- Starting price
- $7.95/mo after 7-day trial
- Free tier
- No
- Platforms
- Web · iPhone · iPad · Apple Vision · Android · Apple TV · Roku · Fire TV · smart TVs
- Developer
- HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
- Launched
- 2014
- Updated
- Aug 2, 2026
The verdict
Study Gateway is a strong value for people who regularly use video-led evangelical Bible studies, especially groups that need individual logins. The personal annual price is fair, the institutional tiers are unusually transparent, and the teacher catalog is recognizable. Budget separately for study guides or books, verify group exhibition rights, and test the apps during the seven-day trial: the 4.17 iOS rating trails the best Christian streaming products.
Try Study Gateway ↗Opens studygateway.com
Study Gateway is the subscription video Bible-study library from HarperCollins Christian Publishing, the company behind Zondervan, Thomas Nelson, and HarperChristian Resources. It streams thousands of teaching sessions from authors and pastors such as Max Lucado, Anne Graham Lotz, Louie Giglio, Rick Warren, Derwin Gray, Lysa TerKeurst, Jennie Allen, Andy Stanley, Chrystal Evans Hurst, John Ortberg, Ann Voskamp, Christine Caine, Jada Edwards, Bob Goff, and Jim Cymbala.
The service is aimed at individuals, households, small groups, and churches rather than at entertainment viewing. Studies cover books of the Bible, discipleship, Christian living, relationships, leadership, overcoming hardship, and other common curriculum topics. Sessions can be watched on the web, phones, tablets, Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, and supported television platforms, with mobile offline downloads documented by the help center. Each user may stream on up to three devices.
Pricing is refreshingly public. One person pays $7.95 monthly or $6.63 monthly billed yearly, which equals $79.50 a year. A small group of up to twenty users pays $19.99 monthly or $199.90 yearly. Church plans start at $49.99 monthly for 21–100 users and rise through published tiers to $649.99 monthly above 4,000 users; annual billing reduces each tier by the equivalent of two monthly payments. Every tier begins with a seven-day trial and can be changed or cancelled.
This researched review uses Study Gateway’s current signup and support pages, store metadata, and privacy disclosures as of August 2, 2026. We did not stream the catalog ourselves. One recurring cost caveat is easy to miss: a subscription pays for video access, while many courses are designed around a separate study guide or book. The service can be inexpensive media and still require a curriculum budget for every participant.
✓ The good
- Thousands of recognizable studies - Zondervan and Thomas Nelson give the library deep access to bestselling evangelical authors and curriculum
- Transparent personal pricing - $7.95 monthly or $79.50 yearly is clearly published rather than hidden behind a sales call
- Excellent group economics - up to twenty individual users cost $19.99 monthly, far less than twenty personal subscriptions
- Published church tiers - organizations can estimate cost from 21 users through more than 4,000 without waiting for a custom quote
- Broad device support - web, mobile, Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, smart-TV options, and up to three streams per user
- Offline mobile viewing - supported downloads help travelers, commuters, and groups with uneven connectivity
- Some Spanish material - selected studies extend beyond the otherwise English-centered catalog
✗ Watch out
- Study guides often cost extra - the subscription is primarily video access, and many experiences assume each participant owns a workbook or book
- No lasting ownership - access to the library ends with the subscription even after a group completes a paid year
- Seven days is a short trial - enough to test playback but not enough to finish a normal multiweek study
- Middle-of-pack iOS rating - 4.17 from 877 ratings suggests more friction than leading 4.8- and 4.9-rated Bible apps
- Evangelical publishing center - Catholic, Orthodox, and some confessional or mainline traditions are not represented proportionally
- Account sharing is restricted - plans are built around named users, and a personal login is not a substitute for group seats or broad online exhibition rights
Best for
- Individuals who complete several video studies each year
- Small groups needing up to twenty logins
- Churches standardizing digital curriculum access
- Fans of Zondervan and Thomas Nelson teachers
Avoid if
- You prefer reading to video-led study
- You need Catholic or Orthodox formation
- You expect workbooks to be included
- You want to own downloaded studies permanently
What Study Gateway is
Study Gateway is a subscription streaming service for video-led Christian studies. It packages sessions from HarperCollins Christian Publishing imprints into one searchable catalog instead of requiring users to purchase each video course separately. Personal, group, and church plans differ mainly by the number of named users rather than by carving the catalog into content tiers.
The product is a teaching-video platform, not a full Bible app. It does not provide original-language analysis, a broad commentary library, or general movie entertainment. Many titles have a companion book or study guide sold through ordinary retailers. The app supplies the teacher on screen; the workbook, local discussion, and pastoral framing remain separate pieces.
Why small groups can get the best value from Study Gateway
The group plan changes the arithmetic. Twenty separate annual accounts would cost $1,590; the published small-group annual plan is $199.90. Even a five-person group pays less per person than one personal annual account. Named access lets participants watch missed sessions or revisit teaching without passing around one password.
That advantage depends on choosing the right license. A household personal plan is not automatically permission to broadcast sessions to a public online meeting or distribute one account across a congregation. Group leaders should match seats to participants, review the current terms for in-person and virtual display, and include workbook costs before announcing that a study is “included.”
The HarperCollins catalog is broad within an evangelical lane
Study Gateway draws from a large roster of Zondervan and Thomas Nelson authors. That creates depth in practical discipleship, women’s studies, marriage and family, leadership, prayer, spiritual growth, topical series, and individual books of the Bible. A group can often find several familiar teachers on the same subject rather than buying the first available DVD kit.
The catalog is broad in teacher personality, but it is not denominationally neutral. Content primarily reflects evangelical Protestant publishing. Leaders should preview a course’s description, author, and doctrinal assumptions instead of treating a corporate catalog as a theological endorsement from their own church.
Individual logins, three devices, and offline downloads
Each user can stream on as many as three devices. Small-group and church administrators can add or remove people as membership changes. Mobile apps support offline viewing, while living-room apps make the same studies easier to show on a television. Progress can follow the account across supported devices.
Those conveniences are most useful between meetings: someone can catch up at home without asking the leader for a file. They also create privacy and administration work. Apple says email address and user ID may be linked to identity, while product-interaction and diagnostic data may be collected without linkage. Churches should remove former users and avoid reusing shared credentials.
Plans scale from one learner to more than four thousand
The signup flow publishes eight church bands above the twenty-person group plan: $49.99, $99.99, $149.99, $249.99, $349.99, $449.99, $549.99, and $649.99 monthly as the user count rises. Annual totals are ten times the monthly price. That transparency lets a church compare the platform with curriculum purchases before contacting anyone.
Seat-based pricing is predictable but can create waste when invited accounts go unused. A church should measure activations, monthly viewers, course completions, and group adoption before renewing. The largest catalog is not automatically the best curriculum investment if members do not know it exists.
Pricing
Personal
$7.95/mo or $79.50/yr
One user, thousands of study videos, up to three devices, and a seven-day free trial. Annual billing is displayed as $6.63 per month and saves two monthly payments.
Small Group
$19.99/mo or $199.90/yr
Access for up to twenty users, with the administrator able to add and remove people. Annual billing is displayed as $16.66 per month.
Church, 21–100 users
$49.99/mo or $499.90/yr
The entry institutional plan. Each user receives access and may stream on three devices; larger bands increase in published steps.
Larger church
$99.99–$649.99/mo
Published monthly bands cover 101–200, 201–400, 401–600, 601–1,000, 1,001–2,000, 2,001–4,000, and more than 4,000 users. Annual billing saves two months.
Every plan begins with a seven-day free trial and renews automatically unless cancelled. Test sign-in, television playback, captions, downloads, and the exact studies you intend to use before the trial ends.
Annual billing saves the equivalent of two months. The personal total is $79.50, small group is $199.90, and the 21–100 user church tier is $499.90. Larger annual tiers are ten times their monthly prices.
A Study Gateway subscription does not necessarily include the companion study guide or source book. For a group, multiply the workbook price by the participant count and add that to the platform fee.
The platform also sells or promotes individual access to some studies in other contexts. Do not assume a separately purchased course grants a Study Gateway subscription, or that subscription access is permanent ownership.
Where Study Gateway falls behind
The app rating needs attention. A 4.17 U.S. average is respectable but well below the 4.8–4.9 level of leading Bible and Catholic media apps. Current release notes emphasize bug fixes and performance rather than a distinctive new mobile experience.
The subscription-to-workbook boundary is easy to misunderstand. A video may be included while the journal, leader guide, or book that structures the assignments remains a separate purchase. Every course page should surface that requirement prominently.
The seven-day trial is shorter than the product’s natural use cycle. Groups often need a week just to invite members and coordinate the first meeting. A fourteen- or thirty-day evaluation would reveal more about administration and participation.
Catalog perspective is narrower than the teacher list looks. Multiple evangelical voices do not create Catholic, Orthodox, mainline, or globally representative coverage. A church should assess doctrinal fit at the course level.
Study Gateway is not a complete group platform. It provides video and accounts, but leaders still need communication, schedules, pastoral care, discussion facilitation, and often separate documents. A large church may prefer a product that combines media with deeper group-management workflows.
Study Gateway vs. RightNow Media vs. Formed vs. BibleProject
Study Gateway is the transparent direct-subscription choice for Zondervan and Thomas Nelson video studies. RightNow Media has a much larger evangelical video library and is commonly purchased by churches as a member benefit, but its current institutional economics and catalog differ. Formed serves Catholic households and parishes with formation, films, audio, ebooks, and children’s content. BibleProject publishes free animated explainers, classes, podcasts, and reading material rather than licensed small-group curricula.
Choose Study Gateway when a particular HarperCollins teacher or study is central and the $199.90 group plan fits. Ask your church about RightNow Media before paying for a second evangelical video library. Choose Formed for Catholic formation, and use BibleProject when the budget is zero or the goal is literary and thematic Bible overview rather than workbook-led curriculum.
No catalog removes the need to preview. Teacher reputation, publishing imprint, and aggregate rating cannot determine whether a course fits a group’s age, doctrine, trauma context, or pastoral goals. Leaders should watch the first session and inspect the study guide before inviting participants.
The bottom line
Study Gateway’s strengths are concrete: recognizable teachers, thousands of licensed videos, true individual accounts, broad device support, and prices anyone can inspect. The $79.50 personal year is reasonable; the $199.90 twenty-seat year is excellent if a group actually uses it. Its limitations are equally concrete: extra workbook costs, no permanent ownership, a short trial, an evangelical editorial center, and a merely good 4.17 app average. Start with the exact study—not the size of the catalog—and calculate the complete per-participant cost.
Alternatives to Study Gateway
RightNow MediaA much larger evangelical video and training library commonly supplied to members through a church-wide license.
FormedCatholic formation and streaming for individuals or parishes, including studies, films, audio, ebooks, and children’s programming.
BibleProjectFree animated Bible overviews, themes, classes, podcasts, and articles with no group subscription or workbook requirement.
The Gospel CoalitionFree Reformed-evangelical articles, courses, podcasts, and conference teaching for groups that can build their own study structure.
BlinkistGeneral nonfiction summaries for rapid discovery, including a broad but doctrinally mixed Christianity shelf—not complete books or a group Bible-study curriculum.Frequently asked questions
How much is Study Gateway?
A personal plan is $7.95 monthly or $79.50 yearly. Up to twenty users cost $19.99 monthly or $199.90 yearly. Church plans start at $49.99 monthly or $499.90 yearly for 21–100 users and scale through published bands.
Does Study Gateway have a free plan?
No permanent full-catalog free tier is advertised. New personal, small-group, and church subscriptions receive a seven-day free trial and then renew automatically unless cancelled.
Are study guides included?
Not necessarily. The subscription covers streaming video, while many courses are designed around a companion book, workbook, or study guide sold separately. Check the course requirements and price materials for every participant.
Can my small group share one personal account?
The official plans are seat-based. The small-group tier grants access to up to twenty users, each with device access. Use the appropriate plan and review current display terms instead of distributing one personal password.
Can I download videos for offline viewing?
Study Gateway support documents mobile offline downloads. Television apps generally stream, so prepare downloads on a supported phone or tablet before travel or unreliable connectivity.
Which teachers are on Study Gateway?
The current store listing names Max Lucado, Anne Graham Lotz, Louie Giglio, Rick Warren, Derwin Gray, Lysa TerKeurst, Jennie Allen, Andy Stanley, Christine Caine, Jada Edwards, Bob Goff, Jim Cymbala, and others from the HarperCollins Christian catalog.
How many devices can use one account?
The current signup page says each user can stream on up to three devices. Group and church plans increase the number of users; they do not require everyone to share one login.
Sources & further reading
More Christian Streaming Apps
The Chip Ingram AppThe official Living on the Edge app puts Chip Ingram’s practical evangelical teaching, daily broadcasts, notes, devotionals, and series in one free media hub—excellent for committed listeners, but narrower and more data-complex than its simple Apple label suggests.
Canon+Canon Press combines 7,000-plus hours of Reformed audiobooks, shows, courses, and films in one ad-free subscription—but both the strong editorial viewpoint and app experience need to fit your household.
ChurchomeJudah and Chelsea Smith's single-church app is free, donor-funded and very good at daily prayer - and the live App Store listing still sells a human Pastor Chat that Churchome closed on 3 April 2026.
Answers.tvAnswers in Genesis charges $4.99 a month for more than 7,000 videos built on one explicit premise: creation happened in six 24-hour days and the earth is thousands of years old, not billions. Whether that makes this the best-value subscription in Christian streaming or an unusable one turns on a single question - and it is not the price.
Grace MediaGrace Community Church gives away its entire video catalogue - documentaries, hymn teaching, a children's series, the Sunday livestream - for nothing, with no ads and no in-app purchases. It is also not the app that holds John MacArthur's sermon archive, and nothing in the store listing tells you that - 
Angel StudiosA publicly traded studio that lets its paying members vote on what gets greenlit, then sells access through three tiers starting at $12 a month - and the series that built the company now streams somewhere else.