Tithe.ly vs. Pushpay vs. Givelify: a plain guide to church giving platforms

At its core, a giving platform is a payment processor with a church-shaped interface. You enter an amount, choose a fund — general, missions, building — and pay by card or bank transfer. The platform routes the money to the church and logs the gift under your name.

Recurring giving is the feature most people actually use. You set an amount and a schedule — weekly, biweekly, monthly — and the gift runs automatically, whether or not you make it to a service. For a household that gives first, this is the simplest way to make it real: the gift happens before you can spend the money on something else.

Text-to-give is a common add-on: you text an amount to a number the church publishes, confirm once, and the gift processes through the same account. Behind all of it sits a contribution record, which is what feeds your year-end statement.

Tithe.ly is built around online giving for churches of many sizes. It typically offers recurring gifts, text giving, and church management tools, and churches generally pay some combination of software subscription and per-transaction processing costs depending on the plan they choose.

Pushpay is generally positioned toward larger churches and multi-site organizations. It bundles giving with broader engagement tools — church apps, communication features — and is typically sold as a software subscription with processing costs on top.

Givelify works more like a donor app. You download it, search for your church, and give; many smaller congregations use it because there is typically no subscription for the church — the platform takes its cut per transaction instead.

None of this should drive where you worship or how much you give. From the giver's seat, all three handle the basics: recurring gifts, a record of what you gave, and a statement at year end.

Every platform has to cover payment processing, and there are two broad models. In the subscription model, the church pays a monthly software fee and processing costs come out of each gift on top of that. In the per-transaction model, there is no subscription — the platform simply keeps a slice of every gift that moves through it.

The exact rates vary by platform, plan, and payment method, so check your church's setup rather than trusting a blog post — including this one. What holds generally: processing a credit card costs more than processing a bank transfer, so giving by bank transfer usually means more of your gift reaches the church.

Most platforms also offer a cover-the-fees checkbox. Tick it and a small amount is added to your gift so the church receives the full amount you intended. It is optional, and it is one of the few fee decisions that sits with you rather than the church.

Before you set up a recurring gift, spend five minutes checking the things you will care about later.

UniFi does not process gifts, and it is not trying to. Tithe.ly, Pushpay, and Givelify move the money; UniFi is where your giving record and your budget live together.

When you give through any of these platforms, the transaction lands in your linked accounts and shows up in your giving view — alongside gifts you made by check, cash, or directly to people. The platform holds the receipt trail for one church; UniFi holds the whole picture of your generosity, next to the rest of your money.

That matters because giving planned inside a budget behaves differently than giving discovered on a statement. When the gift is the first line of the plan, the platform is just plumbing — and good plumbing is exactly what these three are for.