Frequently Asked Questions

Chapel Desk is a comprehensive website platform designed specifically for churches and religious organizations. We provide everything you need to create, manage, and grow your online presence - from event management and sermons to member directories and automated birthday wishes. No technical skills required!

You can have a beautiful church website up and running in minutes! Simply create an account, choose your theme, and start adding your content. Our intuitive interface guides you through every step. Most churches have their basic site ready within 30 minutes.

Not at all! Chapel Desk is designed for everyone, regardless of technical experience. Our drag-and-drop interface, pre-built templates, and step-by-step guides make it easy for anyone to create and manage a professional church website. If you can use email, you can use Chapel Desk.

Yes! You can enroll for free and explore Chapel Desk with no credit card required. Our free trial gives you access to core features so you can see how easy it is to create your church website. Upgrade to a paid plan when you're ready to go live.

We offer three plans to fit different church sizes:

• Basic: Perfect for small churches - includes essential features like events, blog, and gallery
• Standard: Great for growing churches - adds custom domain, member directory, and automated wishes
• Premium: Complete solution - includes everything plus team access, advanced analytics, and priority support

All plans include SSL security, automatic backups, and 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Absolutely! You can cancel your subscription at any time with no penalties. Your cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period, so you can continue using the service until then. We don't believe in locking you in - you stay because you love it, not because you have to.

Yes! When you choose annual billing, you save up to 20% compared to monthly payments. This is a great option for churches that are committed to maintaining their online presence long-term.

Yes! On our Standard and Premium plans, you can connect your own custom domain (like www.yourchurch.com). We provide step-by-step instructions for connecting your domain, and we'll handle the SSL certificate automatically to keep your site secure. You can also use our free subdomain (yourchurch.chapeldesk.com) on any plan.

Our Member Directory helps your congregation stay connected! Members can create profiles with contact information, photos, and celebration dates (birthdays, anniversaries). You control privacy settings and who can view what. It's a great way to help new members get to know the community and for everyone to stay in touch.

Automated Wishes is our unique feature that automatically sends birthday, anniversary, and other celebration greetings to your members via email. You can customize the templates, choose which celebrations to recognize, and set when wishes are sent. It's a wonderful way to show your congregation you care, without having to remember every date manually!

Yes! Chapel Desk integrates with secure payment processors like Stripe, allowing you to accept online donations and tithes safely. You can customize the donation button, set suggested amounts, and track donations through our dashboard. All payments are processed securely and comply with industry standards.

Absolutely! Our Sermon Management feature lets you upload audio and video sermons, organize them by series, add transcripts, and make them easily searchable. You can embed videos from YouTube or Vimeo, or upload files directly. Members can browse sermons by date, speaker, series, or topic.

Daily Bible Verse is our free service that sends inspiring scripture and thoughtful reflections to subscribers every morning at 7 AM. People can sign up directly from your church website, and verses are tailored to different Christian denominations (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, etc.). It's a great way to help your community start each day grounded in faith - completely free!

Security is our top priority. All data is encrypted in transit using SSL/TLS, we perform regular automated backups, and our infrastructure follows industry best practices. We're compliant with GDPR and other privacy regulations. Your church's data is stored securely and never shared with third parties without your permission.

Yes! All Chapel Desk websites are fully responsive and look great on desktops, tablets, and smartphones. With more people browsing on mobile devices, we've designed every theme to automatically adapt to different screen sizes. Your content will be easy to read and navigate regardless of the device.

We provide email support at [email protected] for all customers. Our team typically responds within 24 hours on business days. Premium plan subscribers get priority support with faster response times. We also have extensive documentation, video tutorials, and help articles to guide you through common tasks.

Yes! Our Team Access feature (available on Premium plans) allows you to add multiple administrators with different permission levels. You can have someone manage events, another handle blog posts, and control who has access to sensitive areas like member data or billing. It's perfect for sharing the workload among your church staff and volunteers.

Yes! We automatically backup all your data regularly. However, we recommend keeping your own backups of critical content as an extra precaution. You can export your content at any time from the dashboard.

Yes! We can help you migrate from other church website platforms. While we don't have fully automated migration yet, you can export your content from your current platform and import it into Chapel Desk. For larger migrations, contact our support team at [email protected] and we'll guide you through the process.

Absolutely! While we provide beautiful pre-designed themes, you can customize colors, fonts, and layouts to match your church's branding. Our Theme Management tool lets you adjust the color scheme, upload your logo, and customize navigation menus. No coding knowledge required!

If you cancel your subscription, you'll continue to have access until the end of your billing period. After that, your website will no longer be publicly accessible, but we'll keep your data for a reasonable period in case you decide to return. We recommend exporting your content before canceling if you want to keep a permanent copy.