Rock RMS is an open-source Church Management System (ChMS) designed to help churches and parishes deepen relationships, streamline operations, and support spiritual growth. More than just a database, Rock offers integrated tools for people management, sacrament tracking, communications, online giving, event registration, volunteer scheduling, and discipleship engagement.
Built by churches, for churches, Rock's open architecture and workflows allow it to adapt to any unique ministry…
$410
per year (for a church of 100 people)
SimpleTexting
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
SimpleTexting is an SMS marketing and text messaging service from the company of the same name headquartered in Miami Beach.
Rock RMS is a great CMS for churches passionate about technology and innovation. It requires advanced developing skills to operate, which can be a challenge - but there are several partners available for contracting work. Successful usage of Rock RMS opens up the door for endless possibilities - from dynamic and beautiful websites, automations that serve both internal (staff) and external (customer) needs, and unending possibilities for innovative solutions!
SimpleTexting has been wonderful for the purposes for which we signed up. We wanted an easy-to-use platform that allowed 2-way texting, assigned a phone number, had the ability to collect phone numbers/contact easily (whether through an import or a user sign-up, spoiler SimpleTexting has both), etc. It has provided all of that and more easily, without a contract. And the platform is so easy to use for our team. One of the only issues we're having is wanting to expand our use of SimpleTexting, and using multiple options for texting (i.e., shortcode, toll-free, landline/business enabling) has been difficult on one account.
SimpleTexting provides excellent value based on their messaging packages but also by allowing its customers to utilize multiple keywords. This is helpful for our organization because we utilize this software across many different departments.
SimpleTexting analytics and reporting is a key strength of the software. The numbers they report weigh heavily on what we determine as a success of un-successful communication campaign.
SImpleTexting has excellent customer service available at the click of a button. Their team has always been available and offered solutions when we have had questions or run into a problem.
A lot of glitches and bugs, with promised fixes that keep dragging on for some time.
Mobile notifications are very buggy. You have to keep force-closing the app and re-opening it multiple times to get the notifications to refresh.
Constant toggling of 'Unread' and 'All' on mobile or desktop to get the notifications to clear and show up as opened, otherwise it will imply it's not read.
In my opinion, you will need to have developers on your team, or partner with contractors in order to get Rock RMS set up properly and keep in maintained. I think you will also need to have Rock RMS Super Users who can troubleshoot bugs and handle basic requests from internal staff. There are also several functions that every day staff use which are very user friendly (i.e. Group Viewer, content channels, Group Scheduler, communication templates.)
With SimpleTexting updating little things here and there almost daily. We reach out to their support team constantly. They have one of the best response rates I have ever experienced! Normally it takes less than a minute to speak to a real person, but even if they are busy they have an answer bot send you articles to see if you can solve the issue yourself first! One of the best support teams ever
In my experience, Rock RMS is much more customizable, robust, and community focused than PCO. Planning Center's sweet spot is music management and volunteer scheduling, but I think Rock RMS outshines PCO with its integration of web sites and mobile apps, automations and jobs, workflows, and its focus on community. There are tons of free and paid plugins for Rock RMS, as well as multiple Rock RMS partners to choose from.
SimpleTexting is just simple. From the pricing to the interface, it stacks up against the competition by just being as powerful and simple as possible. No extra distractions or confusion. For our company, we wanted texting software that we could easily upsell and integrate into our overall marketing campaigns and SimpleTexting did just that.
Because we are able to reach more people through subscribing, our number of donations has increased and the number of volunteers has increased. We have gone from an average of 5 volunteers an even to 25-30. Our donations increased by 25%.
