- Starting price
- Free for 1–5 users; then $1/user/month
- Free tier
- Yes
- Platforms
- iPhone · Android · Apple-silicon Mac
- Developer
- Rooted Software LLC
- Launched
- 2023
- Updated
- Aug 9, 2026
The verdict
Take Root gives evangelism teams the missing middle between a name in someone’s phone and an enterprise constituent database. Contacts, actions, private notes, team sharing, reminders, search and reports make follow-up visible, while offline performance serves field ministry. The price is unusually accessible. The main caution is not whether follow-up matters; it is whether a church should centralize stories about people who may never have consented. The policy’s statement that Rooted Software does not process sensitive information is hard to reconcile with ministry conversations, religious interest, location and notes. Churches need a fresh data map, least-privilege roles and explicit consent rules before broad rollout.
Try Take Root ↗Opens takeroot.app
Take Root is a specialized evangelism and discipleship customer-relationship manager from Rooted Software LLC. A user creates a contact, records actions such as conversations, visits, messages or notes, schedules follow-up, searches history and can share selected records with a team. Private notes remain visible only to their author. Reporting answers operational questions such as how many gospel conversations occurred and how many people a team served. The product is aimed at churches, pastors, missionary sending organizations, outreach teams and individual disciple-makers.
The design responds to a real ministry failure. A conversation at a park, café, shelter or event can feel important and then disappear because nobody remembers a name, another volunteer assumes follow-up happened, or details remain in one person’s messages. A shared record can assign responsibility and prevent a relationship from being reduced to an encounter count. Take Root’s offline emphasis is particularly relevant: version 1.5.8 focused on speed with weak cellular service, and the official site calls offline performance a key feature rather than an afterthought.
Pricing is direct. Individuals and teams of up to five are free. At six users or more, the official page says the price is $1 per user per month; organizations above 1,000 users should contact sales. A six-person team is therefore $6 monthly, a 20-person team $20, and a 100-person team $100 if the displayed rule applies to every user. The wording does not state whether only seats above five are billed, whether annual invoicing, taxes, nonprofit discounts or minimum terms apply, or what happens if a team downsizes. Confirm the invoice interpretation before budgeting.
Apple records a September 2023 launch, version 1.5.8 from February 2025, iOS 15.1 or later, roughly 55 MB and one US rating at 5.0. The store’s developer-supplied label lists identity-linked contact information, contacts, photos/video, identifiers and product interaction across functionality, personalization and analytics, plus some diagnostics not linked to identity. No accessibility features are declared. This review is based on official pages and stores. We did not create a contact, test synchronization conflict, import an address book, inspect team roles, exercise deletion, verify encryption or conduct a security assessment.
✓ The good
- Purpose-built follow-up - contacts and actions reflect evangelism relationships instead of forcing them into a sales pipeline
- Useful offline behavior - recent maintenance explicitly improves speed when field teams have poor cellular connections
- Free for five users - an individual or small team can use the full basic workflow without a subscription
- Low expansion price - one dollar per user per month is far below many church-management and CRM seat prices
- Private-note separation - personal reflection can remain distinct from team-visible activity when used correctly
- Actions and reminders - conversations, visits and messages become follow-up responsibilities rather than memory alone
- Team reporting - leaders can identify unassigned or missed work without asking everyone to reconstruct a spreadsheet
- Named US company - Rooted Software publishes a postal address, support email and identifiable organizational background
✗ Watch out
- Sensitive-data contradiction - the policy says no sensitive information is processed despite storing evangelism relationships and notes
- Policy is nearly three years old - it predates current pricing and product evolution and reads as a generic Termly template
- Third-party consent is unclear - contacts may be entered about people who never created an account or agreed to ministry tracking
- Offer-wall clause is alarming - the policy contemplates an advertising reward wall even though no such feature is documented
- Future-feature page is stale - imports, languages, smart rules and integrations are described aspirationally rather than in a current matrix
- Roles and export are undocumented - the public site does not explain permissions, audit history, organizational ownership or bulk deletion
- Minimal independent evidence - one US Apple rating cannot establish reliability, adoption or support quality
- No declared accessibility support - Apple does not confirm VoiceOver, Larger Text or other essential field-use accommodations
Best for
- Individuals who need a disciplined reminder after ordinary gospel conversations
- Small outreach teams of five or fewer seeking a free shared system
- Mission and street-ministry teams working with intermittent connectivity
- Churches prepared to create consent, minimization, retention and access policies before import
- Leaders who value relational follow-through more than a large marketing automation stack
Avoid if
- You plan to record immigration, abuse, diagnosis, addiction, homelessness or other high-risk details without explicit governance
- Your organization requires SOC 2 evidence, a DPA, SSO, detailed audit logs or published encryption architecture
- You need verified integrations with an existing ChMS or fundraising CRM today
- You want a public evangelism leaderboard or numerical performance system
- Your volunteers cannot reliably distinguish personal reflection from information appropriate for shared records
What Take Root is
Take Root is a relationship database organized around people and ministry actions. Contacts retain enough context to find someone later; actions capture conversations, messages, visits and notes; reminders prompt the next step; teams share selected information; private notes remain personal; and reporting aggregates activity. Search reconnects a volunteer with prior interactions instead of requiring recall across messages and notebooks.
It is not a complete church-management system, donor CRM, safeguarding database or counseling record. The homepage still labels contact import, multiple languages, organizational smart rules and ChMS/CRM integrations as future features, even though directory research suggests some import/tagging capabilities may exist in current builds. Treat the live app and support documentation as authoritative for availability, not an undated feature wish list.
Why relational follow-up needs more care than sales follow-up
A commercial CRM asks how a lead moves toward a transaction. Take Root asks whether a person received the promised call, visit or invitation. The action model can strengthen integrity: if someone says “we will check on you,” the team can see ownership and return. Offline capture reduces the chance that a field interaction waits until details are forgotten. Private notes also recognize that not every reflection belongs to the whole team.
The analogy to CRM must stop where human dignity begins. A person is not a conversion prospect, and an interaction count is not spiritual fruit. The subject may change their mind, decline contact, request deletion or never have asked to enter a database. Teams should explain the record honestly, record only what supports the agreed relationship, avoid labels that objectify, allow correction and deletion, and measure fulfilled care commitments rather than pressuring volunteers toward impressive numbers.
Contacts, actions and reminders: the core follow-through loop
A contact becomes the anchor for a sequence of actions: conversation, visit, message or note. Search retrieves earlier activity, and a reminder creates a future responsibility. This is the practical advantage over a shared sheet, where chronology, ownership and mobile capture often become inconsistent. Teams can tag or group similar contacts and use reports to see what happened rather than relying on anecdotes.
Use a minimum-data template. A preferred first name, safe contact route, consent status, assigned volunteer and next action may be sufficient. Do not copy an entire phone address book because import is convenient. Avoid speculative notes about belief, mental health or motivation. Separate a direct quotation from the volunteer’s interpretation. Set expiration dates for people who disengage, and provide a human route to correct or delete a record.
Teams, sharing and private notes: visibility must follow purpose
A church outreach team can share contacts and actions so responsibility survives schedule changes. The official site says users share what they want with a team, while private notes are visible only to the author. That distinction can reduce unnecessary disclosure and allow a personal reminder that does not become an organizational assertion. Team reporting then surfaces overall activity without forcing every volunteer into a separate spreadsheet.
Public documentation does not describe granular roles, administrator access to private notes, former-member behavior, screenshots, exports or audit logs. “Private” may mean hidden in the user interface, not end-to-end encrypted from Rooted Software or organizational administrators. Churches should test each role with fictional contacts, remove departed volunteers promptly, require device locks and forbid storing safeguarding, counseling or legal material in private notes merely because teammates cannot see it.
Offline field use and reporting: resilience without surveillance
Take Root’s current iOS release emphasizes faster performance offline and on poor connections. That matters at events, parks, rural locations and service settings where a normal web CRM may stall. An action can be captured near the moment and synchronized later. Reporting aggregates conversations, people ministered to and team activity, giving leaders a way to identify missing follow-up or support an overloaded volunteer.
Offline synchronization creates its own questions: local encryption, shared-device access, conflict resolution, logout behavior and remote wipe are not documented on the marketing site. Reports also influence culture. Use them to find care gaps, not rank evangelists or reduce ministry to conversion funnels. If a metric causes volunteers to record more personal data than the relationship requires, the metric is creating harm. Leaders should review outcomes and consent, not only volume.
Pricing
Individual or small team
Free for 1–5 users
The official pricing page says Take Root is free for individuals and teams with up to five users. It does not describe a trial clock or reduced feature set. This is enough for a small outreach team to test the full contact/action workflow with fictional records before handling real personal information.
Team
$1/user/month from 6 users
The displayed rule applies to teams of six or more, but the page does not clarify whether all seats or only seats above five are charged. If all seats are billed, six users cost $72 per year, 20 cost $240 and 100 cost $1,200 before tax. Confirm billing basis and cancellation terms with Rooted Software.
Large organization
Custom above 1,000 users
Organizations above 1,000 users are directed to sales. A deployment at that scale should negotiate data-processing terms, role hierarchy, regional hosting, support, security evidence, export, retention, incident notification, organizational ownership and offboarding—not merely the per-seat price.
Take Root’s price is one of its strongest competitive advantages. A five-person team pays nothing, and the public rate from six users is one dollar per user each month. That makes experimentation possible without an enterprise sales process.
The wording needs one clarification: “6 or more users $1 per user per month” could mean every seat becomes billable at six or only additional seats do. Budget on the more conservative all-seat interpretation until sales confirms otherwise.
Software cost is not the primary implementation cost. A church needs a data owner, consent language, volunteer training, retention schedule, role review, incident response and export plan. A cheap seat should not lower the standard applied to sensitive ministry information.
Test with fictional records under the free tier. Verify offline conflicts, invitation removal, private-note access, CSV behavior, account deletion and reporting. Move real data only after leadership approves what belongs in the system and what must remain elsewhere.
Where Take Root falls behind
The 2023 privacy notice contradicts the product domain. It explicitly says Rooted Software does not process sensitive personal information. Yet evangelism contact status, discipleship history, private reflections and ministry conversations can reveal religious belief and other intimate circumstances. The policy must classify content based on meaning, not omit it because there is no field named “religion.”
The privacy template includes irrelevant or unexplained clauses. It says the app may display an advertising offer wall that shares a unique user ID, although the product site does not document virtual currency, ads or rewards. It also describes continuous location, Google Maps, camera, calendar, contacts and payments without mapping each permission to a current feature. Unused template possibilities should be removed.
Security marketing is nonspecific. “Secure by default” and “shared and secure” do not identify encryption at rest/in transit, authentication controls, infrastructure, backups, penetration testing, incident notification or subprocessor oversight. A church cannot translate those slogans into a risk assessment.
Governance features are unclear. The homepage calls smart rules and external integrations future work, while no public guide explains role permissions, team ownership, audit history, export, bulk deletion, legal hold or administrator transfer. These details determine whether a growing church can use the app responsibly.
The policy excludes under-18 users unless a parent or guardian consents, but contacts may themselves be minors or members of vulnerable households. A church needs more than account-age language: consent authority, child data minimization and safeguarding boundaries should be explicit.
Accessibility is undocumented. Apple says the developer has not declared supported features. Field teams need VoiceOver, Larger Text, adequate touch targets, offline error announcements, non-color status and low-literacy-friendly forms. Rooted Software should publish and test these rather than assuming a mobile UI is accessible.
Take Root vs. MissionHub vs. a general church CRM
MissionHub is a free Cru product built around spiritual conversations, people and next steps. It has a longer history and a guided individual evangelism model. Take Root emphasizes shared team actions, private notes, reporting and an inexpensive organizational path. Compare their consent, export and current collaboration controls rather than choosing only on brand or price.
A full church CRM or ChMS can already hold people, workflows, groups and communications. It may offer SSO, established roles, audit history and one authoritative member record. It can also feel too heavy for a mobile outreach volunteer and mix people who have not joined the church into membership data. Take Root’s narrow interface is an advantage when the organization can govern a second system.
A spreadsheet is transparent, exportable and familiar but weak at offline mobile capture, reminders, action chronology and least-privilege sharing. It is also easy to email, copy and retain indefinitely. Take Root improves workflow; it does not automatically improve ethics. The deciding question is which system lets the church honor consent, restrict access, follow through and delete responsibly with the people and skills actually available.
The bottom line
Take Root addresses an overlooked but important practice: honoring the next step after a ministry conversation. Its contact/action model, reminders, team sharing, private notes, offline behavior and accessible pricing form a credible product, not a generic sales CRM with Christian labels. The privacy and governance layer is behind the workflow. Do not import real outreach contacts merely because five seats are free. First define consent, minimum fields, access, retention, deletion and prohibited content; test each role; and ask Rooted Software how sensitive content, encryption, subprocessors and exports actually work. With a product-specific policy and stronger security documentation, Take Root could be one of the most practical small-team follow-up tools in this catalog.
Alternatives to Take Root
MissionHubCru’s free relationship and next-step app for personal evangelism, with a longer public operating history.
Disciple ToolsAn open-source disciple-making system with broader movement tracking and greater hosting complexity.Planning Center PeopleA mature church database and workflow platform that may keep follow-up inside an existing ChMS.Breeze ChMSA full church-management product for organizations needing membership, forms, communications and permissions together.Minimal encrypted contact logLess automated, but may be appropriate when the team needs only consent, owner and next action without narrative profiles.Frequently asked questions
What is Take Root?
Take Root is a mobile evangelism and discipleship relationship manager. It stores contacts, conversations and other actions, reminders, team assignments, searchable history, private notes and reports. The purpose is to ensure promised follow-up happens after outreach or ministry encounters. It is not a complete church-management, safeguarding or counseling system.
How much does Take Root cost?
The official page says one to five users are free. Teams with six or more cost $1 per user per month, and organizations above 1,000 users should contact sales. The page does not say whether all seats become billable at six or only the seats above five. Confirm that interpretation, taxes, billing interval, cancellation and data access before subscribing.
Does Take Root work offline?
Yes. The official site calls offline operation a key feature, and iOS version 1.5.8 specifically improved performance offline and with poor cellular connections. Public documentation does not explain local database encryption, synchronization conflicts, shared-device logout or remote wipe. Test those behaviors before collecting real field data.
Are Take Root private notes truly private?
The site says a private note can be viewed only by its author. That describes application visibility, not necessarily end-to-end encryption or immunity from backend, backup, administrator, legal or security access. The public policy does not document the technical boundary. Never use a private-note label as permission to store counseling, safeguarding, immigration, health or other high-risk material.
What personal data does Take Root collect?
Its policy lists names, phone numbers, email and mailing addresses, passwords, authentication and billing data; device, usage and location information; optional calendar, camera and contact access; push notifications; Stripe payment processing; Google Maps and cookies. Apple lists linked contact information, contacts, photos/video, identifiers and interaction. The policy does not adequately classify the ministry notes and religious relationships central to the app.
Can a church enter people who are not members or users?
The workflow is designed to track people a team is ministering to, so third-party records are central. The public policy does not provide a clear notice-and-consent process for those subjects. Churches should explain the record, obtain appropriate permission, minimize content, allow correction or deletion and avoid importing an address book wholesale. Legal requirements vary, but human dignity is not optional.
Is Take Root safe for minors or vulnerable people?
The account policy says the service does not knowingly collect from or market to people under 18 unless a parent or guardian consents. That does not fully govern records about minors entered by adult volunteers. Keep children, abuse disclosures, diagnoses, addresses, shelter locations and safeguarding information out unless a qualified organizational process expressly approves the system and exact data.
Sources & further reading
More Church Management Software
B1 ChurchA genuinely free, open-source church platform - app, website, giving and check-in on one database - run by an Oklahoma nonprofit. The catch is not the price - it is that the vendor own docs call the native app deprecated.
Involv Chat (church.chat)Involv Chat combines ministry-team messaging, rosters, blocked dates and service scheduling in a focused church workspace—useful when leaders protect volunteer consent and resist turning attendance or gifts data into a spiritual score.
ChurchSoftwareChurchSoftware—formerly StoreHouse—offers an unusually broad church-management core for $0, including giving, check-in, accounting and a shared mobile app, while charging transparently for vendor-heavy extras.
Pastor Notes AppA two-app system that lets leaders publish sermon notes and invite live congregational response while attendees use the free Bible Notes companion—but its pricing math, refund terms and app privacy disclosures need correction before a church commits.
Develop.MeDevelop.Me packages course building, cohorts, discussion, assignments, gamification and mobile learning for churches and mission-driven organizations—with unlimited learners on paid plans, but a vague free tier and a 2022 website privacy notice leave procurement questions open.
VisitorReachVisitorReach combines managed digital advertising, local texting numbers, AI-assisted replies, automated follow-up journeys, a mobile inbox, NFC connection cards, coaching, and church-database integrations—but unpublished prices and the sensitivity of seeker conversations make this a procurement decision, not a simple app download.