- Starting price
- $15/month
- Free tier
- No
- Platforms
- Web · Facebook · Instagram · X · TikTok · YouTube · Google Business
- Developer
- Discipls.io, Inc.
- Launched
- 2023; renamed ChurchSocial
- Updated
- Aug 9, 2026
The verdict
ChurchSocial is one of the more coherent church-specific social workspaces: the $15 Starter and $25 Growth tiers cover real scheduling needs, Planning Center automation, and AI caption help without forcing every church into a large suite. Sermon Studio adds a serious transcript-based clip and content workflow, while Design Studio adds templates and brand tools. Buy the pieces you will actually use, verify every AI output, and lock down publishing roles and connected tokens. A Growth account with both studios costs $89 per month before extra social-account sets, so compare the assembled system rather than the attractive base price.
Try ChurchSocial (formerly Discipls) ↗Opens churchsocial.ai
ChurchSocial is the current name of Discipls, a Nashville-based church communications product founded by Gibson Brueher. Older reviews, links, invoices, and directory entries may still use Discipls, but the current brand and domain are ChurchSocial. The company says more than 2,000 church leaders use the platform. Its purpose is to gather church social planning, scheduling, sermon repurposing, and graphic creation in one environment rather than making staff switch between a generic scheduler, clipping tool, caption generator, and template library.
The base product provides a visual content calendar, unlimited scheduled posts, automatic publishing, AI caption assistance, feed automation, reels and carousels, and connections for Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, YouTube, and Google Business. Planning Center integration can turn selected calendar content into planned social material. Starter costs $15 per month for one user and one connected set of social accounts. Growth costs $25 per month and adds unlimited users while retaining one account set. Annual billing is marketed as two months free.
The deeper production features are separate add-ons. Sermon Studio is $49 per month and turns an uploaded sermon into transcript-based clips, subtitles, speaker-aware crops, captions, written content, blogs, group resources, YouTube descriptions, and custom formats. It can publish to major video channels. Design Studio is another $15 per month, with church templates, an editor, monthly design drops, AI image generation, and brand settings. Additional social-account sets cost $8 per month. A Growth team using both studios therefore reaches $89 monthly before extra campuses or brands.
We reviewed the live product, price, feature, integration, legal, and educational pages and inspected public site behavior. We did not start a trial, connect production channels, upload a sermon, test token refresh, measure transcript or crop quality, inspect internal roles, or receive a security package. Privacy and terms pages are delivered through embedded Termly documents that were not reliably readable through ordinary text retrieval, while public pages use common analytics and advertising scripts and carry campaign identifiers into signup links. Obtain downloadable legal copies and a data-processing answer before using sensitive recordings.
✓ The good
- Low base price - $15 gives a church a real planning and scheduling system rather than a short free quota
- Unlimited scheduled posts - ordinary calendar volume is not metered per post on published plans
- Church-specific workflow - sermon, event, service, ministry, Scripture, and invitation content are first-class use cases
- Planning Center integration - calendar information can reduce duplicate entry and missed promotion
- Affordable team tier - Growth raises the base to only $25 while allowing unlimited users
- Capable Sermon Studio - transcript editing, clips, subtitles, speaker tracking, and written derivatives cover a large weekly workflow
- Integrated graphics - templates, editor, monthly releases, brand settings, and AI images can replace another small subscription
- Broad channel support - the current site lists major social and video networks plus Google Business
✗ Watch out
- Modular cost rises quickly - Growth plus Sermon Studio and Design Studio is $89 monthly before extra account sets
- One social-account set included - multicampus, multilingual, school, or ministry brands may pay $8 monthly for each additional set
- AI requires correction - transcripts, captions, Bible references, clips, blogs, and graphics can all introduce errors or poor judgment
- Current integration claims differ - the official site marks Church Community Builder as coming soon despite broader legacy directory claims
- Legal text is embedded - privacy and terms are less inspectable and archivable than ordinary first-party HTML or PDF documents
- Marketing overpromises virality - no scheduling or AI tool can guarantee reach, engagement, or ministry fruit
- Connected-channel risk - broad publishing access and stored tokens require strong roles, offboarding, and incident response
- No public enterprise assurance surfaced - detailed certification, subprocessor, retention, SSO, and audit-log documentation is not prominent
Best for
- Small and midsize churches that want a church-aware scheduler at a modest monthly price
- Communications teams already using Planning Center for events and calendar data
- Churches that will turn every sermon into reviewed short video and written content
- Multiple staff or volunteers who need one shared calendar instead of password handoffs
- Teams willing to assemble only the base, sermon, design, and account modules they can sustain
Avoid if
- Your church has no designated owner who can review and approve posts before publishing
- You need mature enterprise SSO, audit, retention, certification, legal, or procurement documentation before connecting channels
- Your workflow depends on a listed legacy integration that the current official site marks as coming soon
- You expect AI to create accurate theological content or reliably make sermons viral without human judgment
- A generic scheduler and your existing design or editing tools already cover the same work for less
What ChurchSocial (formerly Discipls) is
ChurchSocial is a modular church communications workspace. The base is a calendar and publishing layer; Sermon Studio is an AI video and content-production layer; Design Studio is a template and graphics layer. A church can subscribe to the inexpensive scheduler without buying the creative tools, which is more flexible than an all-or-nothing suite.
It is not a communications strategy. The platform cannot decide whom the church serves, what the congregation needs to hear, whether a member story should remain private, how a sermon excerpt changes outside its context, or what success means. Those are leadership and pastoral decisions. The software becomes valuable after a church establishes voice, content pillars, approval roles, consent, response ownership, and a sustainable calendar.
Why ChurchSocial stands out: church scheduling, sermons, and design can share one calendar
Generic social schedulers understand channels and queues but not the rhythm of services, sermon series, baptisms, groups, children’s ministry, and Planning Center events. Dedicated sermon clippers produce video but may not coordinate the rest of the campaign. ChurchSocial’s advantage is putting recurring ministry inputs and publishing outputs together, while allowing a small church to start at $15 rather than buying the complete production stack.
Modularity also creates a clean evaluation path. Begin with Growth for team governance, connect a noncritical channel, build four weeks of reviewed posts, and measure whether Planning Center automation and the calendar remove work. Add Sermon Studio only after the church has a weekly editor and enough source footage. Add Design Studio only if its templates replace an existing cost or improve brand consistency. Expansion should follow demonstrated use, not a launch discount.
Calendar, scheduler, and integrations: centralize work without centralizing every password
The visual planner organizes drafts and scheduled items across supported networks, and unlimited scheduled posts remove the anxiety of a small monthly quota. Multiple post forms—including feeds, reels, and carousels—can be prepared for automatic publication. Planning Center data can supply event context. The current site lists Church Community Builder as coming soon, so Pushpay/CCB, Tithely/Breeze, or other legacy claims should be demonstrated inside the trial before they influence a purchase.
Connect channels through named administrative accounts, not one departing volunteer’s personal identity. Give each user the minimum role, require MFA wherever available, keep a second platform owner, inventory every token, and test offboarding. Use draft and approval states so an AI-generated or mistimed post cannot move directly to the public account. Maintain native-platform emergency access in case the scheduler is unavailable or compromised.
Sermon Studio: a meaningful time-saver when the church protects context
Sermon Studio can transcribe long-form video, let an editor work from text, identify excerpts, follow the speaker, crop for vertical channels, generate subtitles, and create captions or longer derivatives. Publishing support for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok can shorten the path from Sunday recording to weekday content. A custom format can encode a church’s usual discussion guide or blog structure.
The model does not know whether a powerful sentence depends on the previous five minutes, whether a story was meant only for the room, or whether a joking remark should survive as a standalone clip. Watch the full source around every selection, correct names and Scripture, distinguish quotation from paraphrase, obtain speaker and participant consent, remove unlicensed music or slides, inspect crops and captions, and require human approval. Do not let predicted engagement overrule faithful representation.
Design Studio, AI images, and data practices: protect people as well as the brand
Design Studio adds church-oriented templates, a browser editor, fresh monthly designs, brand settings, and AI image generation. Templates can improve consistency for teams that lack a designer, and a shared brand kit can prevent font and color drift. AI images should be reviewed for distorted text, hands, symbols, cultural stereotypes, historic claims, implied photographs of real events, and inappropriate depictions of sacred subjects. Label synthetic imagery when viewers could reasonably mistake it for documentary evidence.
The public site uses common analytics and advertising technology and carries marketing click identifiers into signup. Legal notices are embedded through Termly, making the exact text harder to retrieve and preserve. Before uploading sermons or connecting social accounts, request current downloadable terms, privacy statement, subprocessor list, retention and deletion practices, model-provider handling, breach notice, data-processing terms, and a security overview. Avoid placing private pastoral, child, health, or prayer information in prompts or recordings.
Pricing
Starter
$15/month
Includes one user, one set of connected social accounts, unlimited scheduling, content planner, AI caption help, Planning Center integration, and automated publishing for supported post types. A trial is advertised without a card.
Growth
$25/month
Raises the workspace to unlimited users while retaining one social-account set and the core planning, automation, scheduling, and integration features. This is the sensible base for a team.
Sermon Studio
+$49/month
Adds sermon transcription, transcript editing, clips, crop and speaker tracking, subtitles, captions, written derivatives, platform descriptions, and direct social video workflows. Confirm any upload, storage, clip, or render allowances.
Design Studio
+$15/month
Adds a church graphics editor, templates, monthly releases, AI image tools, and brand features. Compare template quality and export rights with Canva or the design system already in use.
Additional social account set
+$8/month each
Extra campuses, churches, ministries, schools, or language brands can require another connected set. Define what counts as a set and calculate the full organization before approving the subscription.
Starter at $15 monthly is designed for one operator and one connected social-account set. Growth at $25 is usually the better institutional choice because unlimited named users make collaboration and offboarding possible. Do not share one Starter credential to imitate a team plan.
Annual billing is advertised as two months free, which implies approximately $150 for Starter or $250 for Growth if the discount applies straightforwardly. Confirm the checkout total, renewal date, refund policy, and whether add-ons receive the same annual treatment before prepaying.
Sermon Studio is the major cost at $49 monthly. Evaluate it against the labor and subscriptions it actually replaces: transcription, captioning, clipping, crop automation, written repurposing, and publishing. If the church produces only one clip a month, a per-project editor may be cheaper. If it produces a reviewed package every week, the add-on can be economical.
Design Studio adds $15. Growth plus both studios totals $89 each month. Three extra account sets would make that $113. Use the complete configuration—not “starts at $15”—in budget approval.
Staff time remains the larger cost. Someone must plan, gather accurate details, correct AI, obtain permission, answer comments, monitor pastoral concerns, and analyze results. Automation can redistribute that time toward better communication, but it cannot make responsibility disappear.
Where ChurchSocial (formerly Discipls) falls behind
Legal accessibility. Terms and privacy should be readable, versioned first-party HTML or downloadable PDFs rather than depending on a third-party embed.
Security transparency. Public details on MFA enforcement, role granularity, approval logs, token encryption, SSO, backups, subprocessors, model providers, retention, deletion, and certifications would support institutional buyers.
Integration consistency. Current and legacy claims should identify exactly which Planning Center, CCB, Breeze, Pushpay, Tithely, calendar, RSS, and social connections are live, beta, or planned.
Quota detail. Sermon duration, storage, clip generation, render limits, revisions, transcription languages, account-set definition, and AI image allowances need a definitive plan matrix.
Outcome language. “Viral” marketing should give way to honest measures such as time saved, publishing reliability, accessibility, response handling, and meaningful next steps.
ChurchSocial vs. Buffer vs. sermon clippers vs. separate design tools
Buffer, Hootsuite, and similar schedulers usually provide a more mature general social ecosystem, but they do not begin with sermon content, church events, Planning Center, or ministry templates. ChurchSocial is more relevant when church-specific inputs save weekly handoffs. A generic scheduler remains sensible when the organization manages several non-church brands or already has a strong content-production stack.
A dedicated sermon clipper can offer deeper short-video focus, while Canva supplies a far larger design ecosystem. Buying ChurchSocial’s two studios trades some specialist depth for one calendar and fewer exports. Compare the full $89 Growth configuration with the actual combined cost and labor of the tools it would replace.
No platform replaces a communications owner. The human alternative may be slower at cropping and caption drafting but understands local people, consent, pastoral context, denominational voice, and response needs. ChurchSocial performs best when it accelerates that person’s workflow and retains approval, not when it is expected to operate an unattended church brand.
The bottom line
ChurchSocial offers unusually accessible entry pricing for a church-aware scheduling product, and its modular studios create a credible path from sermon recording through clips, graphics, calendar, and publication. The Planning Center connection and unlimited-user Growth tier make it more than a renamed generic scheduler. Run the 14-day trial with one real four-week campaign and one ordinary sermon. Verify current integrations, transcript quality, roles, approvals, account-set counting, exports, and legal terms. Price the exact combination. If a named communications owner can review every asset and govern channel access, ChurchSocial can save meaningful weekly time without surrendering the church’s voice or judgment.
Alternatives to ChurchSocial (formerly Discipls)
Frequently asked questions
Is Discipls now ChurchSocial?
Yes. The product formerly known as Discipls now operates as ChurchSocial at churchsocial.ai. Older directory entries and account references may still use the former name.
How much does ChurchSocial cost?
Starter is $15 per month for one user and one account set. Growth is $25 per month with unlimited users. Sermon Studio adds $49, Design Studio adds $15, and each additional social-account set adds $8 per month.
Does ChurchSocial have a free plan?
The company advertises a free trial without a card, and its educational material describes 14 days. We did not find a clearly offered permanent free tier on the current pricing material.
Which social networks are supported?
Current product material lists Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, YouTube, and Google Business. Exact post types and automatic-publishing permissions vary by network API, so test the formats your church uses.
Does it integrate with Planning Center, CCB, or Breeze?
Planning Center is presented as live. The current integrations page marks Church Community Builder as coming soon, so do not rely on older Pushpay/CCB or Tithely/Breeze claims without an in-account demonstration.
Can Sermon Studio post clips automatically?
It supports creation and publishing workflows for major platforms, but the church should keep a human approval step. Verify transcript, context, consent, music rights, crop, captions, destination, and schedule before release.
Will ChurchSocial make our posts viral?
No tool can guarantee that. Scheduling consistency and better reuse may improve reach, but audience trust, relevance, timing, creative quality, platform behavior, and faithful response matter more than a vendor promise.
