RightNow Media

What RightNow Media is

RightNow Media is a subscription video platform built by RightNow Ministries International, a Texas-based nonprofit that began in 2002 as a producer of mission-focused leadership conferences. The product most people know — the streaming library — launched in the early 2010s and has grown into the largest aggregated video Bible-study catalog in the English-speaking world, with more than 20,000 titles licensed from a long list of publishers, ministries, and individual teachers.

The platform itself is straightforward streaming: a web app and native apps for iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Chromecast. You log in, you browse or search, you press play. Underneath that simple surface sits a content business with a distinctive shape — most of its revenue comes from churches buying institutional licenses, and most of its users access it for free because their church already wrote the check.

Why most users get RightNow Media free through their church

The single biggest practical difference between RightNow Media and every other Christian streaming service is the distribution model. Faithlife TV, Pure Flix, and Minno mostly sell direct to individual households. RightNow Media sells to churches first and treats individual members as a benefit of belonging. A church license costs roughly $1,200 a year on the small end and $5,000-plus on the larger end (priced by average weekly attendance), and that one purchase entitles every person who attends to a personal, full-catalog account at no additional cost.

For the member, this is effectively a free streaming service that no one ever told you was free. For the church, it's a hospitality move — a real benefit that costs less per family than buying physical study kits one-off, and that quietly hands every small-group leader a fully stocked curriculum library. If you don't know whether your church has a subscription, the answer is almost always yes if you attend a non-denominational evangelical church of any size in the United States, and worth asking anywhere else.

The library: 20,000+ video Bible studies in one catalog

The core product is the catalog. RightNow Media has licensed video from most of the biggest publishers and teachers in evangelical Christianity — Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" and "Multiply", Matt Chandler's "James" and "Philippians", Priscilla Shirer's "Armor of God" and "Discerning the Voice of God", J.D. Greear's preaching series, Christine Caine's "Unashamed", Tony Evans' "Kingdom" material, Jennie Allen's "Get Out of Your Head", Louie Giglio talks, Andy Stanley sermon series, IF:Gathering sessions, plus full catalogs from publishers like LifeWay, David C Cook, and Right Now's own original productions. Books of the Bible, topical studies, marriage series, parenting courses, financial stewardship, evangelism training, leadership courses — the surface area is huge.

In practice this means almost any small-group topic a leader picks has multiple credible options on the platform, often with downloadable PDF study guides, leader notes, and discussion questions attached. The flip side is that browsing 20,000 titles is genuinely overwhelming, and the recommendation engine is more "shelves of new releases" than "smart suggestions for you" — most leaders pick a study because they heard a teacher's name, not because RightNow Media surfaced it. The catalog is the platform's killer feature; the discovery layer is its weakest.

The church distribution model: why your subscription is probably already paid for

RightNow Media's business runs on church licenses, not consumer subscriptions, and that one decision shapes the whole product experience. A church signs up at a tier based on average weekly attendance — small congregations in the low four figures annually, larger churches scaling up — and in return every regular attender can claim a personal account by entering the church's invite link. The account is yours, on your devices, with your watchlist and your kids' separate profiles. It keeps working as long as the church keeps paying.

The practical effect is that for somewhere in the neighborhood of tens of millions of American churchgoers, RightNow Media is a benefit they have access to and don't know about. Before you pay for an individual subscription, the answer is almost always to email your church office and ask "do we have RightNow Media, and can I get the invite link?" If yes — and at most evangelical churches of any size, it is yes — you're done. If no, the church plan is actually a strong gift idea for a leadership team to consider, because the per-family cost works out to dramatically less than buying the same studies on DVD.

Kids and leadership: the two underrated tiers of the catalog

The two parts of the library that get the least attention in RightNow Media's marketing — and that often matter most once a household actually starts using the platform — are the kids tier and the leadership tier. Kids gets full episodes of VeggieTales, Owlegories, What's in the Bible? with Buck Denver, Theo, Yippee, the Superbook animated series, plus RightNow Media's own originals like Boz the Bear and Laugh and Grow Bible. There are separate kid profiles, parental controls, and a roughly preschool-through-tween range. For a lot of families it ends up being the most-used part of the subscription by hours watched.

The leadership library is the other quiet win. Beyond Bible studies it carries staff-development courses on management, conflict resolution, finance, HR, board governance, communication, fundraising, and ministry-specific skills (worship leading, youth ministry, children's ministry, missions). For a church staff or a lay leadership team, that turns the subscription into something closer to a continuing-education benefit. For an individual member who never thinks to look there, it's an entire library hiding inside the subscription they already pay nothing for.

Pricing

Where RightNow Media falls behind

Tradition coverage. RightNow Media is unambiguously evangelical Protestant in its content mix. There are sermons and studies from Baptist, non-denominational, charismatic, and Reformed teachers, but Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant, and Latter-day Saint readers will find very little material that reflects their tradition. That's a positioning choice, not a flaw — but readers from other traditions should know the catalog before subscribing.

Discovery and search. The catalog has grown faster than the navigation layer. Topic browsing is broad rather than deep, recommendations are basic, and finding a specific study by a half-remembered title is harder than it should be on a 20,000-title platform. Most users end up navigating by teacher name or external recommendation rather than by exploring the platform itself.

Original-language and reference tooling. There isn't any. RightNow Media is video — not a study Bible, not a commentary suite, not an interlinear. If you want to dig into Greek or Hebrew, cross-reference passages, or build serious sermon prep around a study, you'll be doing that work in Logos, Olive Tree, or Blue Letter Bible alongside whatever video you watch here.

Offline access. Mobile apps support downloading individual videos for offline watching, which is fine for travel. But there's no comprehensive offline mode, and the TV apps (Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV) require an internet connection. For most living rooms that's a non-issue; for mission trips or rural use it's a real limitation.

Pricing transparency for individuals. The site is built to funnel churches toward institutional licenses and members toward their church's invite link. Individual pricing exists, but it's sometimes harder to find than it should be, occasionally requiring a contact form. The plan itself is fine — the discoverability of it is not.

RightNow Media vs. Faithlife TV vs. Pure Flix

These three services get lumped together as "Christian streaming" but they're solving genuinely different problems. RightNow Media is a video Bible-study and leadership library sold mostly to churches as a member benefit. Faithlife TV is a Christian-friendly streaming service from the makers of Logos, with documentaries, family films, kids content, and some teaching — closer to a wholesome Netflix with a Bible-study shelf attached. Pure Flix (now part of Great American Pure Flix) is a faith-and-family entertainment streamer: movies, scripted TV, and family-friendly programming, with comparatively little dedicated Bible-study video.

Different strengths. RightNow Media is the best place to find a video-driven Bible study for a small group or a leadership course for church staff. Faithlife TV is the broadest "watch as a family" Christian streaming catalog, and it pairs naturally with Logos if you already live in that ecosystem. Pure Flix is closest to a mainstream entertainment service with a faith-and-family filter — if you want movies and scripted shows you can watch with grandparents, that's the lane.

For most readers of this site, RightNow Media is the one to check first, specifically because there's a strong chance you already have it free through your church. If you don't, and you want a single streaming service for both family viewing and study, Faithlife TV is the more flexible household pick. Pure Flix is the right answer when entertainment, not study, is the actual goal.

Alternatives to RightNow Media