Website design for churches

Church Website Design

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. A site with hosting starts at $29.99 a month on Basic; the ongoing work of getting found starts at $69.99 on Starter, free for 30 days. The first build is free.

Build a site free and see it first See If Google Can Find You - Free

By Theo. Updated September 28, 2026.

Plan-your-visit, sermons, giving, events and ministry pages
Links to the giving tool, livestream and Planning Center the church already uses
Updates by chat: type the new service time and Theo changes it
Hosting and HTTPS included; the church owns the site and can leave with it

From $29.99 a month on Basic. Starter is free for 30 days.
Rated 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 27 reviews
10,000+ sites built
Your first build is on Theo: see the site before you decide

Church website design with Theo means Theo builds the church's site from what you tell it about your services, ministries and giving, shows you a preview, and you refine it in chat. The first build is free, before any plan. The site plus hosting is $29.99 a month on Basic. If you also want Theo working on how the church shows up when someone searches for a church in your town, Starter is $69.99 a month with the first 30 days free; Pro is $129.99. Giving, registrations and the livestream stay in the tools you already use; the site links to them. When a service time changes, you type the new time in plain English and Theo makes the change.

In Theo's audit of 5,974 small business websites, 44 percent of the 279 nonprofits, education and creators sites with search data got an estimated zero visitors a month from Google search, and 62 percent got fewer than ten. See the research.

What church websites need

The pages church websites need

Two kinds of people use a church website: a first-time visitor deciding on Saturday night whether to come on Sunday, usually on a phone, and a regular attender looking for the calendar, the latest message or the Give button. Church website templates start from a layout and leave a volunteer to fill the gaps; Theo starts from your church and writes these six pages first.

Plan your visit

Service times, the address with a map link, where to park, what to wear, how long the service runs, what happens for kids and where to check them in, and whether communion is part of the service. It sits one tap from the home page, and the service times repeat in every page's footer so nobody hunts for them. A visitor who searches 'church near me' on a Saturday night wants three answers: when, where and what to expect. When the times change for Christmas Eve or a summer schedule, you type the new times in chat and every page that shows them updates.

Sermons, podcast and livestream

The latest message at the top, the current series with its title and passage, and a link to the full library wherever it already lives: YouTube, Vimeo, or the podcast feed on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. The livestream page names the day and time and sends people to the stream on YouTube or Facebook Live, with a line about what to do if it has not started yet. The church keeps its channel, its subscribers and its archive; the site is the front door to them, so a visitor who missed Sunday can hear the message before deciding to come.

Give

One page that says what gifts support, in your words, and 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.

Events and calendar

Upcoming events in date order, each with the time, the place and a registration link into Church Center, Eventbrite or a simple form. Vacation Bible School, Trunk or Treat, the fall retreat, Christmas Eve and Easter each get their own page weeks ahead, because that is when people in your town search for them. When an event passes, one line in chat takes it down; when a new one is announced on Sunday, the administrator types it in on Monday, checks it and publishes.

Ministries, groups and care

Kids, students, women's and men's ministries, small groups, missions and outreach, each with who it is for, when and where it meets and who to contact. A care page gives a prayer request path, the pastor's contact for weddings, funerals and hospital visits, and any counseling or benevolence help the church offers. A next-steps page covers baptism, the membership class and how to join a group, so a visitor who liked Sunday knows what to do on Monday.

About, beliefs, staff and campuses

Your story, what you believe, your denomination or affiliation, and the pastors and staff with real photos and a line each about who they are. A multisite church gets a page per campus with its own times, address and campus pastor. Photos of your own people in your own building do more than any stock image, because they are what a visitor uses to decide whether they will fit in. Drag them into the chat, say where they go, and Theo places them.

Who this is for

For churches that want the website handled, not another volunteer job

This page is for a pastor, church administrator or communications volunteer who wants a church website that stays current without anyone learning software. It fits a church plant meeting in a school, a Catholic parish with several Mass times, a Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Pentecostal, Church of Christ or nondenominational congregation, and a multisite church with a page per campus. It also fits 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

Church website templates, a church design agency, or Theo

Most churches choose between a template a volunteer fills in, a church-only design agency and a monthly service. Three questions church boards and administrators ask before they decide, answered plainly.

Who at the church runs the chat? Nobody here is technical.

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; the youth pastor emails the 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; a new ministry page uses more.

A church design agency quoted a project fee. How is a monthly plan different?

MyChurchWebsite, a custom church design agency, lists $1,800 to $3,400 depending on project size, as of September 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, so the cost is a monthly line instead of a project the finance committee votes on. The trade is that Theo does not write custom code or run a member database; giving and registrations stay in the tools that already do that well.

Do people really find a church through Google?

They search 'church near me', 'churches in' plus the town, and 'Christmas Eve service' plus the town, and many small business sites never appear for the searches their visitors make: in Theo's audit of 5,974 small business websites, 48 percent of the 4,027 sites with search data got an estimated zero visitors a month from Google search. On Starter at $69.99 a month, free for the first 30 days, Theo builds pages for the searches people in your area make and submits them through Search Console, and its Boost checklist walks you through a Google Business Profile whose hours match the site. Nobody can promise a ranking; the work is what moves it.

Included

What Theo handles

The build, from one conversation

Tell Theo the church's name, address, service times, denomination, ministries, staff, giving tool and where the sermons live. Theo writes and lays out the home page, plan your visit, sermons, give, events, a page per ministry, about and beliefs, staff and contact. 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.

Updates by chat

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; a new page uses more.

Hosting and security

Theo hosts every site it builds as a static website served over HTTPS, on Basic, Starter and Pro alike. There is no plugin to update after a busy Sunday and no hosting renewal for the treasurer to chase. Gifts and registrations complete in the tools the site links to, and those tools keep the records.

Your domain, kept

Theo walks you through pointing the church's domain at the site, root and www, turning off forwarding and parking at the registrar and leaving email records alone so staff email keeps working. The records usually update within a few hours and the old site stays live until they do. A church plant without a domain yet can buy one inside Theo.

Listings and local search

Theo's Boost checklist walks you through Google Business Profile, Facebook, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places and Yelp, so the address, service times and phone number someone sees in a 'church near me' search match the site. When the domain is live, Theo connects Google Analytics and Search Console so you can see which pages people arrive on.

Ongoing search work on Starter and Pro

Theo researches what people in your town search for, builds pages and posts for those searches, fixes technical issues, improves page speed, submits new pages through Search Console and works toward citations in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. The work runs continuously, never uses chat credits, and shows up in the Growth tab and a weekly report you can forward to the leadership. It starts once the domain and both Google connections are in place.

Process

How it happens

Tell Theo about your church

Name, address, service times, denomination, ministries, staff, your giving tool and where your sermons live. The first preview is usually ready in minutes, and the first build is free, before any plan.

Read the preview like a first-time visitor

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, publish. After you publish, the site lives at a temporary address until the church's own domain is pointed at it.

Connect your domain and Google

Point the church's domain at the site; Theo shows each step. The old site stays up until the records switch over, so the address printed on the bulletin never lands on a blank page. Then connect Google Analytics and Search Console. On Starter and Pro, the ongoing search work switches on once the domain and both connections are in place.

Keep it current, and let the search work run

Service changes, new events, a new sermon series: type them in chat and Theo makes the change. On Starter and Pro, Theo adds pages and fixes each week for the searches people in your area make, and the weekly report lists what was built. The work compounds over months, and none of it uses the church's chat credits.

Pricing

What it costs, in full

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. Top-up credits roll over and never expire. Full pricing and what credits are.

Reviews

What customers say

Rated 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 27 reviews.

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

Greg on Trustpilot

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.

Tom Drymalski on Trustpilot

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.

Josh Buoy on Trustpilot

Compare

Theo against the alternatives

	Theo	Typical agency	DIY builder
Monthly cost	$29.99 Basic (site and hosting); $69.99 Starter (adds the ongoing search work, free for 30 days); $129.99 Pro	Hosting plus a retainer for changes	A monthly subscription; a volunteer does the work
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 September 2026	None, apart from a volunteer's weekends
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
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	Widgets you set up and maintain
Design	Built from your church, your photos and your words, or matched to your current site	Custom, from a proposal	A church website template you fill in
Search work after launch	Included on Starter and Pro; uses no credits	A separate SEO retainer	Yours to learn and do
Hosting and security	Inside every plan; a static site served over HTTPS	Often a separate bill	Included in the plan
Ownership and leaving	The church owns the site and content; cancel anytime and copy it out	Depends on the contract	You own the content, not the site

FAQ

Questions buyers ask

How much does a church website cost?

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 September 2026. Plans are on the pricing page.

How long does a church website take?

The first preview is usually ready in minutes; the time after that is the church gathering photos, service times and the giving link, and reading the preview. Publish when it reads right. A church that wants the site up before Easter or a fall kickoff can plan around that.

Who owns the church website?

The church does: the site, the words, the photos and the domain. Theo hosts it. On Pro the site code is readable and copyable through a read-only GitHub connection, and on any plan the church can copy the site and its images to move elsewhere.

Can we cancel?

Yes, whenever the church needs to, with no long-term commitment. The cancellation confirmation names the day the plan ends and the site stays live until that day, so the address on the bulletin and the sign out front keeps working while you move. Copy the site and its images out before then.

Is Basic enough, or does a church need Starter?

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, suits a church that wants to be found by people searching for a church in its town; it adds the pages, fixes, indexing and the weekly report, and the first 30 days are free. A church plant that nobody has heard of yet is the clearest case for Starter.

How many chat credits does a church use?

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.

Can Theo redesign the site the church already has, and do we keep our domain and email?

Yes to all three. Paste the current address and Theo builds the new site in its look, or a cleaner one, while the old site keeps running. The domain stays the church's, email records are left alone so staff mail keeps working, and the old page addresses that still get traffic or carry links are redirected to the matching new pages once Search Console is connected.

How does a church get started?

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

Questions specific to what you do

Can the site link to our online giving?

Yes. The Give page links to the giving tool the church already uses and the gift completes there; if the church switches tools, the new link is one line in chat. The integrations page lists what connects directly and what links out.

Where do sermons, the podcast and the livestream live?

Wherever they live now. The sermons and livestream pages link to the library and the stream, and the church keeps its channel, archive and subscribers.

Does Theo work with Planning Center, Breeze or our church management system?

Alongside it. Registrations, group sign-ups and giving link to Planning Center, Breeze, Realm or whichever system the church runs, and that system stays the record for members, sign-ups and gifts, so nothing about the office's routine changes.

Does Theo use church website templates?

No. Church website templates give every church the same layout with different photos; Theo builds each church website from what the church tells it, with your photos, service times, ministries and beliefs in your own words. If you like your current design, Theo matches it from the URL.

Can a multisite church or a parish with several Mass times use one site?

Yes. The home page lists the campuses so a visitor picks the nearest one, and a parish lists every Mass, confession and adoration time on plan your visit and in the footer. A change to one time is one line in chat.

What makes a church website bring in first-time visitors?

Service times and the address on the first screen, a plan-your-visit page one tap away, photos of your own people, a current sermons page and a Google Business Profile whose hours match the site, all 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.