You did not set out to spend this much on software. You signed up for one tool to handle the website, another for the members, a third for payments, and somewhere along the way the invoices started arriving from directions you had forgotten about. Some charge per member, so the bill rises as the organisation grows. Some lock useful features behind a higher tier, so you upgrade to get the one thing you need and find yourself paying for a dozen things you do not. Some make you talk to a salesperson before you can even see the price.

This guide is for the person who keeps the organisation running — the Church Administrator preparing for Sunday, the club Secretary clearing the inbox before the committee meeting, the Lodge Secretary getting ready for Stated Meeting, the store owner reviewing the month's numbers. It covers what Daviah does and does not do about this one pain, for each of those four kinds of organisation.

What you can find out before you spend anything

Signing up is free and asks for no card, no phone number and no domain — only a name, an email address and a password. From that moment, you can build and save your whole site and view it through a private preview link. Nothing expires on the free plan. The site is not public until you choose a paid plan.

That means you can see what you are getting before you enter payment details. The two paid plans cost $29.99 a month or $300 a year for the Website plan, and $79.99 a month or $819.99 a year for Website and Members. Both prices are the same whatever the size of your organisation — there is no per-member scaling.

Month to month, with no contract to sign

Both paid plans run month to month. There is no annual contract to sign. Paying yearly costs less — it saves $59.88 on the Website plan and $139.89 on Website and Members — but it is a choice, not a requirement.

If a payment fails, nothing is withheld for ten days, and three emails go out before anything stops. If an organisation stops paying, its records stay readable, its CSV exports still work, and the site and office come back as soon as it pays again.

Card payments: Daviah takes no cut

When your organisation takes card payments, the money goes straight to your own Stripe account. Your organisation is the merchant. You pay Stripe's fees directly. Daviah takes no cut of the money.

This is true for every kind of organisation on the platform — congregations collecting giving, clubs collecting subscriptions, lodges collecting dues, stores taking orders at the counter.

For congregations: pricing that does not punish growth

Church software has a habit of charging more as the congregation grows — more members in the database means a higher tier, a higher tier means a sales conversation, and the sales conversation ends with a contract. For a small congregation, the cumulative cost of separate tools for the website, the giving records and the communications can become one of the largest items in the monthly budget.

With Daviah, the price is the same whatever the size of the congregation. The office, the page editor and the member portal use each kind's own words — a church sees Congregation and Giving, not a lodge's vocabulary. The Church Administrator, Treasurer and Pastor can each have their own login. What this guide does not address is the cost of per-feature charges or the cumulative cost of multiple existing subscriptions being replaced — those depend on what your church currently pays for.

For the specifics of how this plays out for churches, see the guide to unpredictable and unaffordable pricing for churches.

For clubs: cost, lock-in and the fear of leaving

Clubs tend to accumulate tools because each new problem seems to require a new subscription. The website is one product, the membership database is another, the payment collection is a third. Switching away from any one of them can mean rebuilding something from scratch.

The records you build in Daviah stay readable and exportable — members, dues, payments, officers — if you stop paying. The month-to-month terms mean there is no contract trapping you in. What this guide does not address is pricing transparency as a formal commitment or ease of learning — those are fair questions to test during the free plan period.

The guide to software cost, complexity and fragility for clubs goes into the specifics.

For lodges: a bill that does not grow with the membership roll

A small lodge typically has a Secretary and a Treasurer who are volunteers. When a software vendor raises prices, there is no budget meeting to approve the increase; it simply arrives on the card statement.

Daviah's flat pricing means the fee is the same whatever the size of the Membership. If the lodge stops paying, the membership records, dues history and officer list remain readable and exportable as CSV. What this guide cannot claim is that the software is easy to learn or that switching away is painless in every respect — those are worth testing during the free plan period.

The guide to membership software cost and usability for lodges covers the specifics.

For stores: transaction fees and the total that surprises you

Store owners who use hosted ordering platforms often discover the real cost only after several months: a base subscription, plus transaction fees on top, plus the app for the feature the base plan did not include. The advertised price and the actual monthly bill are different numbers.

When a store takes card orders through Daviah, the money goes to the store's own Stripe account. Daviah takes no cut. Publishing a catalogue on the website is included in the paid plans without paying separately for ordering. What Daviah does not address is mandatory add-on app costs from third parties or currency conversion charges on Stripe's side — those are outside its control.

The guide to platform costs and hidden fees for stores has the detail.

Questions

Do I need a card to sign up?

No. Signing up asks only for a name, an email address and a password. You can build and save your whole site on the free plan, preview it through a private link, and decide whether to publish it without entering payment details at any point.

Does the price go up if the organisation gets bigger?

No. Both paid plans are priced per organisation, not per member. The monthly or yearly fee is the same whatever the size of your membership or congregation.

What happens to our records if we stop paying?

If an organisation stops paying, its records stay readable and its CSV exports — members, dues, payments, officers — still work. The site and office come back as soon as it pays again.

Is there a contract we have to sign?

No. Both paid plans run month to month. Paying yearly costs less, but it is optional.

Does Daviah take a percentage of card payments?

No. Card payments go directly to the organisation's own Stripe account. The organisation is the merchant and pays Stripe's fees directly. Daviah takes no cut of the money collected.

What do the paid plans actually cost?

The Website plan is $29.99 a month or $300 a year. Website and Members is $79.99 a month or $819.99 a year. Those prices are the same for every organisation, regardless of size.

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