Church Text Alerts: Top 3 Services (& How to Choose 1)

If you’re a church leader, you’ve been there before.

You know what it’s like to not be able to communicate with your church members as well as you’d like.

For example…

• How do you remind people about events so that you can boost attendance?
• How do you let everyone know that rehearsals, events, or services will be canceled due to bad weather (or other unforeseen circumstances)?
• How do you share prayer requests with the church body?

You’re already aware of these communication needs, and you know that email, social media, and newsletters - though useful - don’t quite cut it in terms of effectively making sure everyone’s in the know.

And if people don’t know what’s going on, they’re not as engaged in the life of the church as they could be. And you can’t have that!

That’s why you’re looking into church texting services.

But how do you cut through the fog and find the best church texting service that’s right for you, without having to go through hours of research?

We’re here to help! We’ve narrowed it down to 3, to help make the process a little easier.

So without further ado, here are our selected top 3 church texting services…

Top 3 Church Texting Services

1. Mobile Text Alerts

Mobile Text Alerts is a mainstream text alert service, but it was actually started as a result of a young Bible teacher’s ministry at a local church in Lincoln, Nebraska.

James Pelton taught the Bible to college students at Indian Hills Community Church and noticed that there was a communication gap when it came to simply letting everyone in the group know what restaurant they would be meeting at for dinner.

There just wasn’t an easy and effective way to get that simple info out to all of the group.

Thus was born the idea for Mobile Text Alerts - a simple name for a simple concept. What began primarily as a product that served churches grew into the business it is today.

Mobile Text Alerts continues to serve churches and help boost connection and engagement within local church bodies through features such as:

• A convenient, easy-to-use online platform and mobile app for managing and sending your text messages
• A dedicated text line to give you the most flexibility for your members and visitors to connect with you
• Contact grouping options so you can keep your different ministries and groups organized
• Easy message scheduling to help you plan out your text messages ahead of time
• Hassle-free 1-on-1 engagement with members, staff, and visitors through an organized online inbox
• Time-saving automations available to connect with services such as Planning Center, MailChimp, and thousands of others via Zapier

Pricing starts at $20/month for annual plans and $25 for monthly plans.

2. Text In Church

Text In Church, like Mobile Text Alerts, began with churches in mind. In fact, it came out of a local church plant.

The initial idea was to help give churches a convenient way to automate guest follow-up.

Now it’s grown into one of the leading church texting services that serves thousands of church leaders.

Text In Church helps churches connect and engage with their members and communities with features such as:

• Native integrations with services like Planning Center and MailChimp
• Automated workflows for the most convenience
• Easy message templates for reference
• Convenient 2-way messaging to better engage your guests and members
• Unlimited email sending for more flexibility
• Contact organization options to help keep things in line

Pricing starts at $31/month for annual plans and $37 for monthly plans.

3. Clearstream

Clearstream’s journey started in a classic bootstrap fashion - 2 men, Michael Lepinay and Trevor Gehman, wanted to build a business together. And they tried several different ways to do it!

Eventually they landed on the idea of mass texting for businesses and organizations. As that idea grew and flourished, their direction became more focused.

They saw how much churches benefited from using texting services, so they decided to pivot their attention to serve that industry only.

Clearstream seeks to transform church communication with features such as:

• Convenient options to manage sub-accounts for multiple campuses or ministries
• Native integrations with services like Planning Center and MailChimp
• Easy 2-way communication for more engagement
• A handy mobile app for maximum convenience
• Light mode and dark mode options for optimal aesthetics
• Automated follow-up workflows

Pricing starts at $29 monthly.

Why Use a Church Texting Service?

Before you decide on the option that’s right for your church’s needs, goals, and budget, you may simply need confirmation that church text alerts would be a good thing.

Aside from the intuition you already feel - that everyone sends texts and that everyone reads their texts - it’s commonly known that email open rates are not great.

In fact, the average email open rate for “religious” industries is only 27.62% (which is actually relatively high as far as email goes).

That means that almost 75% of your email recipients aren’t reading your emails.

What about social media?

Here are a few numbers to give you an idea:

• Facebook
  • average organic reach of page posts may be only 2%-5%
• Instagram
  • reach rates vary but could be 26.6% on average for posts and 8.4% on stories, according to a study cited by Quintly
• Twitter
  • Tweet Binder suggests that achieving 20% reach would be considered a “good” rate

The bottom line is that none of these options can provide you with any real confidence that your church members will actually see your message.

Then there’s texting.

Texting has reported open rates of 95% to 99%.

That’s staggering!

There’s simply no better way to ensure that your members, guests, and staff actually see your messages.

And more people seeing your messages means…

• More engagement with your church members
• Greater health and involvement in the church body
• Better outreach to guests and newcomers
• Improved organization for your staff and volunteers

What could be better than all of that?

What to Look for in a Church Texting Service?

With that all established, what do you actually need in a church text service?

What benefits and features do church text alerts offer to help you solve your communication issues?

Here are a few things you should look for.

1. The Right Price

Churches are on a budget.

Granted, some churches have more limited budgets than others. If you’re a part of a megachurch, for example, you may have ample cushion for what you spend.

But regardless, even with a large amount of cash on hand, it’s not wise to go spending it left and right!

That’s why for most churches, text alert services like Trumpia aren’t quite the right fit. Because they’re built and structured more for big businesses.

Your text alert system’s price should be the right fit for your church and your budget.

2. Easy-to-Use Interface

Even if you’re really tech-savvy, odds are that not every leader in your church is.

And even if everyone’s a tech wiz, who wants to spend hours figuring out new systems and getting frustrated with difficult tools?

You want to look for a service that has a user-friendly, easy online platform and mobile app.

Save yourself and your ministry team time, stress, and hassle by choosing a service that’s easy to figure out and use.

3. Interactive Options

Admittedly, most text alert services will offer essentially the same features.

But one key to church texting is interactivity - The goal is to get people informed so that they can be engaged, after all.

Find a service that offers interactive options that will be of use to your church.

We mentioned some of these earlier, but it bears repeating and elaborating:

• Easy 2-way messaging: You want an easy way to see what kinds of replies people send in to your number, as well as an easy way to respond back promptly.
• Flexible sign-up options: You want to make it as simple as possible for your church members and guests to sign up for your texts. Some tools to help with this include text-to-join keywords, QR codes, web sign-up forms, and API. (Some services will even allow your members to text anything into your designated number and be automatically subscribed.)
• Message scheduling and automation: You want a convenient way to automate messaging so that you can spend less time managing your communication tools.

How to Use a Church Texting Service?

Here we get to the nitty-gritty.

It’s fine to say you need church text alerts, and how great texting is, and how much you could benefit from it.

But how can you actually use it? What are some concrete examples?

Well, here they are!

Reminders

“

Reminder: Bible study is tonight at the Jensens’ at 7pm. See you there!

“

Join us for Midweek Fellowship Hour tomorrow at 10am. If you can’t make it in person, here’s the Zoom link: [link]

Service or Event Cancellations

“

Service is canceled tomorrow in light of the expected snow. Stay warm, and tune in on Facebook to hear Pastor Gil streaming a sermon live from his living room!

“

Due to a minor family emergency, choir rehearsal is canceled tonight. Take the time to go over your part and be all the more prepared next week!

Announcements

“

Today is Pastor Steve’s birthday!! If you have a chance, let him know you wish him a great day! We'll celebrate as a church family on 4/24 after the AM service.

“

We are having dessert, coffee, tea and water after the Easter concerts (Saturday & Sunday). We need lots of desserts - if you can, please bring a dessert to share.

Prayer Requests

“

Please pray for Lloyd Harrison! He was just rushed to the hospital with severe chest pains. Thank you!

“

Keep the Hernandez family in your prayers as Maria is beginning her chemo treatments this week.

Ministry Needs

“

We need a teacher and helper to take over the second Sunday of the month in Children's Church. Lessons are provided - they are fun and these kids are adorable! Reply back if you’re interested or would like more info.

“

Are you interested in joining Sam and Katie Pelton’s meal train to help them out with a meal as they transition to their new baby? Here’s the link: [link]

Notes of Encouragement

“

Today (and every day), remember the Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” If you’ve trusted in the resurrected Christ’s death alone as payment for your sin, you are saved from sin, saved from Hell, and are now a child of God!

“

From: Pastor John - May your Wednesday be filled with hope, peace and joy. No matter your circumstances right now, God is with you. Receive His hope, peace and joy. He knows what He's doing. He's got you. Stay the course.

How Much Does a Church Texting Service Cost?

In light of what we mentioned about budgets previously, the actual cost of a text alert system is something that’s surely on your mind.

We did say you have to select a service with a price that makes sense for you and your church.

So how much does a church texting service cost?

The short answer is…

It depends.

The long answer is that most text alert systems start around $19-$30/month. So if you’re on the lowest tier, you can expect to spend around $250-$350 per year.

These “lowest tiers” will generally work OK if you expect to have less than 100 people subscribing to your church text alerts.

If you have much more than that, or if you send a lot of messages, costs will vary significantly.

You can use the price slider tool on the Mobile Text Alerts Pricing page to see how much sending text alerts may cost for you based on your expected message usage.

(And remember that each recipient for your message counts as a message; so, for example, a message sent to 200 recipients would count as 200 messages.)

Use a Church Texting Service to Get the Most Church Engagement

Ready to eliminate common communication issues and get the most out of your church engagement?

Go ahead and try a church texting service today. (You can try it for free with no risk.)