Terms of Service

Last updated: 29 October 2026. These terms take effect on 28 October 2026.

Use of Service

You agree to use churchmatters.co.za exclusively for lawful church administration, non-profit management, and tithe/donation collection. You warrant that your organization has secured the necessary legal consent or has a lawful foundation under POPIA to gather and process the personal information of any church members or donors you register on the platform.

Payments & Subscriptions

• All platform fees are billed in South African Rands (ZAR) on a recurring subscription cycle.
• ChurchMatters is not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to any of our prices.
• We don't refund the unused part of a subscription period, whether you pay monthly or annually, including when you cancel or change plan.
• Paid plans include a monthly allowance of AI sermon notes. If you need more, you can buy extra notes at R25 each as a once-off payment through PayFast. Extra notes are paid upfront, are never added to your subscription, and don't expire. They stay usable if you change plan, but they aren't refundable once bought. If a note fails to generate, it goes back into your balance.
• WordPress imports are available on paid plans only. If you ask us to import your existing WordPress site, we'll look at it 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 the import. An import covers up to 200 sermons (with their audio and images) and up to 30 other pages; a larger site needs a separate quote. If we can't import your site, we'll refund the full amount. Once the import has started, the fee isn't refundable.
• Online donations are processed through the church's own account with a payment gateway it chooses: PayFast, iKhokha or Yoco. Yoco support is experimental. Donations go straight to the church's account, and ChurchMatters never holds donated money. The church's agreement with its gateway governs processing fees, payouts and refunds.
• ChurchMatters holds no liability for operational downtime, payment failures, or processing errors occurring within PayFast, iKhokha, Yoco or any other third-party payment gateway.

Support

You can reach support through the contact form on our website, and we reply by email. Support hours are Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 17:00 South African time, excluding South African public holidays. We aim to reply within these times:

• Growth: the same business day.
• Starter: within 3 business days.
• Community: best effort, with no set response time.

These are targets, not guarantees. A message received after 17:00 or outside business days counts as received at the start of the next business day.

Uptime and Availability

We aim to maintain maximum system availability for your church operations, but the platform is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We reserve the right to perform scheduled system maintenance and will provide administrators with reasonable advance notice when possible.

Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by South African consumer law, ChurchMatters shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, including loss of data or financial losses, resulting from your use or inability to access the platform.

Termination

You may cancel your subscription at any time via your account settings dashboard. ChurchMatters reserves the right to restrict or cancel access for accounts that breach these terms or fall into arrears on platform subscription payments.