Flocknote Review, Pricing & Features: Smarter texting and email for your church

Flocknote Pricing & Cost

Flocknote is free for ministries under 40 members. Flocknotes prices for paid plans are based on your number of members, which is defined by the number of contacts you actually have in the system:

Additional costs include:

Cancellation: Flocknote customers can cancel at any time.

To see the exact price for your number of members, visit Flocknote here.

Table of Contents

• Full Review
• Flocknote Cost
• Key Features
  • Getting Started
  • Communication Channels
  • Groups
  • Conversations
  • Advanced Features
  • Analytics
  • Flocknote vs. Text In Church
• Is Flocknote right for you?

Full Review: Flocknote Smarter Texting and Email for Your Church

Flocknote was founded in 2009 by CEO Matthew Warner to help churches get better at reaching the right people at the right time. Flocknote's web-based solution empowers church leaders to reach their people through text or email whenever they need to, which results in improved communication, higher attendance, increased stewardship, improved fundraising and a more connected church. Over 100,000 church leaders use Flocknote to communicate with their members. Flocknote has 10 full-time employees today.

Flocknote makes it easy to communicate with individuals and groups through email and text message. The system comes with easy-to-use message builders that allow you to design, test, and schedule your communications. In Flocknote, you can create an unlimited amount of groups and sub-groups to ensure that you can send tailored messages to exactly the audience you wish. Within each group, it is easy to see the latest messages and respond directly inside the system. Finally, the system has helpful analytics for understanding the communication behaviors of your church.

Overall, we recommend Flocknote to any church that wants a dedicated email and text communication system. A key difference between Flocknote and alternatives is that Flocknote is priced based upon members, and not the number of messages you send. Therefore, Flocknote is ideal for teams that communicate with high volume. Also, Flocknote does not integrate with church management systems like Breeze, Planning Center, or Church Community Builder. If you prefer a tool with pre-built integrations, we recommend evaluating PastorsLine or Text In Church.

Key Features

Below, we'll discuss some of the key features of Flocknote, and how they would benefit your church. We have also included images to give you a sense of the look and feel of the software.

Getting Started

Registering for Flocknote takes less than 5 minutes. When you register, Flocknote provides a friendly step-by-step guide for setting up your account. The system will help you add your members, create your groups, set a text keyword, add your custom branding, and show you how to create and send emails and text messages. Here is a look at the main dashboard in Flocknote when you register:

Adding members to Flocknote is easy. You can add new members through the administration portal in bulk with a CSV file, or one at a time using the application interface. Members can also sign-up themselves though using text-to-join, or through a widget that you can embed on your website. With text-to-join, all your members have to do to sign up is text your unique keyword from their phones. Flocknote will capture their number and follow up automatically with a custom text message from you.

Communication channels

Flocknote allows you to communicate through email and text message. Any subscription allows you to send unlimited emails and text messages. Flocknote also offers automated voice calls for $0.09 per call.

The email editor is user-friendly and comes with a handful of valuable and time-saving features. You can use a pre-built email templates, or create an email yourself with as many sections as you would like with custom layouts and design. Flocknote also allows you to add attachments, buttons, photos, videos, surveys, and events with RSVP functionality directly into any email. Finally, you can send yourself test messages in one click and schedule an email for future delivery. Here's a look at Flocknote's email builder:

It's also easy to access the text builder with one click. The text builder is understandably more simple than the email builder. To send a message, all you have to do is select the recipient(s), type the copy, and decide if you want to send the text immediately or schedule for the future. Here's the text builder in Flocknote:

Groups

Flocknote allows you to create as many groups as you would like. This means you can create a group for every ministry, department and sub-group you would like. Additionally, you can create sub-groups that exist within their parent group for more granular communication. You can add members to a group inside the application, or members can join groups through a group-specific widget you place on your website.

Inside of groups, you can see all previously sent notes as well as the people in the group. You can click into any note to see the two-way or group conversation and respond right away. This is a view of the group page in Flocknote:

Conversations

Flocknote streamlines your ability to have one-way, two-way and group conversations with your organization. You can access all conversations within each group. From there, you can click into any conversation thread and read the latest messages and respond. In our tests, text messages were sent and delivered quickly within a minute or two. You can also add private notes for yourself to review later. One really convenient feature is that members do not need to register for any account or download any application to participate – it works seamlessly with their existing email and text systems.

Here's what the conversation interface looks like for a text thread we tested. One minor setback is that you sometimes have to exit and reload the thread to see the latest messages.

Advanced Features

RSVP: Flocknote allows you to add an RSVP widget to your emails with one-click. Recipients can reply with 'yes','no, or 'maybe', and you are able to see the specific people who selected each response.

Polling: Flocknote also allows you to add polls to your emails with one-click. At this time, polls can only be multiple choice. You can view the results of your polls directly in Flocknote.

Automated posts to Facebook and Twitter: When you send an email or text in Flocknote, you can simultaneously post the message to a linked Facebook or Twitter business account.

Spanish Friendly: Flocknote supports text-to-join in Spanish. Your Spanish-speakers will simply reply to a different number.

Analytics

Flocknotes provides a useful analytics portal to help you see the latest communications across your organization and see how well specific groups are doing at communicating. In the main dashboard, you can select a custom date range and see how many groups have sent how many notes to how many people, what percentage of emails were opened and read, who is sending the most notes, and more.

Flocknote also offers analytics for specific notes. For each note, you can see how many people were reached, the percentage that opened and read the message along with the time that they opened it, the percentage that clicked a link in your email, and any unsubscribes.

Flocknote vs. Text In Church

Flocknote and Text In Church are two of the leaders in the church communications space. When comparing Flocknote vs. Text In Church, there are a few key differences to keep in mind:

Is Flocknote right for you?

Overall, we recommend Flocknote to any church that wants a dedicated email and text communication system. A key difference between Flocknote and alternatives is that Flocknote is priced based upon members, and not the number of messages you send. Therefore, Flocknote is ideal for teams that communicate with high volume. Also, Flocknote does not integrate with church management systems like Breeze, Planning Center, or Church Community Builder. If you prefer a tool with pre-built integrations, we recommend evaluating PastorsLine or Text In Church. To learn more and start your free trial with Flocknote visit them here.