Churches know the pattern all too well: vibrant Sunday fellowship fades to silence by Monday. Group texts spiral into chaos, email newsletters go unread, and social media buries ministry updates under ads and algorithms. Gatherly was built to solve this — a communication platform purpose-built for church communities that keeps prayer, Scripture, and fellowship at the center throughout the week.^1
Gatherly organizes church life into Fellowship Circles — dedicated spaces for ministry teams, small groups, life stages, and more. Each circle supports real-time messaging with WebSockets, file sharing (including drag-and-drop), and coordination so everyone stays connected between Sundays. The Prayer Wall lets members share requests and celebrate answered prayers together, while Daily Scripture provides a shared moment of spiritual encouragement for the whole community. For churches using Planning Center, Gatherly offers a direct OAuth integration to sync member data, assign roles, and send bulk invitations — cutting onboarding time from hours to minutes.^2
What sets Gatherly apart is its intentional posture: no ads, no algorithms, no distractions from fellowship. The about page frames the entire vision around Acts 2:42-47 — the authentic, Spirit-filled community of the early church — and every feature serves that purpose.^3 Co-founded by Erik and Joaquin Llenado, the team brings genuine faith conviction to the product. Joaquin holds a BS in Computer Science from Biola University and is currently pursuing an MS in Computer Science with an AI specialization at Georgia Tech, while also contributing to sermonpress.ai at Five More Talents — a ministry-focused tech company.^6
As of mid-2026, Gatherly serves 3 churches nationwide with 2,000+ monthly visitors and maintains 99.9% uptime across its Vercel and Railway infrastructure. The platform uses Stripe for billing, PostHog for analytics, and Auth0 for secure authentication.^8 The team reports a 66% deal close rate on discovery calls and continues onboarding founding churches through its Early Access program with personal setup support.^8
Notable- Flat monthly pricing for unlimited members, with a dedicated pricing page comparing against legacy church software and texting apps^7
- Planning Center OAuth integration with member import, bulk invitations, and role assignment^5
- Supports multiple server membership — users can belong to more than one church community^4
- Features include drag-and-drop file sharing, online status indicators, email OTP and social authentication^4
- LinkedIn company page at linkedin.com/company/trygatherly^9
- Currently invite-only Early Access with personal onboarding for each church^1
