Church Digital

For churches · For church plants

The church plant website: what to have ready before your first Sunday

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A plant has no history, no photos of last year's picnic, and no budget line for a website. That is fine. The site's only job for the first six months is to get a curious neighbor to show up once. Everything else can wait.

Before launch

The five things a plant site needs on day one

  • Where and when, in text

    The meeting address (a school gym is fine, say so), the day, and the time. Google needs this as text to show you on Maps; a flyer image does not count.

  • A Plan Your Visit page

    Who you are, what the gathering is like, what to do with kids, and a simple "let us know you are coming" form. This page converts more than the homepage.

  • One way to give

    A Give link to whatever platform you chose. It does not need to be pretty. It needs to work on a phone.

  • A real photo and a real name

    The planter's name and a photo of actual people. Stock photos read as a franchise, and a plant is selling the opposite of a franchise.

  • A domain the church owns

    Register yourchurchname.org in an account the church controls, not the planter's personal login. Plants change hands; domains should not.

Skip for now

What a plant does not need yet

A sermon archive (you have three sermons), a members portal, an app, a blog, an events calendar with nothing on it, and a five-page About section. Empty features make a new church look emptier. Add each one the week it has real content.

Our 2026 study of 1,734 small-church websites found that 83.9% of small-church sites had findable service times and 64.2% had working giving. A plant that nails those two on launch day is already ahead of a third of established churches.

Cost

What a church plant website should cost

A plant's budget is uncertain by definition, which is why setup fees and annual contracts are the wrong shape for it. Church-specific builders publish entry prices from about $19 a month, some with a one-time setup fee; general builders start around $16 a month billed annually (vendor pricing pages, checked July 16, 2026). Either works if the planter has a volunteer who will keep it current.

Church Digital builds and runs the site for $120 a month flat, no setup fee, no contract, and the founding rate makes the first 6 months $60 a month. That is the shape a plant needs: month to month, nothing up front, and if the plant becomes a church of 300 the site grows with it instead of being rebuilt.

Growth

Plan for the site to change three times in two years

Launch site, the six-month site once you have photos and a rhythm, and the "we are a church now" site when you have staff, ministries and a building. Whatever you choose, pick something you can change without starting over, and keep the domain and the content in your own hands so the second and third versions are edits, not migrations.

Common questions

Questions churches ask

What should be on a church plant website before launch Sunday?
Address and meeting time as text, a Plan Your Visit page with a short what-to-expect and a simple form, one working Give link, the planter's name and a real photo, and a domain the church owns. That is the whole launch list.
Do we need a church website if we have a Facebook page?
For a plant, both, but the website matters more than it seems. Google shows a church with an address and service times on its own site; a Facebook page is not something a first-time guest can find by searching "church near me" on a Saturday night.
What does a church plant website cost per month?
Realistically $16 to $30 a month on a builder you run yourself, or $120 a month flat (first 6 months $60) for a custom site that is built, hosted and updated for you. Avoid anything with a setup fee or a contract; a plant's first year is too uncertain for either.
Can we start on a free builder and move later?
You can, as long as the domain is yours. The move itself is a few hours of copying pages. What gets lost is usually the Google history, so if you go free, at least set up Google Business Profile with the real domain from day one.

Planting this year

Send what you have, even if it is a Google Doc

We will show you a homepage concept built from your own words and photos, and tell you honestly whether a builder is enough for now or whether you should let us run it. No pitch, no call required.

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