Our church is behind the curve with an updated website, ChMS, web interface for congregation, integrated registration/payment, etc. We’ll get there. In the meantime though we’re looking for a user-friendly web-form builder for online registration and intake (including e.g., youth emergency forms, various event/camp/retreat registrations) AND payments. We’ve been using some pdf forms (download, fill out, email back) and mostly Google forms together with PayPal (2 separate steps) but these aren’t serving our needs well.
We’re looking at JotForm, WuFoo, and CoffeeCup. Any one of these a great choice, or would you recommend another? (So far JotForm is at the top of the list.)
Thank you in advance for your recommendations. I’ve really appreciated the wisdom held and shared by the CITRT network!
At my prior church, we used an earlier version of Planning Center Registrations. Their site is modern, easy-to-use, easy-to-set-up, and will take and handle monies for you. Once you build a event there is an easy way to copy a link and paste it into your older website.
We have used Wufoo for several years and absolutely love it. It integrates with PayPal, Stripe, and several other payment vendors. It’s easy to use even for the average user.
Take a look at EventZilla and RegFox to see if they would meet your needs. For about $1 per registration, you get the registration form with custom questions, confirmation emails, etc. These should hook into your merchant account (via Authorize.net), if you have one, or your PayPal account to collect the payments. You could also have them handle the payment, but that will likely be more expensive.
I couple years ago I used WuFoo, but the payment collection was clunky and practically the 2-step process you mentioned. The user received the “you are registered!” email before payment was collected which violates what I call the Golden Rule of Event Registration: A registration isn’t a registration until we have the money in-hand!
If you’re looking for a more premium option, EventBrite will almost certainly work for you… at a price!
Hi Brian… I haven’t used RegFox. We’ve used EventZilla a few times and been happy. But mostly I use the EventEspresso plug-in for our WordPress website. I like the whole registration experience hosted on the church website. Our ChMS is CCB which does have some basic forms with payment, but it can’t be considered to be a full event registration platform.
Thank you–these are all good registration/payment options that we’ll research. Almost as important as registration & payment forms are workflow/process forms. E.g., a facilities setup layout, or an intake form to plan an event (we have a paper version but are hoping to streamline the process with an online form). What do you use now?