A Small Church Website With No Monthly Platform Fee

A small congregation in Woodruff kept running into the same offer. Every church-website service wanted a monthly fee to host the church's own sermons and prayer list, forever, inside someone else's platform.

They wanted the opposite: a real online home the church controls.

What they needed

A sermon archive, a prayer list that stays current, an event calendar and a weekly bulletin. Nothing unusual. They just didn't want to rent it back from a vendor for as long as the doors are open.

What got built

A full church website. One login runs it. Upload a sermon, post a prayer request, add an event.

The choice that mattered most was the simple one: no developer needed for weekly updates. A member keeps it current himself. If I'm the only person who can change a service time, I haven't really handed anything over.

I host it for the church under a clear, itemized arrangement, and they can take it over whenever they ask.

Where it stands

It's live, and the church pays $0 a month in platform fees.

That number is the one I'd want a church treasurer to see. The church made those sermons. It shouldn't have to pay rent to keep them online.

Update, November 2026: the site is used every week. It holds 15 archived sermons, has handled more than 140 prayer requests, and still costs the church $0 a month in platform fees.

Why this matters to me

I'm a church member too. I know what a small church budget looks like, and I know who usually ends up running the website: whoever said yes last.

So I build church sites the same way I build everything else. The work is bought outright at a flat $300 an hour, and the church owns what it paid for.

If your church is renting its website

Add up what you pay each year, then ask who would have your sermons if you stopped paying. If the answer bothers you, let's talk. I'll tell you honestly whether you need a build at all.

You can also read the full case study, which links to the live site.