ShareFaith Vs Graceway Media

Want to improve your church’s media program, but really don’t know where to start? Looking to sign up for a church media website, but not really sure which one is best for your church? Well I recently made a post mentioning some very brief differences between CreationSwap, ShareFaith and Graceway Media. I decided I would do some research and bring you an in-depth analysis between the three of us. While this post is titled ShareFaith vs. Graceway Media also wanted to introduce the benefits of CreationSwap. It’s not something you’d necessarily join, while the other two require a membership fee, so we’re focusing on those. This will be a completely unbiased approach considering I’ve recently been exposed to all three. I have not developed allegiances to any of them in particular, however I have used material from each. We’ll take a look at elements such as: cost, design quality, customization, and features. My goal is to save you the time of doing the research while being able to make an intelligent decision about what is right for your church.

We will start with CreationSwap. I’ll go through each one separately and then compare them at the end. This is its stated purpose: “Find copyright-free photos, church bulletins, sermon art, logos, and more freely shared or sold by Christian artists around the world. Also, visit our network to connect with artists, view portfolios or post jobs for free.

cost

The biggest question on everyone’s mind is: How much is this going to cost me? CreationSwap is the only one of these three media companies to offer free downloads They also include many designs that you must purchase if you want to use them. All printed material, including postcards, newsletters, banners, and invitations, requires some form of payment. The cost differs depending on the item you are purchasing. They offer a free “membership”, although everything is available whether you sign up or not.

design quality

The second most important question you probably want to know besides cost is: How good are your materials? Due to the nature of the website, the quality is unpredictable. Designers can create their own stuff and upload it for use. You may find some really cool designs, and again, you may not see much that you like at all. I would check this site at least once a week to see what new designs have come up and see if anything might be useful to you.

personalization

After choosing a design, you probably want to know how easy it is to customize it for your church. If you’re proficient in Photoshop, some of the downloads come with PSD files that allow editing. Others only provide JPG image files, making it impossible to edit text and customize for your church unless you have some advanced photo editing skills.

Characteristic

• Free downloads

• Printing network

• Community discussion and blog posts

• Reviews on design concepts

• Possibility to sell your work of art

One of the most valuable tools for a designer, apart from the downloads themselves, is the critiques that they offer to the designs. Even if you don’t post your own designs for feedback, you can take a look at what some designers have created and what others are saying about it. this provides valuable information to improve your designs for maximum efficiency.

ShareFaith’s “About” statement is too long to post here, but the gist is towards the beginning: “To provide the best solutions in church digital media, we aim to partner with churches and ministries, providing technology solutions and communication tools that will allow them to communicate the gospel more effectively.” To learn more about them, visit their About page.

cost

Their normal price is set at $149/year, according to their signup page, however right now they have a special 15% off if you join within a certain time. Which means that at the time of writing, the price to join is $126.65/year. They don’t offer free stuff as normal, but they do offer a 10-day free trial. The limitations of that free trial are listed on their website. You can download an unlimited number of files during your trial, but only one sermon media loop, and the websites are restricted to members only.

design quality

As a designer, my personal opinion of ShareFaith is that their design work is average to slightly above average. Some look good, while others seem too busy. A missionary friend of mine designed a poster based on one of the ShareFaith backgrounds and then asked me to spice it up a bit. I ended up throwing everything out and starting from scratch by buying a stock image and creating it in Photoshop.

personalization

This is a great advantage for ShareFaith. Open any of their Powerpoint files and you’ll see how many different variations of blank slide backgrounds they have available for you to use, as well as a few different service announcement files. You can download the Powerpoint itself or a ZIP file to get the raw JPGs and edit them yourself.

Characteristic

• PowerPoint sermons

• Videos and media clips

• Website templates

• Newsletters

• Tips and ideas

• Blogging

• And more…

ShareFaith is the only place where you will find everything you may need for your church. They even offer a comparison chart on their website that includes Graceway Media. However, the one thing this chart doesn’t talk about is the quality of the design, which is Graceway Media’s biggest asset.

Graceway’s stated history is “Graceway Media began in 2006 as PowerPoint Sermons, providing sermon titles and layouts. The goal was to help pastors with their sermon presentation by providing quality layouts and a selection to choose from. Since then, Our passion to help churches preach, teach and present the Gospel has led us to go beyond sermons and include designs for worship, specific ministries, special events, holidays and more to help the church with all the aspects of design needs.

cost

The cost of a Graceway Media membership is $249/year for still images or motion graphics separately and a striking $399/year for your Total Media package. They offer a free trial membership that gives you access to 24 of their design styles. On top of that, Graceway Media is by far the most expensive of the bunch.

design quality

This is where Graceway Media shines. One look at their designs will have you drooling for more. Each layout includes a large sermon title, a Powerpoint slide with the sermon title in the corner, and a blank Powerpoint slide. The motion graphics are HD quality that doesn’t have that cheap look that some of the free media loop places have. My initial idea of ​​the price was high, but after looking at their charts, I was almost able to rationalize buying a membership for such great quality.

personalization

Graceway also offers the best customization system. They offer you the blank slide (as already mentioned), PSD files for those who can change the graphics themselves, and a title change service for those who can’t change the slides themselves. But, unsurprisingly looking at the price tag, they charge a small amount for this service. They don’t outright state the price of their credit, but they do offer 10 free credits upon joining that they boast of being worth $50, meaning you would pay $5 per slide.

Characteristic

• High definition still images

• HD animated graphics

• Personalization

• Banners

• Blog

Graceway is a bit low on features, limiting its work to sermon graphics and worship video loops.

So who wins?

In general, Graceway Media feels like a more personal ministry to me. They have a photo of the entire team posted on their website that puts faces to the ministry. Since signing up for their free trial, they’ve contacted me twice asking if I liked it and if I was interested in signing up for membership. But honestly, I can’t speak for ShareFaith as I personally don’t have an account, although my church does. Well, let’s start counting the points and see who wins.

cost

CreationSwap is free, for the most part, so you should normally visit this website looking for what you can use. If you find something you like and it costs some money, feel free to pay for it if you want, but you will pay individually for each item. Between the two membership sites, ShareFaith wins the Cost prize.

design quality

Graceway Media takes home this award. I have looked at many church media resource websites and GraceWay Media tops them all. Nothing is sharper or better designed than Graceway material.

personalization

This is a tie between ShareFaith and Graceway. ShareFaith offers many materials to customize your own materials, but that’s about it. Graceway offers a more sophisticated title change service, but it will cost you every time you want it. For this reason, each receives one point.

Characteristic

ShareFaith easily takes the gold for features. His own chart, mentioned above, makes it obvious. ShareFaith is the complete church media package that has everything you’ll ever need.

recommendations

ShareFaith beats Graceway Media 3-2, unless you include Graceway’s kindness in the mix, then it’s a 3-3 tie. The cold, hard truth is that ShareFaith is cheaper and many churches need cheaper. They also offer more features, so for the church on a budget, ShareFaith is the only option that is feasible. However, if your church can afford to spend a little more, you’ll get much better design quality from Graceway Media. Oh, and don’t forget that no matter who you are, you should visit CreationSwap for all the latest goodies.

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