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Clearstream
The church texting software you'll love
Clearstream Reviews
Rating criteria
Reviews by rating
Suggested alternatives
Breeze ChMS
Planning Center
Birdeye
Pros and cons
489 reviews
Recommended
Glen M.
Connections Pastor
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Review source
Transcript
Glen: Hey, my name is Glen. I'm the connections and communications pastor at my church and I would totally give Clearstream a five-star rating, they're just fantastic. And so for more reviews like this, just click below. Hey, we've been using Clearstream now for quite a while and the reason why we went with Clearstream is because before this, we had a combination of I believe there were three different texting services that we were using. We were using Google Voice for one-on-one texts with different people because we could have multiple accounts and different things like that through all of our different ministries, we were using Mozeo for just exclusive push communication where it was just a blast out to thousands of people at one time which was great when it came to just pushing stuff, but there was never any two-way communication. And then we were using Text In Church which is a fantastic organization for a lot of our follow-up and some of the more detailed-oriented kind of communicative things that are two-way sometimes. And so there were just a lot of bits and pieces and parts that were a combination of all of these. So we took all the things that were working really good out of all of them and then we decided the parts that we really didn't want to do anymore, and Clearstream seemed to be right in the niche. It fit all the different things that we were needing which was one, we pushed things out in mass from time to time. And by doing it with Clearstream, you can actually get great responses back, and it's all categorized in an inbox which works really nice. And then you can also use keywords and you get multiple ones depending on which level that you go with of course. And then with the Google Voice thing, it was one thing that we set up for the different areas of ministries that they have their own little inbox, but the sub accounts part of Clearstream cleared all that up for us too, so all of our different areas of ministry have their own sub-account, where they can log in and design their own workflows and all those different things that they use on an individual ministry basis. And so we started it with the connections ministry because we by far used most of the text communication in the whole church, and then we started teaching all of our other areas of ministry to use it for all of their followup on the individual basis with their teams like creative arts and kids and students and guest services and small groups and all those different groups use their own stuff too. And so we've just found that over the last probably six to maybe about nine months now, I've been using it very heavily, it's really been fantastic. And so, I mean, nothing's perfect, but Clearstream by far not just replaced these three services for us, but then added all other levels of different ways that we can engage with people and different ways that we can have these one-on-one connections with a lot of folks in different ways. So the reasons we went with Clearstream are vast, but I'd like to boil it down to just a couple of small ones but massively valuable ones. One is it took all of the different services we were using into one. So we had one place to go for communication, one place to go for the go-to to send things and to get them back and so that was great. But the other one was that last year we discovered this huge need in our church and in our communities for people to just know that they're being cared for and loved on because a lot of folks had not been back to church, a lot of folks still haven't been back to church, but what we were finding is that people just needed to know that they were loved on and cared for. And so we started a calling ministry where people would actually just physically call people and that was successful for a couple of months and then it started to drop off. And so we wanted to be able to text everybody. So what we started was I think it was last October or November, right in the holiday season when Thanksgiving was kind of on everybody's radar and a lot of family stuff going on. So at the first of the month, we put a huge text together of a bunch of contacts that we had. It was about 3000 plus numbers, and we sent this out with a simple question, how can we be praying for you? And the response that we got back from that was overwhelming. I mean, just huge, and so what we decided was this is something we can't let go of. And so Clearstream became our go-to for this communication because we were able to get a team of volunteers to field the inbox of this particular sub account. And so every single month since then, we send out this text on the first of the month, or very close to it just saying, "Hey, August is here, Summer's wrapping up something real small and just very relationally connected. How can we be praying for you this month?" And so what happens is then within about two hours, we have literally hundreds of responses. And so our fiscal year wrapped up in June, so this is probably about a nine month total and we had more than 5,000 text prayer requests come in through Clearstream, and then a team of folks, as well as our church staff have been able to pray for these folks, we kind of just get a snapshot of where they're at in life and so huge massive value to our area of ministry with connections and just our church in general, and I'd be hard pressed to find something that would work better than what Clearstream has provided for us to be able to do this on a very, very large scale but keeping the person and their individual story in mind the whole time. So getting started with Clearstream, what I would do is I'd suggest using a smaller tier that they offer so you can just kind of get used to it, and then just have people try it out and see what they think and what it looks like. We did that. And then it became really apparent to us quickly that we were going to need to grow. And so we're on one of their larger programs now because it was so easy. And so getting started with them was easy, learning the software was really easy, and so if you're apprehensive in any way like that, just rest assured, you'll catch on quick and it's not really a difficult thing at all when it comes to administratively speaking with Clearstream, they are on it right away. They always have a little chat bubble if you're on there and you've got a question, you just click on that and they are on it super fast. They've got to like, real-time chat that you can have with somebody. And we got to know two people really well, because we had a lot of just pertinent questions to the way we do things. Their way was kind of simple what they offer, but we were like, "Hey, can it do this? Can it do this? Can I do this?" And the responses were great, and actually they really listened to a lot of things that we kept offering, and so one thing in particular like repeating texts, that's something they've added here recently, not just because we asked for it, but I'd like to think so because it was a really cool thing that they added. So they're really great that way and they really listened to customers for ideas and such. So if you are a church organization, especially that is wanting to connect with your people or connect with those who are marginally engaged in your church organization, if you have their contact information, you have the most valuable thing that they can offer to you. You have their name and a way to contact them. And if you're not maximizing every single way that you can then engage them in some way, you don't want to miss those folks because you just never know. Some people open up their snail mail, occasionally, somebody will read an email from time to time anymore, nobody listens to voicemails anymore so don't even bother. But if you're really going to connect with somebody, send them a text and I guarantee you, they'll read it and there's a really, really good chance that they'll respond. And so if you're a church out there who has not yet maximized the communication method of texting individually with somebody, Clearstream is really the way to go. I've been texting with people at church now for probably seven years or so, and started way back with what was available and it has really progressed down the line as far as the tech is concerned, and Clearstream, as far as I'm concerned, is right there where they need to be and so, yeah, check it out, you won't regret it.
Rachel W.
Bookkeeper
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Review source
Transcript
Rachel W.: My name is Rachel. I'm the bookkeeper for a church. And I rate Clearstream four out of five. Before we changed to Clearstream, we used to use Text In Church. And after a bit of research a few years ago, we decided to change to Clearstream. We switched from Text In Church because Clearstream was more cost-efficient. And also it integrated with some of the software we use like Planning Center. It integrates with that to import our people. So then we didn't have to add them manually. So it worked out way more efficiently. The way we onboarded all of our people into Clearstream was we used Planning Center Online, where we already have all of our people in our church, and we imported them from lists that we had. And so we were able to separate the different lists and make sure we had people in the right list so we could send texts out to our church family. So if you're considering looking into Clearstream, one thing that has really stood out to me even recently during COVID-19 is their customer service has been great. They've been so helpful for churches, because we've needed to get communication out there. And they've just been over and above helpful for helping us and getting the credits that we need so we can text people pertinent information, and that's the main thing that's been super helpful. And also it has a great ease of use. They've they've updated a lot recently, so it's easy to use.
John H.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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Overall Clearstream is a great application for the money. If you use planning center to organize volunteers, group gatherings and events, you need Clearstream. Planning Center doesn't have it's own texting platform, and doesn't look to get into that arena. Clearstream is a quick, simple add on with amazing benefits.
seamless integration with with Planning Center account. User friendly experience. Free Keyword. Easy to use dashboard. Incredible customer support.
So, far I don't have any cons. I've only been using Clearstream for 1 month. Everything has gone great and I'm looking forward to finding new applications for the service.
Chris K.
Nonprofit Organization Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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It is a great, affordable product that can do everything we need. We have 9 teams that communicate with clients and students regularly via individual and mass texts.
For those of us who are cost-conscious, this is an excellent alternative to many of the other platforms. The service is easy to use and my staff/co-workers only needed a 1 hour training session to get everyone trained.
I dislike nothing about Clearstream; it has an excellent product and outstanding customer service.
Renee M.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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Ability to use on Mobile device and easy to use
No complaints at this time seems to work well
Kaitlin M.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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We are still learning the in's and out's of Clearstream. We love the functionality of the program, and are excited to continue using Clearstream for all our needs.
We are still learning the program, we have nothing negative to say.
Piper D.
Nonprofit Organization Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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Super cost effective and east to use. My staff loves it.
We like all like it and if we ever have an issue the customer service is outstanding!
Alyssa C.
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for 6-12 months
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We love how easy creating, managing, and responding to messages is!
No cons at the moment. It has been working fine.
Verified reviewer
Nonprofit Organization Management, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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Clean UI, easy to use. You can get up and running very quickly. Their pricing model is clear and time to value is very high. Their preview capabilities and list management is very nice and easy to use.
Contact database integration is very specific and it's hard to enrich contact information unless you're using their specific contact DB integrations. I wish their email shortener had the ability to customize more because it doesn't work with variable parameters.
Moly S.
Hospitality, 51-200 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
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In my view it will be one of the effective software.I love to reccomend others to use.
This is very effective software.it help me alot in my regular activities.i use it everyday.This software work very fast to perform my duties.
This is take huge space.i think they can update their app.it will be more user friendly.sometimes this app not response properly.
Kimberly T.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used monthly for less than 6 months
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Customer service has been tremendously helpful, kind, gracious, professional, prompt, efficient, knowledgable, etc. They have gone above & beyond. This level of customer service does not exist elsewhere these days.
Amazing customer service and easy to use once the platform is understood.
There was a steeper learning curve for me, but it is not Clearstream's fault. I had no prior Clearstream experience and needed to troubleshoot two existing accounts from previous personnel.
David V.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used monthly for less than 6 months
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The ability to easily send messages and link to our Planning Center account.
The app can use some improvement to allow for more features.
Moresa R.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
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Clearstream so far has been a game-changer in helping us stay in contact with new and old attendees of our church. We are looking forward to utilizing all of the features in their fullness as we get more comfortable with how everything operates.
I appreciate the amount of features you get with Clearstream at an affordable price. I love the mass texting, scheduled texting ability, keyword integration, and the endless subscriber lists you can create. I also love how simple it is to navigate and use the system. Additionally, the texts with MMS addition looks really clean on the phone.
I wish Clearstream would allow you to add videos without having to insert a link. We would love to send videos to our new visitors and have them pop up immediately for them. I also wish the extra credits you have for the month would rollover to the next month as other mass text messaging systems do.
Hey Moresa, Thank you for taking the time to share such awesome feedback with our team! We really appreciate it! Regarding message credits, monthly credits do not rollover. Each month on your billing date, your credits renew to your plan's allotment. That said, you can also purchase additional credits that do rollover from month to month, and they are the last credits used each month. Pricing for these is found at the bottom of this page: https://clearstream.io/pricing/. Thank you again for sharing such wonderful feedback with us. We have all been encouraged! Please always feel free to reach out if there's anything we can help with. :)
Nikole B.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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Customer service is quick and easy; we have not had any problems.
We use Clearstream with Planning Center Online. This makes texting easy to use based on our current church management system; we won't lose contact data and we can start workflows to keep people connected and not fall through the cracks. Texting is reliable, VERY easy to use, and the scheduling aspect makes the use of the user's time more efficient.
It would be awesome if Clearstream would integrate with Giving/Contribution platforms. Most giving platforms have very poor texting ability, and are limited. If Clearstream could integrate, then people could text through a more reliable and easy to use platform, i.e. Clearstream.
Greg M.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for 1-2 years
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We absolutely LOVE Clearstream! It is the final fix to a problem we've faced for many years. As Student Pastor, I send out a lot of texts communicating to our parents and students alike. We've used other services that weren't reliable or didn't work for some of our subscribers. Clearstream is an absolute home run for us. We have consistent, reliable communication being received by all our subscribers every time. It's easy to setup, easy to use keywords, the opt in feature is EXACTLY what we were looking for, and the price literally can't be beat. If you're looking for the best option for text communications, you'll find it with Clearstream.
Ease of use, setup, text to subscribe feature, use of keywords, reliability to hit all subscribers
My one complaint with Clearstream is that I would like to see more available characters per text. To get out all the info I need to communicate, I find myself using 2 credits with almost every text.
Eddie A.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
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The customer service is incredible. And the product itself is just as good.
The customer service is incredible. And the product itself is just as good.
I wish the PCO integration was a little more robust, but it certainly gets the job done without needing a third party like zapier to get it done. I wish I could manage credits used by user, not just sub-account. Here's a crazy idea.. Get a plug in like Jasper AI and let me hit button like I do to "shorten links" that woudl rewrite your content to fit under 160 characters. Now THAT would be helpful. That's probably what I spend most of my time on.
William M.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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Overall, it has been worth the cost. We are engaging with more people and getting decent results.
The features are great. I like the ability to mass text but have people reply one-on-one. Also, I like the integration with Planning Center People. I can mass text to everyone in a Bible study or all of our teachers. The new branching feature is wonderful.
There are so many features that it took me a while to understand how I can best use them. Information about "best practices" would have been a big help. For example, I could have used some help on the best strategy for following up with visitors. The training videos were good at using the features, but I needed more examples of how to combine the features to get the best results. As a result, it was a little more work than I expected to get it up and run the way I wanted.
Alan H.
Religious Institutions, 501-1,000 employees
Used weekly for 6-12 months
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Definitely helps with communicating to the congregation on a more personal level.
Love the simplicity of the software and real-time updates. The deliverability guarantee with long-codes is a big win.
I think the one con is you can't have scheduled integration/list updates. I'd love for a List to automatically refresh before a scheduled automated text is scheduled to go out.
Samantha G.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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ClearStream has allowed us to easily and quickly follow up with guests and communicate with our congregation via text and build our lists with easy-to-use forms.
Cost is very budget-friendly for the church. Customer support is fast, friendly, and helpful! It is a fairly easy-to-use system (especially in comparison to comparable systems).
It does not integrate as well to our ChMS as we would like, but that is not due to ClearStream’s issues (CCB is inherently difficult to integrate with anything else.)
Tyler J.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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Clearstream has been fantastic I will continue to use it and recommend it
I love how clearstream works with planning center and pulls contact information from it and uses it to launch workflows as we follow up with guests
I thought I would be able to schedule messages to specific dates in workflows, but this has not been a huge con
Misty N.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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Great and easy to use!
Very user friendly, training classes helpful, texts send at the time the are supposed to, easy to pair with planning center
Have to use the training materials in order to fully understand the site
Julie B.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used monthly for less than 6 months
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Clearstream had features that we were lacking with a previous texting service, like the ability to send a message automatically every time a keyword was used. The pricing is good, and the customer service is excellent. A rep reached out to me shortly after we signed up for our free trial to see if I had any questions (I did, and he answered all of them). So far, it's been easy to use. Very happy with it.
It would be nice to be able to purchase a la carte keywords online the way you can purchase message credits. I know it's possible to add them, but you have to contact a rep to do it.
Jen C.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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Overall, it's been effective, user intuitive & and an amazing resource for our teams - I'm excited now that we're through the Christmas season - to get some of our other departments on board, because I think it will be a great ministry tool for us to use church-wide.
We are still fairly new to Clearstream & we are loving it! What I love most is that is is so easy to use - our volunteers & even our least "tech-savvy" team members have been so impressed at how easy it was to learn & integrate into our current workflows. The customer service has been fabulous as well - quick response times to the simplest & most complex questions - that what a significant factor for us when we were choosing which platform would be the best fit for us. It's also been a huge benefit to us to have sub-accounts & multiple users/Admin per sub-account - this was unique to Clearstream & has been even easier to navigate than we had anticipated.
With any software there is certainly a "wish" factor. So not necessarily what I don't like - but what I would love to see added. One of the only things that CS did not have that some other texting software offered was the option to have email integrations in workflows - which we had had previously with Text in Church & it was one of the only disappointments when we decided to switch over - because our previously established workflows had included this feature. I think that the features we would love to see integrated would be for more friendly "workflows" with our CCB groups rather than via keyword. It would also be amazing if we could somehow pull specific people from an existing CCB group/subscriber list without creating a new one (if that makes sense). i.e. we have a Guest Services Volunteer Group that we have created weekly messages for - but if there were a way to checkmark specific people (those who were scheduled for a particular week) from with an existing list/subscribers - rather than having to type them all in individually. In an ideal world we would have two-way integration with CCB :) Also - I'm not sure what the answer would be, but we have a team of 20+ people managing our prayer request inbox & for the most part it has gone remarkably well. The only thing that got a bit muddled was that the only way to remove a text stream from the inbox was to archive it - thought maybe a "flag" or "note" function could be helpful for us to follow up.
Melissa Y.
Religious Institutions, 201-500 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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Staying more connected with our congregation. The previous text messaging system we used, was always giving us problems and had a lot of limitations on what we could do so we have been able to send more messages than before. This has especially been helpful during this COVID-19 crisis we are under.
1) Integration with Planning Center, 2) Easy to access - I can easily access via the app on my iPhone or iPad or even on the web. 3) Ability to change the Header on each text 4) Being able to schedule a different date and time for message to be sent 5) I think it will be easy to train my backup on how to use us - she is more technically challenged than I am so the easier and simpler the steps to send a text the better. 6) I'm still learning the in's and out's and features but so far I'm loving it.
1) It would be nice to have a feature where you can send a text to both a LIST and pick Subcribers at the same time. Sometimes I need to send out a text to a list but I also need to add a few people that normally would not be included on the list. Since I can't add them on Clearstream I have to go back and add them to my Planning Center List then sync it then I can send out the text then go back to Planning Center, delete those names and sync again or I have to send a 2nd text to those additional people. Either way I'm having to back track or do double work. 2) This may already be a feature and I just haven't found it yet...it would be nice to be able to save a template for certain texts that we repeatedly send out.
Rachel W.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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It has been great and customer service has been fantastic during this time when we need to communicate with our people more than ever. We really appreciate it
The customer service is great, and I love how easy it is to send a text out to various lists in our congregation. The integration with PCO is also fantastic
I wish not everybody could see all of the replies. Like I wish we could select who receives the reply notification for each message sent out
Kristen M.
Nonprofit Organization Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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I like that the price is great for our needs. We are not a church service but this absolutely works perfectly for connecting with our clients as a non-profit that serves the at-risk populations throughout Texas.
I haven't found anything that I don't like- I thought I had a slack integration issue but Clearstream's help chat was able to help me get it resolved in minutes.
Jennifer S.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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It's been wonderful and a life saver for our church in a time we needed to share registration links to attend church service during Covid and city/state occupancy requirements. The Customer Service has been outstanding always willing to help, quick response and willing to look into your situation to give the best advice to make the product work best for you.
We love that we are able to communicate in mass in a more effective way. Most people don't use or check their emails regularly so sending weekly emails isn't the most effective. However, texts has allowed us to share information quickly and we've seen greater attendance to worship and church events because of it. Highly recommend Clearstream. I love that it connects with Planning Center and we are looking to utilize it in various ways for our ministry.
I don't like it doesn't autosave your work or you can't save it as a draft to come back and work on it. As someone who wears many hats at a church, you work on things and then get interrupted. Having this feature would be wonderful to start and then come back and finish the text. Also, I have accidentally with my mouse gone backwards on my screen and it looses the work that I've done. I've learned to create the text in Word and then copy it over so I don't loose what I am working on. But think this would be great feature to add.
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