Frequently asked questions

Most churches have a working site in an afternoon. Sign up, add your logo and service times, and publish your first sermon or event. Your site goes live on your own yourchurch.churchmatters.co.za address straight away.

No. If you can write an email and upload a photo, you can run your church's site. There's nothing to install, update or back up; we look after the hosting, security and updates.

Yes. The Community plan is free for as long as you like, with sermons, events, small groups and two AI sermon notes to try. It needs a once-off R5 card check when you sign up, which helps us keep out fake sign-ups. It isn't a subscription, and we never charge the card again.

Yes, on Starter and Growth. You can use a domain like yourchurch.co.za. We'll send you the settings to give your domain provider and switch it on once your domain points to us. On Community, your site uses a free churchmatters.co.za address.

Every plan includes sermons, events, announcements, small groups and a searchable sermon archive. The plans differ in these limits:

Each audio file can be up to 200 MB, which is about 45 minutes at a good quality. Longer sermons usually fit if you save them as MP3 at a lower bitrate. Photos can be up to 15 MB each.

Nothing you've already published is removed, and your site keeps working. New uploads that would go over the limit are refused until you make room or upgrade. You can see how much you've used any time under Settings → Plan & usage in your dashboard, and we show a heads-up when you reach 80%.

Yes. Paying annually costs the same as 10 months, so you get two months free. Registered NPOs and PBOs get 10% off; add your registration number when you subscribe.

Yes, from Billing in your dashboard. An upgrade switches on the new features straight away. A downgrade takes effect at the end of the period you've already paid for.

Upload a sermon recording and we turn it into readable notes, with headings and scripture references, that you can add to the sermon's page. You always review and edit the notes before you publish them.

Starter includes 4 a month and Growth 12 a month. The monthly allowance resets on the first day of each month. Community includes 2 to try. If a note fails to generate, it goes back into your allowance.

You can buy extra notes at R25 each, paid once-off through PayFast. Extra notes don't expire, aren't added to your subscription, and stay with you if you change plan.

Notes are transcribed as South African English, so they work best for sermons preached in English.

On Growth, your site takes tithes and offerings through giving campaigns, paid into your church's own PayFast or iKhokha account. Yoco support is experimental. Donations go straight into your church's account; ChurchMatters never holds the money. On Starter, the same account takes event booking payments, but not donations.

No, never. Your payment gateway charges its own processing fees under your agreement with them, and that's all.

Yes, on Growth. A giving campaign, such as a building fund, gets its own page with a goal, a progress bar showing how much has been raised, and a Donate button.

Yes, on Starter and Growth. Ask from Billing in your dashboard. We look at your site first and send you a quote of up to R2,000. The quote is valid for 14 days and is paid once-off through PayFast before we start.

Up to 200 sermons, with their audio and images, and up to 30 other pages, such as About, Ministries and Contact. If your site is bigger, we'll quote for it separately. Plugins, themes and forms don't carry over; ChurchMatters has its own built-in features for those.

If we can't import your site, we refund the full amount. Once an import has started, the fee isn't refundable.

Paid plans are billed in rand through PayFast, monthly or annually. ChurchMatters isn't registered for VAT, so no VAT is added. We don't refund the unused part of a billing period.

PayFast tries your card again automatically, and we email you on the day it fails, after 3 days and after 7 days. If it still hasn't gone through after 10 days, the account is suspended: your site stays online but shows only Community features. If it stays suspended for 30 days, a custom domain stops pointing to your site. As soon as a payment goes through, everything is switched back on.

Yes, from Billing in your dashboard. Your plan runs until the end of the period you've paid for, then your church moves to the free Community plan. Your site and content stay online.

For everyday jobs such as publishing a sermon, creating an event or updating your home page, start with our short how-to videos. Still stuck? Send us a message through the contact form and we'll reply by email. If something goes wrong while you're signed in, use Report a problem at the top of your dashboard instead: it sends us the technical details automatically, so we can find the cause faster. Support hours are Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 17:00 South African time, excluding public holidays.

Monday to Friday, excluding South African public holidays. A message that arrives after 17:00 or over a weekend counts as received at 08:00 on the next business day.

Member, donor and payment records are stored in Amazon Web Services' Cape Town data centre, so your congregation's personal information stays in South Africa. Your public site is delivered through Amazon's global network, so it loads quickly everywhere. We never see or store credit or debit card details. Card and instant EFT details are entered on the payment gateway's own secure page (PayFast, iKhokha or Yoco, all South African), and the gateway keeps them. We only keep the transaction reference and amount.

Under POPIA, your church is the Responsible Party for its members' information and ChurchMatters is the Operator, processing it on your behalf. Our Privacy Policy and PAIA Manual explain how we handle personal information and how to make a request.

Yes, for 7 days. Deleted pages and sermons can be restored from Recently Deleted in your dashboard before they're removed for good.