Over the past decade, private equity has quietly purchased most of the major church software platforms. This episode explains what that means for churches — and what the alternatives are.

Micheal and Kari cover what open source actually means, the private equity consolidation happening across church software, and the real risk of vendor lock-in. Companies covered include Ministry Brands (30+ brands, over 90,000 organizations), Pushpay and Church Community Builder, Tithely and Breeze, ACS Technologies, and Subsplash (sold to Roper Technologies in 2025). They also cover Gloo, which targets 245 million Americans with church-related data and cut its free tier by 95% after going public.

Honest comparison: paid software is not bad, and some platforms like Planning Center have legal protections against being sold. The concern is PE ownership and what happens when the business model shifts.

Alternatives covered: Planning Center (Ministry Centered Foundation — legally cannot be sold), Rock RMS (open source for larger churches with technical capacity), and ChurchApps (free, open source, built for churches without IT staff).

Try It This Week: Google your current church software provider plus the words "private equity" or "acquired by" and see what comes up.

Resources:
Church Software Transparency research: https://churchapps.org/church-software-transparency
Planning Center commitment: https://www.planningcenter.com/blog/2024/06/a-commitment-for-our-customers-never-being-acquired
Rock RMS: https://rockrms.com
github.com/ChurchApps