Website design for churches
Theo builds your church website, hosts it and keeps it current: service times, plan your visit, sermons, giving and events, with changes typed in plain English. Basic is $29.99 a month for the site and hosting, and Starter, at $69.99 a month and free for the first 30 days, adds the ongoing work of getting the church found in search.
Built by Theo
Church web design that brings in a first-time visitor puts this week's service times and the address on the first phone screen, keeps plan your visit one tap away, and says where the kids go, how to watch and how to give. The six church websites below were built by Theo, and each one opens live on your phone. The first build is free. Basic, the site and hosting, is $29.99 a month. Starter is $69.99 a month, free for the first 30 days, and adds the search work. Pro is $129.99 a month.
In Theo's audit of 10,470 small business websites, 49 percent of the 534 nonprofits, education and creators sites with search data got an estimated zero visitors a month from Google search, and 65 percent got fewer than ten. See the research.
Sites Theo built
Church websites that work for a first-time visitor answer Saturday night's questions on a phone: when the service starts, which door to use, where the kids go and what a recent sermon sounds like. Members want the calendar and the Give button one tap away. The six church website examples below are sites Theo built in October 2026, from a parish with daily Mass to a church plant in a school gym, each with what it gets right and a live version to open.
Built by Theo
Tamsworth Union Church
What it gets right
Built by Theo
St. Brannock Catholic Church
What it gets right
Built by Theo
Kettleridge Church
What it gets right
Built by Theo
Merriweld Church
What it gets right
Built by Theo
Wrenhaven Church
What it gets right
Built by Theo
Kindlepoint Church
What it gets right
Want to see live customer sites in your industry? Ask the team, and they will share the ones whose owners have agreed. Or see every example.
What church websites need
Two kinds of people use a church website. One is a first-time visitor deciding on Saturday night whether to come on Sunday, usually on a phone. The other is a member looking for the calendar, the latest message, the bulletin or the Give button. Below is what goes on each page, words you can adapt, and a picture from the examples above that shows it. Practices differ between traditions, so wherever a line touches worship, write your own church's practice.
Six things belong on the first phone screen. The church's name with its town, this week's service times, the address with a directions link, a Plan your first visit button, a Watch live button with the time if you stream, and a photo of your own people or building rather than a stage.
The small-town example fits the town and the time into two lines, with St. Johnsbury, Vermont above the headline and worship at 10:00am below it.
Words that work: "Sundays at 9:00 and 10:45 on Mill Street. Come as you are." A church with a long history can lead with it: "A church family on Mill Street since 1924. Join us Sunday at 10:30."
Answer what people ask themselves on Saturday night. What time? Where do I park? Which door? What do people wear? How long is it? What about my kids? Will anyone single me out? Do I have to give? Can I take communion? Is there a step-free entrance?
The church-plant example answers which door with a photo of the north gym doors and a simple map that marks the school's front office as locked on weekends.
Words that work: "The service lasts about an hour. Some people dress up and many wear jeans. Nobody will ask you to stand up or say anything." And: "Park in the east lot. The door under the green awning opens at 9:30 and has no steps."
Parents decide before they leave the house. The kids page explains check-in for a first Sunday, each room by age, and the safety policy in plain words. Use photos of rooms, crafts and hands, and show a child's face only with a parent's written permission.
The kids-ministry example walks through seven check-in steps, from the orange family parking spaces to a pickup tag whose four-digit code must match before a child goes home, and links its safety policy from that page and from every footer.
Words that work: "Kids from birth through fifth grade go to Kids' Church after the first song. Check-in takes two minutes, and you get a matching tag."
Put the latest message at the top. Give its title, passage and date, then the current series, then a link to the full library wherever it lives: YouTube, Vimeo, or the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. The watch page names the day and time in large type and says what to do if the stream has not started.
The streaming example shows the next service in the visitor's own time zone with a countdown, and lists the last 12 weeks one row per week, so someone who works Sunday mornings can find the week they missed.
Words that work: "If the stream has not started by 10:35, refresh the page. The service is posted here by Monday."
One page that says what gifts support, in your words. It links to the giving tool the church already uses: Tithe.ly, Pushpay, Planning Center Giving, Givelify or PayPal. The gift completes in that tool, which keeps the donor records and sends the receipts. The same page carries the text-to-give number, the mailing address for checks and a line on how year-end giving statements are sent, so the questions the office fields every December are answered once.
The streaming example sets giving online, giving by text and the year-end statement side by side, and the church-plant example names the weekly school rent its gifts cover.
Words that work: "Your gifts keep the food closet stocked and the kids rooms open. Give online, text GIVE to the number below, or mail a check to the church office."
Upcoming events only, in date order. Each one gets the time, the place and a sign-up link into Church Center, Eventbrite or a simple form, and nothing that has already happened stays up. People who rarely go to church still search for a Christmas Eve or Easter service, so put the Christmas Eve page up by mid-November and the Easter page about six weeks ahead.
The multisite example tags every event with its campus and address, with a button per campus to filter the list.
Words that work: "Christmas Eve: candlelight services at 4:00, 6:00 and 11:00 pm. The 4:00 is the family service." In Theo, switching the home page to the Christmas times and back again is one sentence in chat each way.
Say how to ask for prayer, and who sees it. Then say how to reach the pastor for a hospital visit, a wedding or a funeral, and what practical help the church offers.
The small-town example puts one line under its home page cards that a frightened family needs: the hospital will not call the church, so call the pastor directly, day or night, member or not. Its care page gives her direct line in large type, a prayer request form and a promise that nothing goes beyond the prayer chain without permission.
Words that work: "Send a prayer request. Only the pastors and the prayer team see it."
Every Mass, confession and adoration time on one schedule. Put holy day and Christmas changes above the regular week, and give each sacrament a page that names who to call and how far ahead. Any church can do the same for weddings and funerals: who may marry there, how far ahead to call, and who meets a grieving family.
The parish example does both: a box of holy day changes sits above the weekly times, and the baptism page says to call the parish office six weeks ahead, with the godparent rules spelled out.
Words that work: "Confession Saturdays 3:30 to 4:30 pm, or call the parish office for a time."
Write for neighbors who may never attend. Many churches serve the whole town, not only members: a supper, a food closet, a recovery group, a concert, a building others can borrow for a wedding or a funeral. Give those pages the hours, the door to use and what to bring.
The small-town example's supper page says the meal is free with no sign-up and that nobody is asked for proof of income, and its history page sets old and new photos side by side, each labeled with its year.
Words that work: "Weddings, funerals and community groups: ask the office about using the building."
Tell your story, and show the people who serve. Say what you believe and your denomination or affiliation, and give the pastors and staff real photos and a line each about who they are. Photos of your own people in your own building do more than any stock image. Drag them into the chat, say where they go, and Theo places them.
The church-plant example tells its founding story in a short note from the pastor, with a photo from the living room where it started.
A multisite church gets a page per campus with its own times, address and campus pastor; the multisite example's Springdale page even says which side of the lot has the guest spots and that kids check in at the yellow desk left of the coffee bar.
Make the church easy to call, find and read. Tap to call, tap for directions, the office hours and an email someone reads. Many members are older, so keep the text large enough to read without zooming, the buttons big and the phone number in plain sight. Say whether there is a step-free entrance, hearing assistance and large-print bulletins, and where the accessible parking is.
The parish example puts the office phone and hours in a bar right under its welcome, so nobody hunts for them.
Words that work: "Step-free entrance at the east door. Hearing assistance and large-print bulletins at the welcome desk."
Who this is for
This page is for a pastor, church administrator, office manager or long-serving volunteer who wants a church website that stays current without anyone learning software. It fits the six shapes in the examples above: an established congregation in a small town, a Catholic parish with daily Mass, a church plant meeting in a school, a church built around its kids ministry, a church with several campuses and a church that streams every service. Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Pentecostal, Church of Christ and nondenominational congregations fit just as well, and so do two country churches that share one pastor. So does a church whose site was built by a volunteer who has since moved on. Giving and member records stay in the church's own tools, which the site links to. A nonprofit that is not a church should start at nonprofit website design, which covers donation paths and program pages.
Choosing a path
A church website usually comes from one of three places: a template a volunteer fills in, a church-only design agency, or a church website builder like Theo that does the building and the upkeep in chat. Church boards and administrators ask four questions before they decide.
The administrator, the pastor or a communications volunteer holds the account and can invite others to edit from the site's settings. The account holder and anyone they invite type what should change, in plain English, and Theo makes the change. When the youth pastor emails a new meeting time, the administrator types "students now meet Wednesdays at 6:30" and it is done. There is no page builder to learn, no plugin to update and no menu of settings to get lost in. Small edits use a few of the month's chat credits, and a new ministry page uses more.
MyChurchWebsite, a custom church design agency, lists $1,800 to $3,400 depending on project size, as of October 2026. There is no project fee with Theo. The site plus hosting is $29.99 a month on Basic, and changes happen when you type them. The finance committee sees a monthly line instead of a project to vote on. The trade is that Theo does not process gifts or run a member database. Giving and registrations stay in the tools that already do that well.
They search 'church near me', 'churches in' plus the town, and 'Christmas Eve service' plus the town. Many small sites never show up for the searches their visitors make, and Theo's audit, quoted under the answer at the top of this page, puts a number on it for the nonprofit and church sites it checked. On Starter and Pro, Theo drafts pages for the searches people in your area make, and on every plan Theo submits your sitemap through Search Console so Google finds every new page you publish. That free Google tool also shows the church how its site is doing in search. Both plans also include Theo's step-by-step Boost checklist, which walks you through a Google Business Profile with the same name, address and phone number as the site. What people search for a church, month by month, is on SEO for churches. Nobody can promise a ranking, and the results take months.
Put the site in the church's name, not a person's. Open the account with the church office's email, connect a domain registered to the church, and invite at least two people to edit from the site's settings, such as the administrator and a staff member, so the site never depends on one volunteer. Each of them types changes in chat, so a new person needs no training beyond reading the preview. Then put the site on the office calendar: Christmas Eve times by mid-November, the Easter page six weeks ahead, the fall kickoff in late summer, and events taken down the Monday after. Each of those is one sentence in chat.
Included
Tell Theo the church's name, address, service times, denomination, ministries, staff, giving tool and where the sermons live. From that, Theo builds a first preview with the main pages, such as the home page, plan your visit, sermons, give, events and contact, for you to refine. Ask in chat for anything it missed, such as a page per ministry, a beliefs page or the staff page. Then drag in photos and tell Theo which page each belongs on. No template gallery and nothing for a volunteer to learn. If the church already has a site whose look people know, paste its address and Theo matches it.
Type "Move Sunday service to 9:30 and 11:00", "Add the fall retreat on October 17 with the sign-up link" or "Put the new worship pastor on the staff page" and Theo makes the change. Changes like these use a few of the month's chat credits, and a new page uses more.
Theo hosts the church's site on every plan, Basic included, as a static website served over HTTPS. Nobody has to update plugins after a busy Sunday, and the treasurer has no hosting renewal to chase. Gifts and registrations complete in the tools the site links to, and those tools keep the records.
Theo walks you through pointing the church's domain at the site, both the root and the www version. The steps also cover turning off forwarding and parking at the registrar and leaving the email records alone, so staff email keeps working. The records usually update within a few hours. A church plant without a domain yet can buy one inside Theo once the site is published.
Theo's Boost checklist, part of Starter and Pro, walks you through Google Business Profile, Facebook, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places and Yelp. With those listings in place, the name, address and phone number someone sees in a 'church near me' search match the site, and the service times are one tap away on the site itself. When the domain is live, you sign in with Google once and Theo sets up Google Analytics and Search Console, so you can see which pages people arrive on.
Theo researches what people in your town search for, drafts pages and posts for those searches and fixes technical issues. Connecting Google submits the church's sitemap on every plan. The drafts sit in the Growth tab until someone at the church publishes them, or go live on their own with auto-publish, and none of it uses chat credits. The searches people make for a church, the months they arrive in, Google's listing rules and what that work did on a church site Theo built are on SEO for churches.
Process
Start with the basics: name, address, service times, denomination, ministries, staff, your giving tool and where your sermons live. Then add the details only your church knows, in your own words. The small-town example above began with notes like "The 1881 bell is still rung by hand at 9:55 every Sunday morning", and that line turned into the small note under its headline. The first preview is usually ready in minutes.
Open it on a phone and look for the service times, the address and what to do with the kids, the way a visitor would on a Saturday night. Drag in photos of your people and your building and say where they go: "Use this on the staff page." Type what to change: "Put the service times above the welcome" or "Add a note about parking". When it reads right, choose a plan or start the Starter trial, then publish. After you publish, the site lives at a temporary address until the church's own domain is pointed at it.
Point the church's domain at the site, with Theo showing each step. Until the records switch over, the old site stays up, so the address printed on the bulletin never lands on a blank page. Then sign in with Google once, and Theo sets up Analytics and Search Console. On Starter and Pro, the ongoing search work switches on after that.
Service changes, new events, a new sermon series: type them in chat and Theo makes the change. On Starter and Pro, Theo also drafts pages and fixes each week for the searches people in your area make. Read them in the Growth tab and publish the ones that fit, or turn on auto-publish. Results build over months, and none of the work uses the church's chat credits.
Pricing
The site, hosting and chat editing start on Basic. Starter adds the ongoing search work and is free for the first 30 days.
| Plan | Per month | Ongoing search work | Chat credits | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $29.99 | Not included | 1,500 a month | Owners who just want their site live and easy to update. |
| StarterFree for 30 days | $69.99 | Included, uses no credits | 4,500 a month | Owners who want the site handled without heavy publishing volume. |
| Pro | $129.99 | Included, uses no credits | 7,000 a month | Owners who want more capacity, more publishing, and more room to experiment. |
No contract, cancel anytime, and you own the site and its content. The pricing page lists what each plan includes and how chat credits work.
Theo is the best in the game. I was originally forking over hundreds of dollars for a website hosting service only to be on the third page of Google search, but with Theo, I have a gorgeous site constantly optimizing SEO and actually getting me conversions. Truly life changing stuff, couldn’t be more grateful
Theo is a fantastic platform, not only from a build and usability standpoint, but in terms of real, measurable performance. The platform is intuitive, well thought out, and easy to work with. More importantly, we saw significant lifts in a remarkably short period of time, and the analytics gave us a clear view into what was driving it. It has been genuinely impressive to see how quickly Theo makes an impact.
This tool is amazing! Truly the best bespoke AI tool that I've come across in the past year. The website design capabilities are tremendous, and even though I've only experienced 2 months of how Theo can support with SEO, the increases in traction we saw were significant. I've been telling everyone I know who could benefit from Theo to start using it today.
Compare
| Theo | Typical agency | DIY builder, web guy or your nephew | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $29.99 Basic (site and hosting); $69.99 Starter (adds the ongoing search work, free for the first 30 days); $129.99 Pro | Hosting plus a retainer for changes | A builder plan, his monthly bill, or a favor from the third pew |
| Cost to build | Free; the first build is a preview you refine | A project fee. MyChurchWebsite lists $1,800 to $3,400 depending on project size, as of October 2026 | Anywhere from a few Saturdays and a thank-you casserole to his quote |
| First look | A preview, usually in minutes, that you refine in chat before you publish | A proposal, design rounds and a launch date | Once someone finds the time between Sundays |
| Who makes updates | The church, by typing the change in chat | The agency, usually by the hour or on a retainer | Whoever learned the editor, or whoever has his number |
| When the volunteer leaves | Nothing to hand over: anyone the account holder invites edits in chat | Changes keep going through the agency | The know-how, and often the login, moves on when they do |
| Giving, sermons, events | Pages that link to your giving tool, video platform and Planning Center; the gift and the sign-up complete there | Built in if scoped and paid for | Embeds set up by hand, then looked after by whoever built them |
| Design | Built from your church, your photos and your words, or matched to your current site | Custom, from a proposal | Usually a template, filled in with the photos someone can find |
| Search work after launch | Included on Starter and Pro; uses no credits | A separate SEO retainer | Usually not included, so it waits for someone with time to learn it |
| Hosting and security | Inside every plan; a static site served over HTTPS | Often a separate bill | In the builder plan, or on whatever host he picked |
| Ownership and leaving | The church owns its words and photos; cancel anytime and save them before the plan ends | Depends on the contract | The church's words are its own; the account is often in his name |
FAQ
With Theo, a church website with hosting is $29.99 a month on Basic and the first build is free, so there is no build fee. Starter is $69.99 a month, free for the first 30 days, and adds the ongoing work of getting found in search. Pro is $129.99 a month. For comparison, MyChurchWebsite lists a project fee of $1,800 to $3,400 depending on project size, as of October 2026. Plans are on the pricing page.
The first preview is usually ready in minutes. After that, it depends on how quickly the church gathers photos, service times and the giving link, then reads the preview. Publish when it reads right. Once the domain's records are changed, it usually points at the new site within a few hours, and the old site answers until then. Start about six weeks before Easter, by early November for Christmas, or in late summer for a fall kickoff, so the new site is up when people start looking.
The church owns its pages, words, photos and domain. A domain the church registered itself stays registered where it is. One bought inside Theo is registered to the account holder, so open the account with the church office's email rather than a volunteer's. Theo hosts the site. On any plan, the church can save its text and images before leaving. Pro also includes read-only access to the site code on GitHub, which the church can copy.
Yes, whenever you need to, with no long-term commitment. The cancellation confirmation names the day the plan ends, and the site stays live until then. The address on the bulletin and the sign out front keep working while you move. Save the text and images you want to keep before that day.
Basic, at $29.99 a month, suits a church whose visitors already know its name: the site is where members check times, give and find the calendar. Starter, at $69.99 a month and free for the first 30 days, suits a church that wants to be found by people searching for a church in its town. With it, Theo drafts new pages and fixes for the church to review and sends a weekly email. On every plan, connecting Google also submits the church's sitemap. A church plant that nobody has heard of yet is the clearest case for Starter.
Credits pay for changes you ask for in chat: a service-time change uses a little, a new ministry page more, a redesign the most. Basic includes 1,500 a month, Starter 4,500 and Pro 7,000. Top-ups roll over and never expire. The ongoing search work on Starter and Pro never uses credits, so the weekly pages and fixes do not eat into the church's changes.
Yes to all three. Paste the current address and Theo reads the site and rebuilds its pages as a draft, in the same look or a cleaner one, while the old site keeps running. You keep the domain, and the email records are left alone so staff mail keeps working. Once Search Console is connected, SEO repair on Starter and Pro redirects the old page addresses that still get search traffic to the matching new pages, and on any plan you can ask for a redirect in chat.
If the church already has a website, put its address into the free audit. It reports estimated Google traffic, rankings and search health, lists what to fix, and needs no login. If there is no site yet, describe the church to Theo and look at the free build before choosing a plan. Ask through the contact page, and the team shares live customer sites in your industry whose owners have agreed.
Your industry
Gather what a visitor asks about: service times, the address and parking, what happens with kids, your giving link, where the sermons live, and a handful of photos of your people and building. Describe the church to Theo, or paste the address of the site you have now, and a first preview is usually ready in minutes. Read it on a phone the way a newcomer would and type what to change. When it reads right, choose a plan, publish, and point the church's domain at it. The church supplies its own words and photos; Theo does the building, the hosting and every change you type afterward.
You can see one for free. The first build is free, before any plan, so the church can read its own site on a phone before anyone votes on a budget. Publishing it takes a plan: Basic covers the site and hosting, as the plan table above shows, and Starter is free for the first 30 days.
Most churches need a home page, plan your visit, sermons or watch live, give, events, kids, groups and ministries, care and prayer, about with beliefs and staff, and contact. A parish adds Mass and confession times and a page for each sacrament. A church with several campuses adds a page per campus, and a church that serves its town adds pages for the supper, the food closet or the use of its building. Add a privacy page whenever the site has a form or analytics. What goes on each page is in the list above.
If the site takes prayer requests, connect cards, sign-ups or registrations, or uses analytics, give it a short privacy page that says what is collected, why, and who sees it. Google Analytics' own terms ask the sites that use it to say so in a privacy policy. When Theo builds a site that takes personal details, it adds privacy and terms pages written from the church's real details and links them in the footer, plus a cookie policy where analytics is installed. Anything Theo cannot confirm is left as a clearly labeled placeholder for you to fill in. Every example above has both pages. This is general guidance, not legal advice; check what applies in your state.
Keep the Facebook page, and add the website. Not everyone who might visit uses Facebook, and a post from three weeks ago is hard to find again. A website answers the Saturday-night questions in one place, shows up when someone searches for a church in your town, and stays the same address on the bulletin, the sign out front and the Google listing. The site can link to the Facebook page and the livestream, so nothing you post there is wasted.
Yes. The Give page links to the giving tool you already use, and the gift completes there. If you switch tools, the new link is one line in chat. The integrations page lists what connects directly and what links out.
Wherever they live now. The sermons and livestream pages link to the library and the stream, and your channel, archive and subscribers stay yours. If you stream services with worship music, ask your music licensing provider whether the church's license covers the stream as well as singing in the building. Once it does, a line in the footer can say so, as the streaming example above does.
Alongside it. Registrations, group sign-ups and giving link to Planning Center, Breeze, Realm or whichever system you run. That system stays the record for members, sign-ups and gifts, so the office's routine does not change.
Yes. The multisite example above lists all four campuses on its first screen with each address and the Sunday times, and gives each campus its own page. The parish example keeps every Mass, confession and adoration time on one schedule, with holy day changes above the regular week. A change to one time is one line in chat.
Start with the domain: find out whose name and email it is registered under, and move it into the church's name if it belongs to a former member. Then paste the current site's address into Theo, which reads the public site and rebuilds its pages as a starting draft, in the same look or a cleaner one, while the old site keeps running. Fix what is out of date in chat, publish, and point the domain at the new site. Invite at least two people at the church to edit, so the next handover is an email invitation, not a lost password.
Get a parent's written permission before a child's face appears, and never put a child's name next to a photo. Many churches ask for that permission on the kids registration form once a year. Photos of rooms, crafts, hands and the backs of heads show a lively kids ministry without the question. The kids-ministry example above writes the rule into its safety policy: no photos of children without a parent's written permission. This is general guidance; follow your church's own child-safety policy and any rules your denomination sets.
No. Church website templates give every church the same layout with different photos. Theo builds each church website from what you tell it, using your photos, service times, ministries and beliefs in your own words. None of the six examples above started from a template, which is why no two look alike. If you like your current design, give Theo its address and ask it to keep the look.
Service times and the address belong on the first screen, with a plan-your-visit page one tap away. Add photos of your own people, a current sermons page and a Google Business Profile with the same name, address and phone number as the site, and make all of it readable on a phone. The test: someone who has never been to a church can find out when to arrive, where to park and where the kids go without calling anyone.
Open it on your own phone as if you had never been, and check each of these.
1. This week's service times and the address are on the first screen, without scrolling.
2. The times are current: no summer schedule in October, and Christmas Eve times up by mid-November.
3. Plan your visit says when to arrive, where to park, which door, what people wear, how long it runs and where the kids go.
4. Tapping the address opens directions, and tapping the phone number dials.
5. A sermon from this month plays within two taps.
6. Give is one tap from every page and explains giving online, by text and by check.
7. Nothing on the events page has already happened.
8. The kids page explains first-Sunday check-in and the safety policy in plain words.
9. The staff page shows the people who serve there now.
10. The step-free entrance, hearing assistance and large-print bulletins are mentioned if you have them, and the text reads without zooming.
11. The photos are your people and your building, and children appear only with a parent's permission.
12. The home page loads before you can count to three on phone data, the copyright year is current, and at least two people at the church can update the site.
In Theo, anything that fails is usually one sentence in chat to fix.