Choose by who will run it on Sunday morning, not by the feature list. Most churches need two different things from screens, and the software that’s right for one is often wrong for the other.
Two jobs share one name
Search for “church display software” and you’ll find two kinds of tool mixed together.
The first is worship presentation software. It runs the screens in the sanctuary: song words, sermon points, a countdown, the video before the offering. A trained person sits at a computer and moves it along live, in step with the band and the pastor. It’s built for control, and it’s good at it.
The second is screens around the building. The TVs in the kids’ rooms, the lobby, the café and the hallway. Nobody sits at a desk for these. They show the welcome, the memory verse, the story, the pickup time, the coffee menu. They’re changed by whoever is in charge of that room this week, often a volunteer, often from a phone.
You can stretch the first kind to do the second job. Many churches do, with an extra computer behind each TV. But every extra computer is another thing to update, another login, and another screen that goes dark when someone unplugs it to charge a phone.
So the first question isn’t “which tool has the most features?” It’s “which job am I choosing for?” If it’s the rooms and the lobby, keep reading.
Who will run it at 9:52 on Sunday?
Picture the moment that matters. It’s eight minutes before the kids’ service. The preschool teacher notices the TV still shows last week’s story. The person who set it up isn’t here.
Can the teacher fix it, alone, without asking anyone?
That’s the test. Ask it of every tool you look at:
- Can a first-time volunteer change what one room shows from their phone?
- Can you give that volunteer the power to change the screens, and nothing else?
- Does the TV need someone to sign in, type a password, or press “continue” after a power cut?
- Are the words plain? “Which TVs show it?” is plain. “Configure playlist assignment” isn’t.
If the honest answer to any of these is “we’d need to call someone,” the tool will cost you more on Sunday mornings than it saves on Monday.
What happens when the Wi-Fi drops?
Church Wi-Fi is never as good as it is on the day you test it. The building fills up, a hundred phones join, and the network slows or drops.
Some screen tools stream from the internet as they play. When the connection goes, the screen goes blank or shows a spinner, in front of the whole room.
Others keep a copy of everything they show on the device itself. When the connection goes, they keep playing what they have, and catch up when it’s back.
Ask which one you’re buying. Better still, test it: unplug the router for five minutes on a weekday and watch the TVs.
Can you see what every TV is showing right now?
This is the question most tools skip, and the one you’ll care about most after a month.
With five or six TVs around the building, you can’t walk to each one before every service. You need a single page that answers “what is that TV showing right now?” and “is anything wrong?” without leaving your seat.
In Displayte, that page is Displays. Each TV has a card with a picture of its screen and the presentation it’s playing, and its own page names the file on screen. A TV that has gone quiet says Offline, with a picture of what it last showed, so you know which room to check first.
What it costs per screen, all in
Most screen software is priced per screen, per month. Some plans also charge per person, cap your storage, or put the features you need in a higher tier.
Work out the whole cost for the number of rooms you actually have. Count the software, the device behind each TV, and any extra computers you’d need to keep running.
Displayte is one plan: $12 a screen a month, or $10 billed yearly, with unlimited people and 100 GB of storage for every screen. It runs on Apple TV HD or Apple TV 4K, one per TV. There are no per-person charges, so every volunteer can have their own sign-in.
Try it before you decide
Whatever you choose, try it the way it will really be used. Hand it to a volunteer who has never seen it, ask them to change one room’s screen, and don’t help. Watch where they get stuck.
You can do that with Displayte today, without signing up: the demo is a church with six TVs already set up, and every change you make stays in your browser.