MinistryPlatform Reviews - Pros & Cons, Ratings & more

Planning Center

Chmeetings

Tithe.ly

FellowshipOne

ChMS

Elexio Community

ShelbyNext Membership

MinistryPlatform is a cloud-based church management software designed to help churches create multiple groups and communicate with members via a unified portal. The platform enables congregations to manage event registrations, mission trips, donations, and contribution statements.


MinistryPlatform

Web-based

Windows

IT Director

Overall, we are very happy with what we are able to accomplish because of Ministry Platform. It is easily extended to accommodate the most creative and complex requests.

Administrative Assistant

I love how customizable this software is. It's great right "out of the box" and so easy to use.

Their customer service is amazing. The community of users feels like a family, they are so helpful.

Operations Support Manager

The quality of the software is excellent. The support is timely, accurate and the team is friendly.

Registrar

We've had great success using this as a collective database for all of our church's ministries.

Data Lead

It's a wonderful product that covers data in many relational scenarios, inquiries, events, groups, family dynamics, personal growth, volunteer vetting, giving, missions, campaigns and more.

Data Operations Manager

I love using MP, the support team is extremely helpful and easy to communicate with.

Worship & Arts Administrator/Database Administrator

Plus, I've never seen a company work so hard to be responsive to user needs, to continually improve itself, and to offer more benefits to its users. This is truly a stellar company and product.

Check-in for events is my favorite. And the ability to print nametags eliminates the need to stockpile blank nametags and sharpies, and ensures we can actually read the names of our attendees.

Director of Technology

I do miss the integration Shelby has between their Membership programs and their finance programs.

We did not lose one byte (35+ year's worth) of data from our previous church database program, and it was seamlessly integrated into a useable format.

Think Ministry's quick and knowledgeable support team is a blessing to partner with as we serve our God.

All of the data was stored in Ministry Platform and the apps accessed the data through their robust and easy to use API.

Beyond a standard ChMS, making it difficult to fully understand at first.

Non-admins will have that difficulty no matter what software you choose.

Records Administrator

Almost too many reports and options for the general user. Sometimes overwhelms them.

Realm

Overall, the software is so powerful and the staff at Ministry Platform are GREAT.

We love MP!

We used to have another Church Management System, and after decades of use our actual utilization stayed pretty much stagnant (to the point where our business manager who had much experience with it strongly believed that ChMSs were glorified address books). Since moving to Ministry Platform we have been continuously integrating systems moving our staff away from data entry to ministry. We are a church of around 1,000 and have no dedicated or volunteer computer programmer. Your story with Ministry Platform could be more glowing than ours if you do. If you are in the same boat as us, as long as you have someone interested in expanding your use and can run with it you can be greatly successful. 

Amazingingly Customizable, but sometime to a weakness

My overall experience with Ministry Platform was not positive. It was a terribly difficult program to learn, to teach, and to implement. Ultimately, my former church stopped using it and moved to Planning Center. 

Does Everything If You're an IT Guru

From what I said above, in addition they have an extensive Knowledge Base that is regularly updated and tons of coaching videos and webinars. They support from Ministry Platform is nothing like I have experienced anywhere. They have really come up with what I think is a brilliant plan to do support by assigning each organization 3 single points of contact and those SPoC's are able to do chat support or support tickets and get almost immediate responses. You can also request one on one coaching, we have also hired a coach to physically come to us and meet face to face. They allow the organizations to give feedback and post on an idea board with dreams of upgrading the software and they read EVERY SINGLE ONE and allow other org's to vote on the ideas. I may change my mind and say that their staff and support system are my favorites. They also offer a once a year User Conference that is above and beyond and I always leave so excited for what is coming and also empowered to do my job better - or sometimes even do parts of my job at all that I thought I couldn't figure out with my level of expertise.

We love Ministry Platform

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your review of MinistryPlatform. We always love to hear what our community is thinking (especially when it's positive!).

So glad you "love MP," it speaks to how its features and tools are able to #MakeMinistryEasier for you and your staff at Pure Heart. (Oh, and MP loves you, too. :D)

Hope to see you at our next [virtual] MPUG!!!

We have integrated MinistryPlatform into several other key systems and processes that used to be completed separated from our church database, such as our website.  This has allowed us to remove multiple silos of data and consolidate down to a single source that gives us far more visibility into key processes. We have made many modifications to MP that are specific to our church, and this has allowed us to do our ministry the way we want to do it, rather than conform to a particular approach that our software expects.

Flexible and Powerful

Thank you so much for your review  we love hearing what our customers have to say about MP!

So glad to hear you've been able to integrate/consolidate systems for #OneSourceOfDataTruth  it's one of the things we really strive for. And YES! Our next major release is gonna be the bomb. You're coming to MPUG 2021, riiiiggghhhhttt?!

It's a true pleasure to have Bethlehem Baptist in the MP Community and we so appreciate all that you contribute in our forums and at our gatherings. (And a certain someone still has their MPUG lanyard signed by the one and only Andrew Lang!!!)

Overall, we are very happy with what we are able to accomplish because of Ministry Platform.  It is easily extended to accommodate the most creative and complex requests.  We even made custom apps that generated Apple Wallet boarding passes and receipt-paper boarding passes for our airline themed sermon series and used those to check congregants in and award frequent flyer miles.  All of the data was stored in Ministry Platform and the apps accessed the data through their robust and easy to use API.
We also made thousands of phone calls during the onset of COVID in 2020 to pray with our congregation and see if there were any needs we could help meet. We were able to track those calls and escalate them to prayer requests or pastoral care cases easily because of Ministry Platform.  This calling tool was not a native feature of MP, but because it is so easy to customize and extend we were able to get a working reliable system tailored to our specific needs up in a matter of days.
It isn't the prettiest system under the hood, but it is the most feature rich and customizable congregant care and engagement system I have worked with in my 14 years in Church IT.

Beyond a standard ChMS, making it difficult to fully understand at first

Thank you for taking the time to review MinistryPlatform  we love to hear it all: Pros and Cons!

Sooo glad you have enjoyed our flexibility and customizability and it sounds like you have leveraged it to maximize ministry, even during COVID. This makes our heart sing.

Yes, we have reworked our onboarding process, making it just as customizable as our product, allowing churches to determine how quickly they get to cutover and they work much more closely with their coach to ensure they have the best platform environment when they go live. I'm sorry to hear that your experience was challenging.

Ah yes, our interface. I'm sure you already know this, but we'll be releasing some super exciting updates in 2021. Perhaps that will change your non-tech staff's minds on embracing MP? We sure hope so! And we of course welcome any feedback that you can provide  just hit us up on the Idea Board. We're always listening!

Thanks for being an integral part of the MP Community!!

With MinistryPlatform, we now have powerful resources for supporting our congregation and feedback on their engagement, which allow us to make informed decisions for helping to create disciples and empower our membership to do the same. Plus, I've never seen a company work so hard to be responsive to user needs, to continually improve itself, and to offer more benefits to its users. This is truly a stellar company and product.

A Powerful Resource for Doing the Work of Ministry

Thank you for your review  we love getting feedback! And, my!, your feedback was 'stellar'!! We LOVE hearing that MP is your #OneSourceOfTruth and that it's #MakingMinistryEasier.

We continually strive to make MinistryPlatform the very best system for church management. And we consider you not just a customer, but our partners in ministry  family, even!

It's been a pleasure serving St. Andrews and we love having you as a part of our MP Community. Thanks again and God bless. :D

We now have all of our data in one place from contact information to care needs to financials.  It's all in one spot.  We are able to limit the security roles for each user so that only those that need access to personal data has it.  We are very pleased with our Ministry Platform experience.  

Ministry Platform meets all your church data needs

We are so grateful you took the time to write this review  thank you!!

It's great to hear all the things you are loving about MP, from training to customizing! And yes!! our security roles allow you to give just the right access to just the right people, all the way down to the field level!

The entire MP Team is thrilled to serve and partner alongside Liberty Christian and we couldn't imagine our Community without you!

Ministry Platform is dedicated to their software. They are constantly making improvements and listening to customers (even encouraging customers to submit enhancement requests) to evolve this product and keep up with the times to be top class. Because we can easily keep our data clean and run accurate and reliable reports on anything we have in our system, we have been able to identify areas of weakness/gaps like we never have before.

CFBC - Ministry Platform Review

Thank you so much for your review! It totally made our day when we read that you've been able to identify weaknesses and gaps  we truly hope this has led to shepherding your flock better than ever before!

I'm glad you have sensed our passion b/c we do so love ministry, supporting it, and making it easier. We continually build into MinistryPlatform all the things we wanted in a system when we worked at our churches.

It's a joy to serve you and Collierville, and we are blessed to have you as part of the MP Community! (See you in the Idea Board  we love that you help shape the future of MinistryPlatform.)

Very very positive.  The quality of the software is excellent.  The support is timely, accurate and the team is friendly.

Ministry Platform is a great choice!

Thanks for taking the time to review MinistryPlatform  we truly appreciate the feedback!

Yes, it's definitely a challenge to create a product that is powerful, flexible, and comprehensive, while also making it easy to use. We do our very best and we are so glad that you have found that MP provides the ministry tools you need, whether it's "out of the box" or customized.

And speaking of 'easy to use'  we're not allowed to spill the beans on the AMAZING interface and features that our dev team is currently working on, so be sure to get a front row seat at our 2021 MP User Group. You are going to LOVE it!!

We are grateful to partner with Bethel World Outreach!

Our experience at Living Streams has been a 10/10. The training, support, and implementation was fantastic. We transitioned from a legacy system during a busy season and encountered no issues. Lastly, the staff at Ministry Platform is a joy to work with. 

Grateful for Ministry Platform 

We're grateful for your review, and particularly excited that you gave us high marks all the way around!! It's been an honor and a privilege to serve you and your team at Living Streams.

Thank you for being such an amazing part of the MP Community. You are a joy to work with as well. :)

Our overall experience with MinistryPlatform has been amazing. The customer service is fantastic. It's easy to use and easy to customize. We are seeing more and more ways to connect information between ministries making its value grow daily.  

We LOVE MinistryPlatform

Our team is very pleased overall. Trace worked at Christ Fellowship when we initially jumped on the MP bandwagon. She set us up well, and created several processes in place that have made our job so much easier and more efficient over the years. I am grateful for the time and dedication she put into this database.

Very satisfied customer!

We've had great success using this as a collective database for all of our church's ministries. I love that we're able to have guests check in at events (and print a nametag!) so we immediately have data at our fingertips to track attendance and follow up with attendees.

Somewhat overwhelming but a good tool

Thanks for taking the time to provide a review of MP!

Glad to hear that you are enjoying Check-In. And that you are able to track attendance and provide that all-too-valuable follow-up. We love hearing how our system is #MakingMinistryEasier :D

I hope you will be attending MPUG 2021 where we will be unveiling something suuuuuper exciting (that might address the 'clunkiness' of the system). We think you'll be jumping for joy!! :D

Thank you so much for being a part of the MP Community. Be blessed.

I have only positive things to say about our decision to select Ministry Platform. It has streamlined pieces of our ministry and made us aware of significant gaps we had in connecting and follow up. Plan to spend a good amount of time with the staff to make sure implementation and training is maximized. It is a very in-depth software and will require a commitment from the church to maximize it in the way of staffing and training. I am eager to recommend it to any church that is serious about knowing and staying connected to their people.

Happy to on Minstry Platform

Thank you for leaving us a review  we always love to hear what our customers are thinking about our software and look for ways to make it better and better!

We're pleased to hear all the great things you had to say and I hope you've been enjoying the features and updates we've released lately!

Thanks for being a part of the MP community over the years, we love Grace Baptist Church and being able to partner with you in ministry! :)

Still learning the product and all of its benefits.  Tavie is wonderful.  :)

Ministry Platform Review

Thank you for reviewing our software and letting us know your thoughts. 

It's been a pleasure serving Church of the Nativity for all of these years, and you guys are always such a big contributor to the MP community!!!

Hopefully all of the features and updates we've released lately have helped with the intuitiveness!! Your SPoCs are also pretty amazing and can help you with anything!

Thanks for the kind call out to Tavie. She's pretty awesome isn't she?

We have more parishes using Groups and Event functionality for tracking Religious Education since w3e moved to MP. We are tracking Safe Environment compliance in MP; eliminating a separate database previously used to do that. We were very aggressive in our migration from another system and while that was difficult for our team, the MP staff worked with us to make that happen. We have been very pleased with the new tools and enhancements that are being rolled out frequently. MP was a good product when we signed on - now it's even better!

From the first Catholic Diocese in North America to have all parishes using MinistryPlatform

Our former CMS platform was outdated and was no longer being developed. After looking at many other companies we chose Think Ministry due to the fact that it was already a robust database with many ways to present data to end users in the form of views and reports. Their development team has worked with us to customize many of our unique needs. Finally, we LOVE the continuous support of staff, especially [SENSITIVE CONTENT] !

The most robust church management system on the market

MP is loaded with functionality.  There are features that you may not love 100% (no system does this) but you can work with what is offered or customize it.  Don't expect to just sit down and start using MP without training, you will not get the most out of it.  Take time to get to know it, it will be worth it. 

Thanks for all you do MP Team.

Thank you so much for leaving a review! I really appreciate your kind words and I will pass your suggestions on to our developers! 

It has been wonderful. They have a GREAT product and a wonderful support team. Their team will be as hands-on as you want them to be and they continually look for ways to make things even better. 

Great product! Customizable and easy to add on.

It's the best data management system I have ever worked with and I've been working with databases systems for 20+ years!  

Dynamic and Visionary

Thank you so much for taking the time to review MinistryPlatform. And we are thrilled to hear that you are enjoying the product. Owning your data and having control are just some of the things that we have valued ourselves while in ministry, and so we built a system that WE would want to use. We don't want to tell you how to run your ministries, we just want to support it. It's why we say #YourChurchYourWay.

Glad to see that you've found our KB and Support Chat helpful in navigating our system. You are not alone! :D

It's been a pleasure serving and partnering alongside ChangePoint! Thank you again.

We are still rolling out the product and as such haven't even touched the surface of what MP can do for us.  For right now it's still a bit of a lateral move.   I know what we want to implement and can't wait to get through the conversion process and start adding value for our parishes in 2023.   Our former parish management application was like the wild west in that there was no consistency from parish to parish.   And, we've been using it since 1991 so our older staff (70's, 80's and 90's) have to work through some muscle memory.   That has made the conversion process a bit bumpy.   Although I've lost my cool a few times, our reps are rock steady in their support, their positivity and in their faith in the Lord and all his wonders.  

New user but pleased so far

Easy donation processing, checkin system, movement & assimilation program, group and organization.

Ministry Platform has everything we need to do ministry right.

Aw, thanks for the awesome review! We love working with Church of the Nativity and so glad you've been a part of the MP community for all these years.

Sounds like you've tapped into every reason behind why we created MP ... we want you to be able to "do church your way" and benefit from all the other great systems out there, but integrate w/us, so you have one source of data truth.

Thanks for the tip to other churches on training and security roles... great advice!

Blessings to you and your team.

We were users of Ministry Platform from 2013-2018. We enjoyed the software and the functionality it had. We did find it, however, very difficult to customize for our own needs without the help of a full-time IT person. Customer service was also a little challenging as well as we had to assign SPOC's to be our contact person with the company. Being with a new church management system, I have discovered that assigning people to be a support contact with a company is not that unheard of. Our challenge was that our SPOC's had to go through specialized training before being able to be a contact. We enjoy our new church management system, but I have seen some of the functionality and changes that MP has made (via a friend who know works for the company), and I do like what they are doing and the changes they have made.

Ministry Platform is definitely one of the leading ChMS platforms out there, and is one worthy of your consideration.

A Wonderful Church Management Software... if you have a full-time person dedicated to maintaining it

Thank you so much for your review  we love hearing what has worked well and what areas we may need to consider for improvement. And yes! We've put quite a few new features and upgrades out in the past year that are super exciting. We are constantly striving to update our system so it helps make ministry easier for churches.

Reports, and now Views and Notifications, are definitely a favorite. Did your friend tell you about our Charts and Dashboard, too? :)

Sorry to hear that customizations weren't easy without a full time IT person. We definitely have some churches with fairly large staff and are able to devote a full time Technology role towards managing the system, but we do have others who have an administrative person managing the system, and some of them part time. It could depend on the type of customizations needed, though. If you were still using MP I'd have loved to have seen how we could help you in this regard.

Blessings to you and your team.

Senior Pastor

Daniel E.:                                             Hi. I'm Daniel, I'm a senior pastor, and I give MinistryPlatform three stars out of five. For more reviews like this, click below.
                                                       In my context, I used MinistryPlatform for a number of purposes. In a church context, we use MinistryPlatform for children's ministry check-in but we also used it for adult check-in for various ministry events that we had, various Bible studies, to track attendance, to be able to know who was involved in our ministries and how to connect with them. We used it for giving purposes. We used it for tracking volunteers, everything from people in the church tracking what abilities they had, what gifts that they had, what talents they had, so we could best fit them in various ministry contexts so I used it on a daily basis in a wide array of purposes and for various events.
                                                       What I like most about MinistryPlatform is it could do virtually anything. At the time with MinistryPlatform, our church could contact them and we could request, "Hey, we want MinistryPlatform to do this," and they would tailor make it for our express purposes. It really seemed to have no boundaries and it was definitely not a set and forget and here's what it can do and that's it. It's abilities were really boundless and so they would tailor make MinistryPlatform for whatever needs we had; from check-in, to volunteer management, to giving. If we wanted something tweaked, it could be tweaked.If you're looking for a church management software that can do just about anything, MinistryPlatform is probably the product that you want for that purpose.
                                                       What I disliked about MinistryPlatform is oftentimes ... This is the way it is. With something that really has no bounds that can do anything, that is not set and forget, it often is the most complicated and so it required so much training on the user end. We had to have multiple trainings and it seemed like as soon as we learned something the processes to get into MinistryPlatform to use it were very complicated because it was so complex, because it could do anything.
                                                       The downside of that two edged sword was it took so much time to train, to process, to implement, and it wasn't just training up front, it was training and ongoing training. At times it felt as an end user, and I wasn't the only one, it was a common complaint, is it required so much ongoing training and regular use because it was so complex just to get into it. It kind of reminded me of, in the early nineties, of having to use DOS and having to type in code just to get into your computer and so it seemed very much like that.
                                                       Probably great for someone who's very, very technologically savvy but, for most people, it was really complex. Then lastly, it's really for only very large churches. It's expensive. I think it starts around $600 a month, and so for you to use MinistryPlatform you need to be a big organization with a lot of employees who are well trained and can train others and know the back end of church management programs. It's only for large organizations, it's very complex, and onboarding your people will take time and a lot of resources to do. That's what I like least about it and that's why I give it a three stars out of five.

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