Church texting service: what to look for before you sign up

A church texting service should get your announcements, event reminders and prayer-chain updates to members' phones from a registered number, and it should handle consent and opt-outs for you. Look for 10DLC registration help, automatic STOP handling, quiet hours, a two-way inbox, and per-text pricing you can explain to a finance committee.

This guide covers each of those, with the costs worked out. We make Ready, so we use our own pricing in the examples. We also say where a church probably doesn't need a paid service at all.

What a church actually texts, and what each needs

Most church texting falls into a few buckets. Each one has slightly different requirements.

• Weekly announcements. One text to everyone who signed up. This is a bulk campaign, so it needs a registered number and a clean opt-out path.
• Event reminders. Youth group, VBS, a potluck moved to a new hall. These are timely and short, and they go to a subset of the congregation.
• Prayer chain updates. These are sensitive. They often involve someone's health or family situation, so they need a separate opt-in and careful wording (more on this below).
• One-to-one follow-up. A pastor texting a first-time visitor, or a volunteer coordinator confirming a shift. These are two-way conversations, so replies need somewhere to land.
• Giving appeals. These count as fundraising texts and carry extra rules. They get their own section below.

A tool that only sends one-way announcements covers the first bucket. A tool with a shared inbox covers the rest.

What to look for in a church texting service

Here is the checklist, with what Ready does for each item.

What Ready does not do is also worth knowing. There is no church management system, no attendance tracking, no online giving processor and no new AI agents that reply to members on their own. Plan for your volunteers to answer replies themselves. If you need child check-in or a member directory, that lives in your church management software, not in your texting tool.

Consent: the sign-up card is what everything rests on

Texting rules in the US are built on consent. A member who wrote their number on a visitor card has not necessarily agreed to receive texts. The card needs a line such as "Yes, text me church announcements. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out." The person also has to check that box.

There are three practical ways to collect consent:

1. A keyword. For example, "Text JOIN to (number)" on the screen during announcements.
2. A checkbox on the connect card or website form. The wording should match what you'll actually send.
3. A sign-up at an event table, with the same wording printed on the sheet.

Keep those records yourself, whether that's the paper cards, the form submissions or the export from your website. Ready records the sender's attestation on each campaign you send and each API send that attests consent: who sent it, to how many people, and when. It does not store each member's opt-in time, wording or page URL, and a keyword reply does not create that record. Your church keeps it. (A contact who signs up on a Ready-hosted opt-in page is the exception: Ready stores that sign-up, with the time, IP address and exact wording, and support@tryready.com can send you a copy.)

Prayer lists need their own yes

Someone who agreed to Sunday announcements did not agree to hear about a neighbor's diagnosis. Treat the prayer chain as a separate opt-in list. Then follow two habits:

• Ask before you share. Get the person's permission before their name or situation goes out to 80 phones.
• Keep texts general. "Three new prayer requests are posted for this week" with a link to a members-only page exposes less than a detailed text that sits forever on a phone someone else might read.

Old lists and inherited numbers

Some churches have a spreadsheet from years ago, or a list from a partner ministry. Don't campaign to it as though everyone opted in. Send a one-to-one "Do you still want texts from us? Reply YES" only where you have a real prior relationship, or re-collect consent on Sunday.

If you do import an old list, our standalone TCPA & DNC litigator scrub costs $0.005 per contact. It removes known litigator and DNC-complainer numbers before you send. This reduces risk; it doesn't make you immune. TCPA exposure runs $500 to $1,500 per text, and compliance stays the sender's responsibility. Our post on texting a coalition's contact list goes deeper on this.

Registration: why your texts need a 10DLC campaign

Texting a group from a regular local number is called A2P 10DLC. Carriers want every sender registered: a brand (your church's legal name and EIN) and a campaign (a description of what you send, with sample messages). Texts from unregistered numbers get filtered, and members simply never see them.

On Ready, registration happens inside the app:

• No setup fee. You pay the first month, $25, when you submit.
• Monthly cost after that: $25/mo for registration + $2 per number.
• Timing: most approvals take 2 to 7 days.

Before registering, an account can send up to 500 texts a month at its normal per-text rate. A small church sending a handful of texts can start that way, but a weekly announcement to a few hundred people passes 500 within a couple of Sundays. If you buy a number before registering, it sends on Ready's shared registration at the same per-text rate while your own registration is in review.

Choose the campaign use case that matches what you actually send. Sample messages that read like announcements should not be registered as something else. Our guide to matching the use case to your sends explains why a mismatch gets throttled. The full fee breakdown is in 10DLC cost: every fee explained.

A church doesn't need brand vetting ($79 Standard / $179 Enhanced, one-time). The lowest T-Mobile daily cap is about 2,000 messages a day, which is far more than a weekly announcement uses.

What it costs: a worked example

Here is an example with stated assumptions. A church has 300 opted-in members. It sends one announcement each Sunday for four Sundays in a month. Each announcement is 150 plain characters, with no emoji.

Segments per text

• 150 characters is under the 160-character GSM-7 limit, so each text is 1 segment.
• 300 members × 4 Sundays × 1 segment = 1,200 segments.

Monthly cost

Ready's all-in prices per segment include the carrier fee but not screening: Scrub lists and Number validation, the two switches in Settings under Compliance, each add $0.003 per segment when switched on, shown as screening on your bill, and both are off by default. Unless you turn the opt-out footer off, the first text to each contact, and one again from time to time, also gets "Reply STOP to opt out" and your business name if the message does not already have them, so a text close to the segment limit can bill one more segment.

What one emoji does

Add a 🙏 to that same 150-character text and it is no longer GSM-7. The limit drops to 70 characters per segment (67 per part when a message is split), so the text becomes 3 segments. The 1,200-segment month becomes 3,600 segments, and the rate portion goes from $9 to $27.

Accented characters can have the same effect. If your church texts in Spanish, read which accents break GSM-7 before you write the template.

Send speed

At an assumed 2 segments per second, which is typical for a fresh standard campaign, 300 texts go out in about two and a half minutes.

Billing

Billing is prepaid credits through Stripe, with carrier fees itemized separately. That makes the treasurer's reconciliation easier.

Giving and donation texts: ask us first

A text that asks for money is a fundraising text. That includes a building fund, a missions drive, or a "tap here to give" link. Under our acceptable use policy, email support@tryready.com before your first appeal and wait for our reply. Signing up and registering is not enough on its own for donation texts.

Announcements, events and prayer updates don't need this step. The giving appeal does. Our SMS marketing for nonprofits guide covers how other nonprofits structure appeals.

When a church doesn't need a texting service

Some churches can skip a paid service:

• A small fellowship of 25 people who all know each other may be fine with a group chat.
• A small-group leader texting eight people from their own phone is not running a campaign.

The case for a registered service starts when a few things happen together:

• You're texting people who didn't personally hand you their number.
• More than one volunteer needs to see the replies.
• You need proof that someone who texted STOP never hears from you again.

You may also see per-seat business texting tools and subscription plans aimed at churches. Some bundle features you might use, such as a member directory, and those can be worth paying for. Compare them on the total monthly bill for your real send volume, not on the headline plan price.

Some pastors ask about the blue line, which sends texts as iMessage with the church's name and photo. It costs $99 a month per line plus 6 cents a segment. It can start up to 50 new conversations a day, and campaigns still send from regular numbers. For most churches that's more than they need. It can make sense for a staff member who does a lot of one-to-one visitor follow-up.

The practical takeaway

Collect consent with the actual wording, and keep the prayer list separate. Register before your weekly sends pass 500 a month. Keep announcements in plain text so one emoji doesn't triple the bill. Before any giving appeal, email us and wait for a reply.

If you want to try it, sign up. Your first 20 texts are free one-to-one sends, so use them to test a few messages with staff before you register. To send, you add a card and get a number, which is $2 a month with the first month charged when you get it. The quickstart walks through setup.

FAQ

What is a church texting service?

It's a tool that sends announcements, reminders and updates from a registered business number to members who opted in. It handles STOP replies and collects responses in a shared inbox.

Do churches have to register for 10DLC?

Yes, if you're texting groups from a local number. Unregistered traffic gets carrier-filtered. On Ready, the first month is $25 at submit, then $25/mo for registration + $2 per number. Most approvals take 2 to 7 days.

Can we text people from our visitor cards?

Only if the card had a texting consent line and they checked it. Keep the cards. That record belongs to your church, not to the texting tool.

Does an emoji really cost more?

Yes. One emoji drops the segment limit to 70 characters, so a 150-character text goes from 1 segment to 3. You pay for each segment.

Can we text donation requests?

With Ready, yes, but only after you email support@tryready.com and receive our reply. Do this before the first appeal goes out.

Before your first donation appeal: our acceptable use policy needs Ready's written OK for fundraising texts. Email support@tryready.com with your organization's name and its charity registration, or for a candidate, committee or PAC its FEC or state filing ID, and wait for our reply before you send an appeal.