# GiftWell vs Ministry Way

> Ministry Way's free plan allows one CSV upload of up to 10 responses, 10 AI analyses, unlimited ministries and a form builder; Pro is $100 a month for unlimited responses, QR codes, emailed results, email and SMS follow-up, a kanban pipeline and team access. Its AI scores each person against every ministry and ranks them Excellent, Strong or Good fit; its free gifts test is 27 questions over 9 gifts and reports "top gifts"; Planning Center is in beta and Breeze is coming. GiftWell is free for 50 people and $100 a year for 150, measures the same nine gifts with five statements each, written against the published research, shows bands with the margin drawn, syncs Planning Center both ways on every plan, and gives the team a follow-up list with the person's words, consent and a 90-day check. Both use AI; they point it at different things. Ministry Way's AI rates people. GiftWell's works your list, reads your website and briefs your staff, and never rates anyone. Pick Ministry Way for AI matching and SMS pipelines; pick GiftWell for an honest test, a human conversation and an assistant that does the clerical work.

Checked: 2026-10-20 (prices and features are from each vendor's own pages on that date)
Canonical: https://giftwell.app/compare/giftwell-vs-ministry-way

## At a glance

As of 20 October 2026, from each vendor's own pages.

| | Ministry Way | GiftWell |
|---|---|---|
| Price | free: one CSV upload of up to 10 responses, 10 AI analyses; Pro $100/mo | free for 50 people; $100/yr for 150; $500/yr for 500; custom above; leaders free |
| The test | a form the church builds, or a free 27-question test over 9 gifts | about 60 behaviour statements, 9 gifts, about 10 minutes, no account; written against published research |
| How a result is shown | "top gifts"; each person rated against every ministry as Excellent, Strong or Good fit by AI | bands with a ±2 margin drawn, Romans 12 order, never ranked; no fit score |
| For the team | kanban pipeline, email and SMS follow-up, team access (Pro) | follow-up list with statuses, words and consent; two friends' confirmations; serving teams; placements with a 90-day check; weekly digest; leaders see only their ministries; signals and insights |
| Planning Center | beta; Breeze coming soon | every plan, both ways: band names out; teams and scheduling in |
| AI | scores and ranks people against ministries | never scores; an assistant that works your list, scoped to a role; reads your website; a bookshelf from a photo; optional staff-only brief on the church's own key |
| Privacy | terms of service | a published list of what GiftWell never does, with the switch for each |
| Your website | link, QR and embed | hosted page, one-line script, branded QR code, or your own subdomain (Small and above) |

## The test itself

Ministry Way starts from a form the church builds, with a free 27-question, nine-gift test as a starting point. Three questions per gift is light; it tells a church which direction a person leans, and the AI does the rest.

GiftWell measures the same nine gifts with five statements each, about 60 in all, in about ten minutes on a phone with no account, app or email. The statements are about what has happened in the past year, because the research on self-report says people answer "what happened" more honestly than "what I am like". Five statements per gift give a score out of 25, which is enough to separate a lead band from the rest without asking a model to guess. The papers behind each choice are on [why we ask what we ask](/why-we-ask-what-we-ask); we did not find a research page on Ministry Way's site in October 2026.

## How results are shown

Ministry Way's centre is the AI rating: every person scored against every ministry and ranked as an Excellent, Strong or Good fit. For a church with forty ministries and two staff, that is the appeal.

GiftWell shows bands: every gift within three points of the highest is in the lead band, the next gift within two points is "at the edge", and gifts inside a band sit in Romans 12 order so no ranking can be recovered. It then shows which serving teams need those gifts, beside the person's own words and what two friends who know them said, and stops. Nobody is rated against a ministry, by a model or by arithmetic, because a two-point gap on a 25-point scale is noise and a model ranking people on it is noise with confidence.

## What the team gets after

Ministry Way's Pro plan runs a volunteer pipeline: a kanban, email and SMS follow-up, QR codes and team access. That is a recruiting workflow, and a good one for a church that wants to move people through stages by message.

GiftWell's follow-up list is a pastoral one. Each result arrives with the person's own words and consent, the serving teams that need those gifts, statuses as the conversation happens, a placement, and a 90-day check on whether it took, which on Planning Center churches looks at whether the person was actually scheduled. Leaders see only their own ministries and a weekly digest lists who is waiting. GiftWell sends no SMS and never contacts a member on your behalf. Band names, Ephesians 4 leanings and the date sync to Planning Center on every plan, and your teams come back the other way.

## AI

This is the real difference, and it is not that one tool uses AI and the other does not. Both do. Ministry Way points its AI at the people: every person scored against every ministry. GiftWell points its AI at the work around the people and keeps it off the people themselves.

- **An assistant that works your list.** Connect Claude or any assistant that speaks the Model Context Protocol, with a named, role-scoped connection that expires, and ask who is waiting, log a conversation, place someone, find the ministries that need a gift, or walk through setup. It never contacts a member and never scores anyone.
- **Your website read for you.** Give GiftWell your address and it offers your colours, logo, city, ministries and serving teams, each to accept or not.
- **A bookshelf from a photo.** Photograph the shelf and GiftWell fills your resources.
- **A staff-only brief**, on your own key (OpenRouter, OpenAI or Anthropic), that summarises a person's own words. Without a key, nothing is missing.

A church choosing between the two is choosing between those rules more than between features.

## Price

Ministry Way's free plan stops at 10 responses; Pro is $100 a month, $1,200 a year. GiftWell is free for 50 people, $100 a year for 150 and $500 a year for 500, with leaders free and retakes never counted. A church of 150 pays GiftWell in a year what Ministry Way charges in a month.

## Who should choose Ministry Way

- A church that wants AI to rate every person against every ministry.
- A church that wants a kanban pipeline with email and SMS follow-up.
- A church that wants to build its own form rather than use a fixed test.
- A church that is content with Planning Center in beta.

## Who should choose GiftWell

- A church that wants a ten-minute phone test with five statements per gift and the research published.
- A church that wants results as bands with the margin drawn and no fit score.
- A church that wants AI doing the clerical work, working its list and reading its website, and never judging its people.
- A church that wants a pastoral follow-up list with consent, two friends' confirmations and a 90-day check.
- A church that wants Planning Center both ways on its first plan, a published privacy list and its own subdomain.

## Switching

Run both for a month. Create your church (free, no card), give GiftWell your website so it offers your colours and ministries, connect Planning Center, and put the new link and QR code in the bulletin. Ministry Way's results came in as a CSV, so the names are already in a list you can invite from; the Growing plan imports earlier results. GiftWell writes to Planning Center fields you choose, so nothing another tool wrote is touched.

## Questions people ask

### Does GiftWell use AI to match people to ministries like Ministry Way?

No. AI never scores anyone in GiftWell. It shows the serving teams that need a person's lead gifts and leaves the match to the leader and the person. GiftWell's AI is pointed at the work instead: an assistant that works the follow-up list, a reader for your website, a bookshelf from a photo, and a staff-only brief. Ministry Way rates each person against every ministry as an Excellent, Strong or Good fit with AI.

### How do the prices compare?

Ministry Way is free for one CSV upload of up to 10 responses and $100 a month for Pro. GiftWell is free for 50 people, $100 a year for 150 and $500 a year for 500, with leaders free. As of October 2026.

### Does GiftWell send SMS follow-up?

No. GiftWell never contacts a member on your behalf. Its follow-up is a list for leaders, with statuses, the person's own words and consent, placements and a 90-day check, plus a weekly email digest to the team. Ministry Way's Pro plan sends email and SMS to people.

### Which test is more thorough?

Ministry Way's free test is 27 questions over nine gifts, three per gift. GiftWell's is about 60 statements over the same nine gifts, five per gift, scored out of 25, with the margin drawn on the result and the research behind each statement published.

### Can an AI assistant use GiftWell?

Yes. GiftWell's pages describe named, role-scoped, expiring connections for Claude or any assistant that speaks the Model Context Protocol, which can list who is waiting, log conversations, place people and walk through setup, and never score anyone or contact a member. Ministry Way's pages describe AI that analyses responses and rates fit; they do not describe connecting an outside assistant, as of October 2026.