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Planning Center
Planning Center: A church management system proper, if what you need is records, services and check-in rather than outreach and AI drafting
Gloo
Data and AI platform connecting churches, ministries and the people looking for them
As of 1 September 2026, Gloo is free to use. Gloo runs a free tier of messaging and AI tools for churches while making its money from the demand side: ministries, publishers and donors paying to reach people. Softwr lists it under Religion. Gloo is available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Gloo does
Gloo is a Boulder-based technology company serving what it calls the faith ecosystem. For churches it offers Gloo Workspace, a set of AI assisted tools for sermon preparation, communications, social content and ministry insights, plus a text messaging platform with automated workflows, broadcast messaging and a prayer inbox. It also runs Explorer campaigns that route people searching online for help with addiction, anxiety, marriage or grief towards a participating local church. The distinguishing point is the business model. The church-facing tools are free or cheap because churches are not the revenue source. Gloo monetises the other side: ministries, media organisations, publishers, philanthropists and campaign funders who pay to reach and measure engagement with people the network identifies. Gloo has also assembled a portfolio through more than twenty acquisitions of faith sector brands and content businesses, and has committed substantial funds to AI work aimed at the sector. Buyers are churches of all sizes taking the free tier and larger ministries and denominations buying campaign and data services. The trade-off a church board should weigh is data governance: participation means congregant and enquirer interactions flow through a commercial network whose customers are third parties, and the terms governing that are worth legal review before signing up an entire congregation.
What people use it for
- A church with no communications budget wanting AI drafting and mass texting without a subscription
- A congregation that wants to be the local referral destination for people searching online for help with addiction or anxiety
- A denomination seeking engagement data across its member churches rather than per-church anecdotes
- A ministry running a national awareness campaign that needs to route responders to nearby churches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Gloo.
- Churches are not the paying customer, so the product roadmap answers to ministries, funders and campaign buyers whose interests do not always match a local congregation.
- Participation routes congregant and enquirer interactions through a commercial data network, and a church board should have the data terms reviewed before enrolling a congregation rather than after.
- It is not a church management system: there is no membership database, giving ledger, child check-in or rostering, so it sits alongside an existing ChMS rather than replacing one.
- Free message credits are capped monthly, and a church that builds its weekly communications on texting will exceed them and move to paid volume where the effective cost is comparable to dedicated messaging vendors.
- The company has grown by acquiring more than twenty brands, and integrating that many products takes time, so overlap and inconsistency between the acquired tools is visible to users.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Gloo
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- GloovsPushpay
Pushpay: Where congregation communication and giving need to sit on a paid platform your church controls
Pricing
What Gloo costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- Core Workspace AI tools
- Monthly message credit allowance
- Prayer inbox
- No card required
Gloo+ and campaign services
On request
- Higher message volumes and additional media features
- Explorer campaign participation
- Ministry and denomination data services
- Priced by organisation and campaign, quoted
Capabilities
Features
Gloo Workspace
AI assistants for sermon preparation, communications drafting and social content
Church messaging
Two-way texting, broadcast messaging and automated follow-up sequences
Prayer inbox
Centralised intake and routing of prayer requests
Explorer campaigns
Routing of people searching online for help to a participating local church
Ministry insights
Community and engagement data reporting for church leaders
Aggregated content and research
Sector research, benchmarking data and partner content
Free tier
Message credits and core tools at no cost
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is this the same as Gloo Gateway the API product?
No. This is gloo.com, the faith sector data and AI platform. Gloo Gateway is an unrelated API gateway product from a different company.
Why is it free for churches?
Because churches are not the revenue source. Ministries, publishers, philanthropists and campaign funders pay to reach and measure engagement with the audience the network reaches.
Does it replace our church management software?
No. There is no membership ledger, giving records, check-in or volunteer rostering. Keep your ChMS.
What happens to data about people who contact us through Explorer?
That is the question to put in writing to Gloo before joining. Enquirer data flows through a commercial network, and the governing terms should be reviewed by whoever advises your board.
Keep looking
Where to go from Gloo
- Gloo alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Gloo pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Gloo badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Religion softwareThe full category
- Best Religion softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Religion software for
Compare Gloo with
- Planning Center
- Pushpay
- Ministry Scheduler Pro
- PastorsLine
- Church Community Builder
- Elvanto
- Kindrid
- Muslim Pro
- SecureGive
- Text In Church
- Breeze
- Servant Keeper
- ShelbyNext Membership
- SimpleChurch CRM
- The Church App
- Tithely Church App
- Text In Church
- Tithely Church App
Other Religion software
Complete church management platform for services, volunteers, and giving
Free plan7 researched notesSocial network platform for churches to build community and engage members
8 researched notesChurch management with strong volunteer rostering, now owned by Tithe.ly
From $72/mo12 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Gloo, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Gloo
Gloo alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Gloo pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Gloo
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Gloo badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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