Some churches reach for Slack when group chats get out of hand. It's a capable tool, and the appeal is obvious: separate channels for separate teams, proper admin controls and a tidier alternative to a phone full of group chats.
But Slack was built for workplaces, and a church is not a workplace. Its teams are largely volunteers and its members include young people. Jovo was built for churches from the start.
Jovo gives your church one safe place to talk. A dedicated space for every ministry, nothing for your volunteers to learn, plus the oversight your safeguarding lead needs when something comes up.
What Slack Does Well
Slack is a strong product, and churches that use it aren't making a mistake.
Channels keep conversations separate, so the worship team and the youth team are not sharing one thread. Search works reliably, files stay where you left them and it connects to hundreds of other tools. For an office team that lives in it all day, Slack is hard to beat, and a charity discount brings the per-person cost down further for non-profits.
The questions start when you look at what a church needs that a workplace does not.
What a Church Still Has to Solve
Three things sit outside what Slack was built to do:
Private messaging cannot be turned off.
In Slack, any member can message any other member privately, and there is no setting to prevent it. Admins can restrict messaging with people outside your church, but not between members inside it. Church safeguarding guidance is clear that contact with young people should be open and in groups with more than one leader. On Slack, that guidance has to be a rule people follow, not something the tool enforces.
The oversight tools sit on the top tier.
Slack does have audit logs, message exports and the ability to block messaging between groups. They are Enterprise features, priced by negotiation and built for large companies. On Free or Pro, the tiers most churches would look at, there are no audit logs, no way to export a private conversation and no control over who can post beyond the general channel. Business+ adds some of this, but Enterprise pricing is where the rest sits.
It asks a lot of your volunteers.
Slack is priced per person, per month, so every volunteer you add costs more. It also assumes people will learn a new way of working: channels, threads, workspaces. A youth leader who helps on a Friday night is unlikely to set up a workspace profile, and a church should not have to choose between including someone and keeping the bill down.
Jovo vs Slack
The difference is clearest in the areas a church has to account for.
| Slack | Jovo | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Workplaces and office teams | Churches |
| Getting started | Channels, threads and workspaces to learn | Familiar to anyone who uses group chat, no training needed |
| Private messaging | Direct messaging is a core feature that cannot be disabled | None. By design |
| Safe for youth work | Dependant on people following the rules | Built for it, with leader-only controls |
| Safeguarding record | No dedicated safeguarding record | Reviewable records for the safeguarding lead |
| Message exports | Conversation exports available on Business+ and Enterprise (subject to Slack approval) | Included |
| Posting permissions | Posting restrictions only available on the general channel on Free and Pro | Role-based, set per group |
| Data location | UK data residency on Business+ and above | UK-hosted as standard |
| Church systems | No native integration. Only available via third-party tools | ChurchSuite and Planning Center |
| Cost | Per person, per month. Charity pricing available | From £49 a month for churches, with a 30-day unrestricted free trial |
Comparison last checked against Slack's own published pricing and features, September 2026.
What Jovo Does Instead
A dedicated space for every ministry
Youth, worship, volunteers, small groups, trustees. Create a group and the controls come with it, rather than needing to be configured channel by channel.
No direct messages, by design
There is no route in Jovo for an adult to start a private conversation with a young person. It is not a setting to switch on because it does not exist.
Safeguarding is built in, not bolted on
When a difficult situation comes up over a message, the right people can see it and step in. The record is there for your safeguarding lead when it is needed, on every plan.
Oversight that matches responsibility
A youth leader runs their group without getting the keys to everything else. Set who can post, who can view and who can join, group by group.
No personal numbers shared
People join with a name and an email. A volunteer who helps for a fortnight does not walk away holding the mobile number of everyone else on the team.
Simple enough for every volunteer
If someone can use a group chat, they can use Jovo. No channels to understand, no workspace to join, nothing to learn on a Friday night.
GDPR-compliant, UK-hosted
Your church's data is held in the UK and protected by default, not as a paid upgrade.
Expiring groups
Holiday club, Alpha course, a team pulled together for one weekend. Set the end date when you create the group and Jovo closes it when you get there, so nothing is left open months later.
It works with what you already use
ChurchSuite and Planning Center integrations keep your groups and people in sync.
