GiftWell vs ServeWire VES

At a glance

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

The test itself

ServeWire is built for churches that want to shape the instrument. A church can run a spiritual gifts test or the full SHAPE (gifts, heart, abilities, personality, experiences), build a DISC, rename gifts, add questions and brand the whole thing. That is a real strength for a church with its own teaching and vocabulary.

GiftWell is built the other way round. The test is about 60 statements about what has happened in the past year, across nine gifts, in about ten minutes on a phone, with no account. The statements are fixed on the Free and Small plans so every result means the same thing; the Growing plan adds a builder for a church's own statements and imports SHAPE and homegrown results. If editing the gift list is the first thing you would do, ServeWire is the better fit.

How results are shown

ServeWire emails each person a PDF and can show a percentage fit for positions. GiftWell shows bands: every gift within three points of the highest is in the lead band, the next within two points is "at the edge", and gifts inside a band sit in Romans 12 order. A score from five statements is honest to about two points, so GiftWell does not print an order and does not compute a fit percentage. It shows which serving teams need a person's lead gifts and leaves the fit to the conversation. Why is on why we ask what we ask.

What the team gets after

ServeWire's answer is Planning Center: results land in custom tabs on the person's profile, and the church runs follow-up from there. For a church that lives in Planning Center, that is tidy.

GiftWell keeps a follow-up list of its own, because a tab on a profile does not say whether anyone has talked to the person. Each result arrives with the person's own words and consent, next to the serving teams that need those gifts. A leader logs the conversation, places the person, and gets a 90-day check on whether it took; leaders see only their own ministries; a weekly digest lists who is waiting. Band names, Ephesians 4 leanings and quick picks still go to Planning Center fields you choose. Scores, briefs and notes never leave.

Price

ServeWire's flat $147 a year is cheaper than GiftWell for a church that will assess more than about 150 people. GiftWell is free for 50 people and $100 a year for 150, with leaders never charged for; a church of 500 pays $500 a year. ServeWire lists no discounts and a demo rather than a trial, with a 90-day guarantee; GiftWell's free plan needs no card.

Who should choose ServeWire

• A church that teaches SHAPE and wants the full SHAPE online.
• A church that wants to rename gifts, add questions and brand the test.
• A church that wants everything to live in Planning Center profiles or Church Community Builder.
• A church of more than about 150 people that wants a flat price.
• A church that wants a fit percentage for positions.

Who should choose GiftWell

• A church that wants a ten-minute phone test with no account, so people finish.
• A church that wants results shown as bands with the margin drawn, never a percentage.
• A church that wants a follow-up list with statuses, the person's words and consent, and a check on whether placements took.
• A church that wants AI kept away from scoring and from members.
• A church of 50 or fewer that wants to start free, or one that wants its own subdomain.

Switching

GiftWell's Growing plan imports SHAPE results, so a church leaving ServeWire's SHAPE can keep what it learned. Planning Center fields written by ServeWire stay in Planning Center; GiftWell writes to fields you choose, so the two need not collide.