- Starting price
- €82.50/month plus setup and store fees
- Free tier
- No
- Platforms
- Branded iOS app · Branded Android app · Web app · Admin portal
- Developer
- Donkey Mobile B.V.
- Launched
- 2020
- Updated
- Aug 9, 2026
The verdict
Donkey Mobile is much more than a templated announcement app: its church-specific group graph controls what appears in each member’s feed, directory, calendar, giving journey, and now direct chat. More than six hundred current church apps and the 2025 Kerkdienstgemist acquisition give it meaningful regional operating depth. The detailed price table—not the older rounded headline—currently starts at €82.50 per month excluding VAT, plus €450 onboarding, €99 yearly for Apple, and €40 once for Google. Before signing, obtain the current English contract, data-processing agreement, exact active-user band rule, payment fees, moderation and deletion controls, accessibility evidence, app-store ownership, and exit export. Donkey Echo remains an uneditable AI beta for joint platform customers; every generated summary needs human review before pastoral reuse.
Try Donkey Mobile ↗Opens donkeymobile.app
Donkey Mobile is a white-label church community platform founded by Henrik Wienen in the Netherlands. Instead of asking members to install a common Donkey-branded container, it publishes an iOS and Android app under each congregation’s own name and branding. A matching web app gives members—including people who prefer a laptop or do not use a smartphone—access to the community. Donkey Stable is the administrative environment for people, groups, calendars, collections, reports, and app management.
Its core is a personalized timeline built from group membership. A Bible study member, catechism participant, deacon, musician, parent, or elder sees the posts and calendars connected to their own groups rather than the same broadcast feed. Posts can contain photos, videos, files, links, sign-ups, and comments. Engagement buttons replace a generic social “like” with faith, hope, and love language. The directory connects names, faces, roles, and contact details; users can control what appears in their profile. Donkey Chat, launched in 2026, adds one-to-one messages with text, photos, video, and files inside the church app.
Giving is built in for members and guests through the app, a responsive web flow, QR codes, and optional Donkey Touch NFC stickers. Donkey Mobile says it takes no percentage commission, so the designated gift reaches the church, though payment-provider and other operational costs still need confirmation. Donkey Inspire supplies shared devotionals, Bible studies, reading plans, news, and podcasts. Calendars can operate church-wide or per group, include duty rosters, connect external calendars, and save events to a member’s own calendar.
In October 2025 Donkey Mobile acquired Kerkdienstgemist, a Dutch church-streaming service used by more than 1,900 churches. The announcement described nearly six hundred Donkey customers and 160,000 active users at that time; the current Dutch homepage now says more than six hundred apps and 180,000 users, while the English homepage still shows the older 450-app and 130,000-user copy. Donkey Echo, the first combined feature, uses OpenAI’s API to turn a linked Kerkdienstgemist stream into sermon key points, applications, reflection questions, and a summary. The beta is free to churches using both products, says input is not used for training and is normally removed by OpenAI after thirty days, warns that errors can occur, and currently does not let a church edit the generated summary.
We reviewed the current Dutch and English product, pricing, community, giving, directory, support, team, general-terms, acquisition, and Echo pages. We did not commission a branded app, attend onboarding, inspect a church’s Stable portal, test chat or payments, verify store approval, calculate payment-processor costs, conduct a data export, exercise member deletion, reproduce usage claims, assess a congregation rollout, or receive current English privacy, DPA, security, penetration-test, accessibility, safeguarding, or uptime documents. The public general terms are dated April 20, 2020, so buyers should obtain the operative agreement rather than relying on the marketing site.
✓ The good
- True white-label presence - members download their church’s own App Store and Google Play listing rather than a generic container
- Group-aware experience - timeline, posts, calendars, and discovery respond to each member’s actual communities and roles
- Broad access - native iOS and Android apps are complemented by a web experience for desktop, tablet, and non-smartphone users
- Complete community toolkit - feed, comments, direct chat, files, groups, profiles, directory, calendars, rosters, and notifications live together
- Guest-inclusive giving - app, web, QR, and NFC routes support people who are not registered members
- No percentage commission claim - Donkey says it does not take a cut of the designated collection gift
- Transparent scale bands - the detailed public table gives monthly prices by expected active-user range
- All features and future updates included - pricing is not divided into feature tiers on the reviewed page
- Regional operating depth - six hundred-plus apps and ownership of a 1,900-church streaming service provide meaningful Dutch church-tech experience
✗ Watch out
- Public pricing conflicts with itself - rounded cards say €80–€275 and €400 onboarding while the detailed table says €82.50–€285 and €450
- Prices exclude VAT and store costs - Apple is €99 yearly, Google €40 once, and onboarding is a separate one-time charge
- Annual cancellation posture - product copy says annually cancellable, so this is not necessarily a flexible month-to-month service
- High-sensitivity data concentration - member identities, family relationships, groups, contact details, messages, photos, calendars, giving, and pastoral context can converge
- Old public terms - the linked English general-terms page is dated April 2020 and does not visibly explain every 2026 feature
- AI summary cannot currently be edited - an erroneous Donkey Echo beta result may be posted as a fixed artifact unless the workflow supplies a separate human gate
- Regional language complexity - Dutch pages are fresher than parts of the English site, and demo events may be Dutch-only
- No public app-wide aggregate rating - every church has its own listing, so there is no single consumer store record that proves member experience
Best for
- Dutch, German, Belgian, or Swiss churches seeking a professionally maintained app under their own brand
- Congregations whose communication naturally follows many groups, teams, neighborhoods, classes, and calendars
- Churches willing to govern a private member directory and community rather than reproduce open social media
- Organizations that value integrated giving and guest payment routes alongside communication
- Existing Kerkdienstgemist customers prepared to review the Donkey Echo beta and combined platform terms
Avoid if
- Your church wants a free, month-to-month, self-serve app with no onboarding or app-store account costs
- You cannot resource administrator training, member onboarding, content moderation, privacy requests, and account lifecycle management
- Your jurisdiction or policy requires data-residency, security, accessibility, or child-protection evidence that the vendor has not supplied in writing
- Most members will not install another app and the web experience does not meet the tested use case
- An AI-generated sermon summary could publish without a named person checking the recording, Scripture, implications, and wording
What Donkey Mobile is
Donkey Mobile is app-as-a-service for a whole congregation. The vendor operates shared technology and releases updates, while each church controls its own branded storefront presence, administrator configuration, membership, groups, content, and pastoral norms. It overlaps with a lightweight ChMS, internal social network, communication app, directory, calendar, and giving product, but buyers should compare data depth and back-office workflows rather than assuming it replaces every church database.
Its market is regionally specific. The product is offered in Dutch, English, and German, has deep familiarity with Dutch church structures, and is expanding across nearby European countries. That can be a strength for congregations poorly served by U.S.-centric tools. International buyers must still verify local payments, currencies, tax, support hours, translations, legal entities, data location, and app-store arrangements.
Why churches choose Donkey Mobile: the app adapts around the congregation’s group structure
A generic church app often becomes a bulletin board: everyone receives the same announcements, and activity fades after launch. Donkey’s personalized feed uses group membership so a band member sees music files and rosters, a small group sees its discussion and calendar, and a member can discover additional groups. The directory makes this social graph human, while faith, hope, and love reactions deliberately avoid some ordinary social-media status mechanics.
Personalization is only as accurate and fair as group administration. Define who creates groups, approves membership, can see hidden communities, moderates content, exports files, and handles departures. Avoid encoding sensitive pastoral, health, recovery, immigration, or abuse status in a discoverable group name. Audit administrators, least-privilege access, notification defaults, and stale membership. A church app should strengthen belonging without creating an invisible map of vulnerability.
Community, chat, and directory: replace scattered channels with governed church space
Members can publish to appropriate groups, comment without cluttering the main feed, share media and files, discover groups, view a personalized calendar, and contact people through the directory. Donkey Chat adds direct messaging with text, photos, videos, and files. The web interface extends participation beyond phones and makes longer writing easier. Administrators can approve access, roles, and profile visibility.
Write a community covenant and incident procedure before inviting members. Define confidential subjects that never belong in the app, photo and child-consent rules, harassment and misinformation response, administrator access, data requests, retention, and emergency reporting. Give users granular profile and notification choices. Direct messages must not become an unmonitored pastoral-care channel; preserve approved pathways for safeguarding disclosures and urgent help.
Giving and Donkey Touch: convenient routes do not remove reconciliation duties
Members and guests can give from the app or responsive site, scan a smart QR code, or tap an optional Donkey Touch NFC sticker. Administrators create collection schedules, special campaigns, reports, and giving history. Newer international options include card and PayPal support. Donkey says it charges no percentage commission, positioning giving as part of community rather than a detached transaction.
Request a complete fee table for each method, country, currency, refund, chargeback, payout, failed payment, stored balance, and Donkey Touch device. Confirm processor, settlement timing, donor receipts, recurring gifts, fund restrictions, year-end records, accounting export, PSD2 or other regulatory duties, and what “100%” excludes. Separate giving permissions from general app administration and test reconciliation with small real transactions before launch.
Donkey Inspire, streaming, and Echo: extend Sunday carefully into the week
Donkey Inspire lets churches and groups follow devotionals, Bible studies, reading plans, theology, podcasts, and news together. After acquiring Kerkdienstgemist, Donkey added Echo: a beta that reads a service transcript through an OpenAI API prompt and produces key points, a summary, reflection questions, and applications shortly after Sunday. It can feed home, youth, and small-group follow-up from one recording.
Echo’s own FAQ says AI can make errors and current summaries cannot be edited. Do not auto-publish. Compare the output with the complete sermon and cited passages, check names and pastoral examples, remove unsafe or overconfident applications, and create a corrected human version elsewhere if needed. Obtain consent and rights for recorded speakers, music, testimony, and attendees. Confirm OpenAI retention, Donkey storage, deletion, training exclusion, supported languages, and future beta pricing.
Pricing
Up to 200 expected active users
€82.50/month ex VAT
The detailed live table gives this amount, although older promotional copy on the same page still says €80. All product features, future updates, support, and the branded app are presented as included.
201–500 active users
€115/month ex VAT
Pricing is based on expected active users, not merely registered names. Define measurement frequency, grace periods, band changes, and whether web-only users count in the signed proposal.
501–1,000 active users
€170/month ex VAT
Includes the same feature set. Donkey’s rounded marketing card still shows €165 for this band, so use the current contract and invoice—not a copied headline—as authority.
1,001–2,500 active users
€230/month ex VAT
The corresponding rounded card says €220. Ask whether “2,500 users” in the top band means exactly 2,500, 2,500-plus, or a separately quoted ceiling.
2,500-user band and launch costs
€285/month + €450 onboarding
The detailed page also lists a €99 annual Apple license and €40 one-time Google license, all excluding tax. It separately contains older €275 and €400 figures; require one dated total-cost schedule.
Use the detailed table as the best current public figure: €82.50, €115, €170, €230, and €285 monthly by expected active-user band, excluding VAT. The visually prominent rounded figures—€80, €110, €165, €220, and €275—appear to be stale. A proposal should state which wins.
Launch costs matter most for a small church. At the lowest detailed band, year one is €990 in subscription, €450 onboarding, €99 Apple, and €40 Google before VAT: €1,579. Later years would start around €1,089 before VAT if only the subscription and Apple renewal continue and rates do not change.
The product says all features, support, future updates, web access, and the branded store apps are included. Confirm whether Donkey Touch stickers, payment processing, SMS, content subscriptions, livestreaming, Echo after beta, custom work, data migration, additional training, and international support are separate.
“Annually cancellable” suggests a contract rhythm more restrictive than casual monthly SaaS. Ask about initial term, renewal notice, mid-band changes, suspension, price increases, store transfer, data access after notice, migration support, and whether paid time remains available after termination.
The demo is free and public English copy says monthly webinars, although some scheduled sessions are in Dutch. Bring administrators, communications, finance, safeguarding, an older member, a phone-accessibility user, and a prospective moderator. Test the web route, not only the polished native-app demonstration.
Where Donkey Mobile falls behind
One authoritative price table. Remove stale rounded figures and publish tax, contract, payment, SMS, store, onboarding, hardware, content, streaming, and AI costs in every supported language.
Current legal documents. Replace or supplement the April 2020 public terms with a dated 2026 agreement covering chat, AI, streaming integration, payments, app stores, and modern data rights.
Privacy transparency. Publish a clear member privacy policy and DPA naming controller and processor roles, data fields, subprocessors, regions, retention, backups, exports, breach response, and international transfers.
Security evidence. Substantiate the independent-testing claim with scope, date, remediation, certifications, MFA, audit logs, encryption, incident history, vulnerability reporting, and role controls.
Accessibility conformance. Provide tested iOS, Android, web, admin, directory, messaging, media, forms, payments, notifications, and dynamic-text behavior against a named standard.
AI review workflow. Echo summaries should remain draft, show source timestamps, support editing and approval, preserve model and prompt version, and never publish automatically.
Store and exit portability. State who owns Apple and Google accounts, developer certificates, listing reviews, domains, member data, content, and transfer rights when the contract ends.
Public status and service levels. Churches relying on communication and giving need availability history, incident notices, recovery targets, support severity, and emergency broadcast alternatives.
Donkey Mobile vs. Church Center vs. Subsplash vs. WhatsApp
Planning Center’s Church Center provides groups, events, giving, registrations, directory, and a branded-app option tightly connected to a mature modular ChMS. Donkey’s personalized social feed, white-label default, Donkey Touch, European church focus, and regional support are different strengths. Compare actual records, workflows, payments, permissions, and the total Planning Center module stack rather than headline app prices.
Subsplash combines branded apps, web, media, streaming, messaging, giving, and church management at a larger international scale. It may offer deeper media and U.S. ecosystem maturity; Donkey offers clearer public European user-band pricing and a locally shaped community product. Obtain proposals for identical member counts and include platform, transaction, setup, store, streaming, messaging, and migration costs.
WhatsApp is already installed, fast, and familiar, but it mixes private numbers and personal accounts, scatters groups, loses structured calendars and directory governance, and gives the church limited administrative continuity. Donkey asks members to adopt a new destination but brings groups into one controlled environment. Success depends on leadership participation, onboarding, useful recurring content, and respecting those who choose web, email, paper, or no account.
The bottom line
Donkey Mobile deserves a shortlist for European churches that want a real community app rather than a one-way content shell. Its group-aware design, member web access, giving routes, directory, direct chat, and current six-hundred-app scale are substantial. The buying work is in the details: reconcile the stale and current prices, calculate year one with VAT and store fees, obtain the current contract and DPA, test payments and accessibility, decide store ownership, define moderation and pastoral boundaries, and plan export. Treat Echo as a visible experimental draft, not an editor. A church that resources the rollout can consolidate a messy communication landscape; one that merely launches the app may purchase an attractive empty room.
Alternatives to Donkey Mobile
Planning CenterA mature modular ChMS whose Church Center experience combines groups, events, giving, registrations, and directory.
SubsplashA broad branded app, media, messaging, web, giving, streaming, and management ecosystem with international scale.Church.AppA dedicated congregation engagement product worth comparing on white-label delivery, communication, data, and regional support.
B1 ChurchA free and open-source church platform with app, site, giving, people, groups, check-in, worship, and multi-language coverage.WhatsApp plus existing ChMSLowest adoption friction, but fragmented governance, calendars, directory, files, member boundaries, and organizational continuity.Frequently asked questions
How much does Donkey Mobile cost?
The detailed public table currently starts at €82.50 per month excluding VAT for the first 200 expected active users and rises through €115, €170, €230, and €285 bands. The same page contains older rounded figures, so confirm the contract.
Are there setup fees?
Yes. The detailed table lists €450 one-time onboarding, a €99 annual Apple store license, and a €40 one-time Google store license, all excluding tax. Older copy still says €400 onboarding.
Do members download a Donkey Mobile app?
No generic container is required. Donkey publishes a native app under the church’s own name in Apple and Google stores. Members can also use a matching web app on desktop or tablet.
Does Donkey Mobile charge a giving percentage?
The vendor says it takes 0% commission and the designated gift goes to the church. Confirm payment-processor, card, currency, chargeback, refund, payout, and any other fees for your country.
What is Donkey Echo?
It is a beta AI sermon summarizer for churches using both Donkey Mobile and Kerkdienstgemist. OpenAI processes a service transcript into key points, applications, questions, and a summary. Outputs can be wrong and currently cannot be edited.
How large is Donkey Mobile?
The October 2025 acquisition announcement reported nearly 600 churches and more than 160,000 active users. The current Dutch homepage says more than 600 apps and 180,000 users; older English copy still says 450 and 130,000.
Can we cancel monthly?
Product copy says the service is annually cancellable. Obtain the exact initial term, renewal date, notice window, price-change rule, and data-export period in the signed agreement.
Sources & further reading
- Donkey Mobile official English site ↗
- Donkey Mobile product and feature overview ↗
- Donkey Mobile current pricing page ↗
- Donkey Mobile community features ↗
- Donkey Mobile member-directory privacy overview ↗
- Donkey Echo product and AI disclosure ↗
- Donkey Mobile and Kerkdienstgemist acquisition announcement ↗
- Donkey Mobile general terms ↗
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