What's the Cost of a Free Church Website?

Is the cost of using a Church CMS to run your church website more or less expensive than a free alternative?

Have you, individually or as a part of a team, put together a website for yourself, club, church, or business? If so, you know that there are several pieces to the website puzzle. Below are a few things that you either have encountered or you will encounter when setting up a website.

• Getting a domain(s)
  
• Deciding which alternative(s) to use
• Developing a relationship with all of the new vendors
• Hosting
• DNS
  
• Learning how to use your website
• Launching the website
• Maintaining the website

Ok, now let's talk about the easy things that are here.

1. Get a domain
   Getting a domain is fairly painless. We typically recommend using http://domainsmadeeasy.com/.

Hmmm...that's about it. Now let's talk about the "not so easy" things.

1. If you aren't going with a Church website CMS like ours, then who? Some think of using Joomla, Wordpress, or some other open CMS.
2. You are going to have to get server space so that people can view your website. Where are you going to host it? There are probably a few hundred hosts out there and their fees range from $5 - $15 per month. How reliable are they? Do they hold the same values that you hold? Did you know that our cheapest plan starts at just $39 and that includes all of these great features and includes hosting?
3. Do you even know what DNS is? Here is what Wikipedia says about Domain Name System. You have to know how to edit your DNS settings so that people can find your website, send you e-mail as well as protect against spam!
4. Do you have a plan on knowing how to use your new ministry tool? What about a plan for your staff? We provide you with a support website that has videos and written documentation as well as a way for you to submit your question(s) so that you can get it answered.
   

We can admit that using something like Joomla is a nice alternative.

Unless of course you don't have someone in your church body that:

• Is tech savy.
• You know isn't going to pick up and leave, either because of a job change or a disagreement with church leadership.
• Is single and sits at home all hours of the day and night just waiting for your input on how you would like your website to look and work. Yeah..because that is realistic/sustainable/healthy. :-)

We can also admit that WordPress is another nice alternative that can be of good use.

However, what if you wanted to do more than just have a site that is a blog or maybe a few other pages about your ministry? What if you wanted to:

• Have an infinite amount of blogs? WordPress is one blog...that's it. Will your other pastors or ministry leaders want to chime in to and have their own area?
• Have events which collect registration information?
• Send out E-Newsletter blasts? The church and each ministry can have as many Newsletters as they want, each having its own newsletter subscriber base.
• Collect Event payments, Donations or Products in one shopping cart?
• Post photos from your church or ministry or add Flickr photos?
• Manage your Small Groups or Life Groups? We offer our own Small Group module as well as Fellowship One integration.
• Collect information via Forms?
• Podcast?
• Have an integrated iPhone app?
• Design your own animated banners and ads?
  

Some of the things that we are mentioning here can be found and implemented with both of Joomla and WordPress...but that's just it...you have to find them and then you have to "bolt them onto" your website. With iMinistries, all of these things are all built in ready for you to activate and use.