort, you can expect us to do all we can to be sure you hit every milestone and achieve the growth goal you were promised, instead of catching you up in fine print.