Church Accounting Software Pricing: What Your Church Will Actually Pay in 2026

Most small and mid-size churches can run their books for $80 a year with QuickBooks Online Plus through TechSoup, which is the cheapest option we found that still handles restricted funds. If you want software built around fund accounting from the start, Aplos lists its plans from $79 a month, and Wave's free plan works only for churches with very simple books.

Below are the real annual costs as of October 2026, what "fund accounting" means in plain terms, and where the hidden costs sit (payroll, support, and setup time).

Annual cost at a glance

Software	Plan	Price (as of Oct 2026)	Annual cost	Users
QuickBooks Online via TechSoup	Plus	$80/yr admin fee	$80	5
QuickBooks Online via TechSoup	Advanced	$170/yr admin fee	$170	25
QuickBooks Online (commercial)	Plus	$140/mo list	$1,680	5 + 2 accountants
Aplos	Lite	$79/mo list*	$948	2
Aplos	Core	$129/mo list*	$1,548	Not confirmed
Aplos	Advanced	From $229/mo*	From $2,748	Not confirmed
Wave	Starter	$0	$0	Not stated
Wave	Pro	$190/yr (or $19/mo)	$190	Not stated
PowerChurch Plus	Desktop (Windows)	$445 one-time	$445 year one, plus support	Not stated
PowerChurch Online	Standard license	$499/yr (or $47/mo)	$499	2 concurrent

*Aplos's pricing page blocked automated access during our research, so these figures come from search excerpts of aplos.com/pricing. Aplos also shows a 50%-off introductory price on some plans. Confirm the current price on Aplos's site before you budget.

Sources: TechSoup's QuickBooks Online page, Intuit's pricing page, Wave pricing, and the PowerChurch catalog.

Fund accounting, explained simply

A business has one pot of money. A church often has several. When a member gives $500 "for the building fund," that money is restricted: you can't use it to pay the electric bill. Fund accounting means your books can answer, at any moment, "How much is in each fund, and what was it spent on?"

There are two common ways to do this:

• Native funds. Purpose-built nonprofit tools such as Aplos and PowerChurch treat each fund as its own self-balancing set of books. PowerChurch describes its module as cash-basis, double-entry fund accounting designed for churches.
• Classes or tags. QuickBooks Online Plus includes class and location tracking, according to TechSoup's listing. You assign each donation and expense to a class (General, Building, Missions) and run reports by class. It works well, but it relies on discipline: an untagged transaction lands in no fund.

If your church has only general, unrestricted giving, you may not need either. Once you accept designated gifts or grants, you do. How restricted funds must be reported is an accounting question, so confirm your approach with your CPA.

QuickBooks Online through TechSoup

Eligible nonprofits, including many churches, can get QuickBooks Online Plus for an $80 annual admin fee or Advanced for $170 through TechSoup. Compared with Intuit's current Plus list price of $140 a month, that is a large gap:

$140 × 12 = $1,680 a year; $1,680 − $80 = $1,600 saved in year one.

The catches, all stated on TechSoup's page:

• It can't be applied to an existing account. You start a new subscription and move your data. Our QuickBooks TechSoup migration guide walks through it.
• Payroll isn't included. TechSoup says add-ons such as Payroll are not available through it, so Intuit bills payroll separately at its own rates.
• One donated subscription per organization, lifetime. Choose Plus or Advanced carefully.

Churches need to be registered and validated with TechSoup first. Our guide on church eligibility for nonprofit discounts covers the IRS-letter question. Full pricing details are on the QuickBooks Online discount page.

Aplos

Aplos is built for nonprofits and churches, so fund accounting is the starting point rather than an add-on. The trade-off is price. Based on Aplos's listed rates:

• Lite at $79/month is $948 a year and includes 2 users. An Aplos help article says additional users cost $20/month each, so a third user adds $240 a year.
• Core at $129/month is $1,548 a year.
• Advanced starts at $229/month, or $2,748 a year.

Even Lite costs $868 more per year than QuickBooks through TechSoup ($948 − $80). Aplos can still be worth it if your treasurer is a volunteer who would struggle to keep classes consistent, or if you value having fund statements built in. We compare the two side by side in Aplos vs QuickBooks.

Wave

Wave's Starter plan is $0, and Pro is $19 a month or $190 a year (Wave pricing). Wave's pricing page doesn't mention nonprofits or fund accounting, and it isn't designed for restricted funds. Payroll is a paid add-on.

Wave suits a small church plant with one bank account, no restricted gifts, and a treasurer who wants something simple. Once you need fund reports for a board or a designated-gifts policy, the $80 TechSoup QuickBooks subscription usually costs less than the workaround time. See free accounting software for nonprofits for a deeper look.

PowerChurch

PowerChurch is one of the few church-specific tools that publishes its prices. Per its catalog, as of October 2026:

• PowerChurch Plus (Windows desktop): $445 for new users, $175 for upgrades. It bundles membership, contributions and fund accounting.
• PowerChurch Online: $499/year or $47/month for a standard license with two concurrent users; each additional two-user license is $299/year or $29/month.

Support is separate for the desktop product. PowerChurch's support policy gives 90 days free with a new purchase, then $40 per call or email, $180 for six months, or $330 for a year. Year-one cost for PowerChurch Plus with a support plan purchased after the free period: $445 + $330 = $775.

The costs that don't show on the pricing page

Payroll. None of the TechSoup QuickBooks plans include payroll. If you run payroll today, budget for it separately, whichever accounting tool you choose.

Clergy pay. Ministers are generally treated as self-employed for Social Security even when they are employees for income tax, and housing allowances have their own rules. IRS Publication 517 explains the treatment. Make sure your payroll setup handles this, and confirm with a CPA who works with churches.

Giving platform imports. Your giving platform deposits net amounts after fees. Recording each deposit as gross giving plus a fee expense takes time every month, and some platforms export cleaner data than others. Our church giving platform fees guide compares the fees themselves.

Setup time. Moving accounting systems means rebuilding your chart of accounts, funds and opening balances. We don't have a reliable published figure for how long this takes; it depends on how clean your current books are.

Which one fits your church

Your situation	Likely best fit	Annual software cost
Tiny church plant, no restricted gifts	Wave Starter	$0
Small church, a few designated funds, comfortable with classes	QuickBooks Plus via TechSoup	$80
Several staff or many bookkeepers	QuickBooks Advanced via TechSoup	$170
Volunteer treasurer who wants funds built in	Aplos Lite	$948 (list)
Want membership, giving and accounting in one Windows tool	PowerChurch Plus	$445 + support

If you're not sure what your church spends across all its software, the free audit lists every subscription and the nonprofit price you qualify for. For other church-specific programs, see church software discounts.