SecureGive

What SecureGive is

SecureGive is a church giving platform covering every channel a congregation is likely to use: online giving with embedded widgets so donors never leave the church website, mobile app giving, text-to-give with keywords, in-person kiosks with Apple Pay across four hardware series, check scanning, a virtual terminal for phoned-in gifts, and NFC "Tap" tags. Recurring giving runs weekly, every two weeks, monthly, twice a month or quarterly, and a church can make recurring the default in the donation flow. Donors can give to multiple funds in one transaction and, by default, without creating an account.

On the administrative side there are real-time dashboards, DonorIQ engagement tracking that categorises givers from first-time through to lapsed, a weekly summary email, configurable notifications for large gifts, and Auto Card Updater on Premium and above. Integrations are named rather than implied - Planning Center, Rock RMS, Church Community Builder, Ministry Platform, TouchPoint, Fellowship One, Salesforce and Zapier - with an open API on Premium and above.

Why churches move to SecureGive

The commercial argument is the effective rate. SecureGive claims "Most churches see an effective blended rate of 2% or less," and defines the term properly as total transaction cost divided by total processed rather than a headline rate on one card type. The published card supports the claim if a church shifts giving toward the cheap channels: kiosk PIN debit at 1% + 30c, kiosk debit at 1.5% + 30c, online debit at 1.75% + 30c, and ACH at a flat $1.50 regardless of gift size. That last is the quietly powerful line - a $5,000 bank transfer costs a dollar fifty here, so a church that moves its larger givers onto ACH changes its blend substantially. The 2.5% + 30c online credit rate is unremarkable on its own; the point is that it is the most expensive line rather than the only one.

The credibility argument is longevity and ownership. This is a company founded in 2004 by a working pastor, Marty Baker, credited with putting the first giving kiosk into an American church, headquartered at 420 Furys Ferry Road in Augusta, Georgia, and still - by its own account - 100% pastor-owned and debt-free. In a category where several major names have been through private equity and consolidation, that matters to buyers burned by a platform changing hands and changing terms. The strongest external evidence is Prestonwood Baptist Church's public announcement of its migration from Pushpay to SecureGive. A church that size runs a procurement process; that it landed here is the most substantive third-party signal in the published material.

The rate card, and the subscription that sits on top of it

Take the two halves separately, because churches routinely compare one and forget the other. The processing half is published in full: online credit 2.5% + 30c, online debit 1.75% + 30c, kiosk credit 2% + 30c, kiosk debit 1.5% + 30c, in-person PIN debit 1% + 30c, ACH and eCheck a flat $1.50 per transaction, and non-cash stock or crypto at 4%. Donors may optionally cover processing fees - the FAQ says simply "Yes. Donors have the option to cover processing fees" - though nothing is published on the percentage added, whether it is on by default, or which methods it covers. Two rates are absent: American Express is not given one, and although Apple Pay and Google Pay are listed as accepted methods, no distinct digital-wallet rate is printed. Assume they fall under the card rate, but get it in writing.

The subscription half is where the buying decision turns. $149 a month for Basic ($135 annually), $299 for Premium ($270 annually), or an Enterprise quote - charged on top of every rate above. Run the arithmetic on your own numbers first. A church processing $20,000 a month pays $299 plus perhaps $400 in processing on a 2% blend: roughly $700 a month, an all-in cost around 3.5%. The same church at $80,000 pays $299 plus roughly $1,600: about 2.4% all-in. At $200,000 the subscription is a rounding error and the low rates dominate. That curve is the whole story of who SecureGive suits. Add-ons bend it upward - Non-Cash Giving $99/mo, Campaigns $49/mo, Church Apps $200/mo with a giving plan or $300 standalone plus $500 setup - so a Premium church wanting non-cash, campaigns and a branded app is at $647 a month in software before a single gift moves, with kiosk hardware a capital purchase on top.

Tier limits: the 2,000-transaction cap and the crippled Basic plan

Two published limits do more to determine fit than any feature comparison. The first is that Basic is "Online Only or Kiosk Only" - a choice, not a combination. Text giving, mobile app giving, check scanning, the virtual terminal and API access are all Premium features, so a church wanting a donation page and text-to-give, the most ordinary configuration imaginable, cannot buy Basic. The real entry price for a normally equipped church is $299 a month, not $149. Basic also allows 1 campus and 3 kiosk licences; Premium raises that to 5 campuses, 5 kiosk licences and 10 text keywords, and a multi-site church beyond five campuses must go Enterprise.

The second and sharper limit is the transaction cap, which applies to both priced tiers: 2,000 transactions per month on Basic and on Premium alike. Only Enterprise, which has no published price, offers unlimited transactions. Two thousand a month is roughly 460 gifts a week - a figure a church of eight hundred to a thousand attenders with healthy recurring giving will pass comfortably, and one that arrives sooner than expected because each recurring instalment counts as its own transaction. The practical consequence is that the published pricing only describes small and mid-sized churches. Everyone above that is in a quoted negotiation, which is exactly the situation SecureGive's transparency is otherwise designed to spare you. It is not hidden - it is printed on the pricing page - but a growing church should ask for the Enterprise number before signing, not after, because the moment volume crosses that line the published rate card stops describing what you pay.

Non-cash giving, Tap hardware and the channels beyond the offering plate

Non-cash giving covers gifts of stock and cryptocurrency, delivered through a partnership with Engiven, and it is paywalled twice over. It requires either the Enterprise tier or a $99-a-month add-on, and it then carries the most expensive rate on the card at 4% - double the kiosk credit rate. That is a meaningful premium against Overflow, whose published non-cash rate is "3% or lower," and donor-advised funds are not mentioned in SecureGive's rate card at all, which matters because DAFs are how a great many appreciated-asset gifts actually arrive. A church whose stewardship strategy centres on appreciated assets should price that work separately and may reasonably conclude it belongs with a specialist. A church receiving the occasional stock gift gets a workable route without leaving its main platform, which is worth something in itself.

The rest of the channel list is where SecureGive's twenty years show. Kiosks come in four series with Apple Pay support and start at $1,199 - real hardware rather than a tablet in a stand - and because the in-person rates are the lowest on the card, the hardware pays back through the rate as well as through convenience. Check scanning, a Premium feature, was extended in a May 2026 update with a built-in image viewer and category splits: the kind of unglamorous improvement that saves a counting team an hour every Monday. SecureGive Tap is NFC-enabled physical tags in nine form factors, quoted individually, letting someone give, sign up or connect with a single phone tap - which suits welcome desks and connection cards at least as much as giving. And Embedded Giving, introduced in May 2026, provides four methods of putting the full giving experience on a church's own website so donors are never redirected to a third-party page. That last is a genuine conversion feature: every redirect in a giving flow loses people.

Pricing

Where SecureGive falls behind

The 2,000-transaction cap applies to Premium as well as Basic, which is the single most important limitation here. Only Enterprise, unpriced, is unlimited. Since recurring gifts each count as a transaction, a church of moderate size with good recurring participation will cross that line and find itself negotiating a quote - which undoes the main advantage of a vendor that otherwise publishes everything.

Basic is limited by design rather than by capability. "Online Only or Kiosk Only" is a deliberate constraint, and text giving, mobile giving, check scanning, the virtual terminal and API access all sit behind Premium. Legitimate segmentation, but it means the advertised $149 entry point does not describe the product most churches would actually buy, and the effective starting price is double that.

Non-cash giving is charged twice and priced highest. It needs Enterprise or a $99-a-month add-on, and then costs 4% - the most expensive rate on the card, and above Overflow's published "3% or lower." Donor-advised funds, which are how a large share of appreciated-asset gifts arrive, are not in the rate card at all.

Payout timing is simply not published. Not on the pricing page, not in the FAQ, not on the migration page. For a vendor this forthcoming about rates, caps and hardware costs, the absence of a deposit schedule stands out, and it is a question every treasurer asks in the first meeting. Nor are cancellation, refund or chargeback terms published, and the terms of service page did not resolve.

Support is business hours, and two migration timelines are published. Support runs "weekdays from 9:30am to 6:00pm" with Sunday and after-hours support available - better than most for a church, since Sunday is the one day that matters, but not round-the-clock. On timing the company publishes both "Most churches are set up and ready to accept donations within two business days" and "Most churches complete the full transition in approximately 45 days." Plan around the forty-five days rather than the two.

SecureGive vs. Zeffy vs. Overflow

Three fee structures that suit three different sizes of church. SecureGive charges a subscription - $149 or $299 a month, or an Enterprise quote - then low processing: 2.5% + 30c online credit down to 1% + 30c for in-person PIN debit, with ACH at a flat $1.50. Zeffy charges the church nothing at all and funds itself by asking donors for an optional contribution at checkout. Overflow charges an annual subscription from "$1200 per year and scales according to the size of your organization," plus 2.5% + $0.30 on cards, 0.5% + $0.20 on ACH and "3% or lower" on non-cash. Below roughly $15,000 a month processed, SecureGive's fixed fee is hard to justify against Zeffy's zero; above roughly $50,000 the low rates and flat ACH line make SecureGive cheaper in real terms, provided you stay under the transaction cap.

Three very different depths of church-specific tooling. SecureGive is the only one built around a church building: kiosks in four hardware series with Apple Pay, check scanning for the Monday counting team, text keywords, a virtual terminal, NFC Tap tags, and seven named ChMS integrations including Planning Center, Rock RMS, Church Community Builder, Ministry Platform, TouchPoint and Fellowship One. Zeffy publishes the widest module list - auctions, raffles, memberships, an online store, peer-to-peer campaigns - and no named ChMS integrations at all, a serious gap for a church with records to reconcile. Overflow is a specialist in stock, crypto and donor-advised-fund giving, and a better answer than SecureGive's 4% non-cash line if appreciated assets are your priority rather than your occasional exception.

Three store ratings, two of which should barely count. SecureGive's iOS app sits at 3.1 from 27 ratings and Zeffy's at 2.8 from 45 - both small samples on companion apps to what are fundamentally web platforms, and neither a measurement of the administrative dashboard or the donor payment page where the work happens. Overflow shows 4.2. Use these figures narrowly: they say something about mobile app quality, which matters if app-based giving is your main channel or you are buying SecureGive's Church Apps add-on, and nothing much about platform reliability, rates or reconciliation. On the evidence that should drive the decision - published rates, named integrations, tier caps and a large church publicly migrating in from Pushpay - SecureGive is considerably stronger than a 3.1 from 27 ratings would suggest to a reader who stopped there.

Alternatives to SecureGive

Overflow★ 4.2The better answer if appreciated assets are the priority: stock, crypto and donor-advised funds at "3% or lower" against SecureGive's 4%, cards at 2.5% + $0.30 and ACH at 0.5% + $0.20, on a subscription from $1,200 a year.→Anedot★ 4.0$0 a month, no contracts, unlimited transactions and free text-to-give, at 3.3% + 30c on cards and 0.3% + 30c on ACH for 501(c)(3) organisations. Higher card rate, but no subscription and no transaction cap.→Zeffy★ 4.0The opposite trade entirely: no platform fee and no processing fee at all, funded by an optional tip donors are prompted for at checkout. No named ChMS integrations, and the tip prompt is a pastoral judgement call.→Pushpay★ 2.7The incumbent SecureGive is winning churches from - Prestonwood Baptist publicly announced its migration away from Pushpay to SecureGive. Worth comparing directly if you are already on it and reconsidering.→

More Church Giving & Donation Platforms

Overflow★ 4.2The one giving platform built around the gifts most churches quietly turn away - appreciated stock, crypto and donor-advised funds - sold on an annual subscription whose real price is published nowhere.→Zeffy★ 4.0The only platform in this category that charges a church nothing whatsoever - no monthly fee, no transaction fee, no card fee - and pays for itself by asking your donors for a tip instead, which makes this a pastoral decision rather than a financial one.→Anedot★ 4.0The only platform here that processes its own payments rather than reselling somebody else's - no monthly fee, no contract, and a card rate that quietly pays for both.→Continue To Give★ 3.6A modular all-in-one for small churches and missionaries - seven giving methods, a member database, real fund accounting - built by a missionary who could not afford the alternatives, and undermined by three contradictory published fee schedules.→Subsplash★ 5.0The all-in-one church platform megachurches keep choosing - fully custom-branded apps across phone, web, and TV that make a 5,000-member ministry feel like an Apple keynote.→Spoken Gospel★ 5.0A reading plan that gives you a 3-minute spoken-word video on every chapter of the Bible - the rare Bible companion that actually changes how the page reads.→