Terms of use

Trellis is a platform a church uses to run its work: small groups, giving, communications, serving, worship planning, event registration and kids check-in, each as a part the church turns on, and Lighthouse AI’s planning, which comes with every church. These terms describe what a church agrees to when it starts using Trellis, and what each person agrees to when they sign in. They are written to be read, not skimmed.

Two words do a lot of work here. The church is the congregation that has an account, acting through its administrators. You are anyone who signs in: an administrator, a staff member, a group leader, a director of a serving area, a volunteer, or a member with a sign-in.

What Trellis is

Trellis is built and operated by the people at Trellis, reachable at support@trellischurch.app. It is offered to churches by the part. Groups, for small groups, is free for up to 25 people in a church’s groups. Giving, Communications, Serving, Worship planning (which needs Serving), Registration and Check-in are paid, by the month or by the year, as is an add-on to Groups: More group members, priced by how many people are in the church’s groups. Silas, which reads what leaders and directors write (a meeting’s write-up, a serving day’s, a volunteer’s own words, a service being planned, a brief for a message) and proposes entries and drafts for a person to check and decide on, comes with any paid part or add-on and has no price of its own; a church on free Groups alone does not have it. It is off until one of the church’s administrators turns it on. Silas reads up to 500 times a month for each church, counted from the first of each month (UTC), and up to a set number of times a day for each church and for each person, generous for ordinary use, and a single reading has a length limit; past the month’s number it is back on the first of the next month, and past the day’s number it is back the next day. Lighthouse AI comes with every church and has no price of its own. It forecasts a church’s Sundays from the head counts the church enters and, with Check-in, the children checked in. For a church that has Silas turned on, it also uses AI to write insights, suggest series and draft from a series a person plans: up to 60 drafts a month for each church, counted from the first of each month on the church’s clock; planning a series counts as one, as does each piece drafted from it. If that church also pays for More group members or is on Pioneer pricing, and an administrator turns it on, Lighthouse reads prayer requests and write-ups to count the themes in them. A church pays for the parts and add-ons it turns on, each at its own price, apart from a church plant on Pioneer pricing (see Billing). Everything together, one price for every part then on sale (not Check-in, which came later), was sold until October 13, 2026; a church already on it keeps its price until October 13, 2027. Its administrators are told by email at least thirty days before then, and from the church’s first renewal after that day it pays for each part it has on, at the prices then current. A church on it that changes its parts or its billing period before then moves to paying for what it picks at that point. Communications covers a church of up to 1,000 people with an email and a set number of emails a month; a bigger church pays a little more, by how many people it can email, and emails beyond the month’s number are billed per thousand on the next invoice, after the sender has been told and has agreed. A church’s own sending domain is set up on request, at a small monthly charge for each domain, and senders on it are free. Prices are on the Pricing page and on the Parts and billing page before anything is charged, and are before sales tax.

Who may use it

A church opens an account at Start a church, with an email address that Trellis confirms by sending a link; the person who does so must be authorized to act for the church and becomes its first administrator. Everyone else gets access when the church invites their email address, with one or more roles, and that access begins once they confirm the address by signing in with the link or code Trellis sends. The church can change those roles or remove that access at any time. Trellis is offered to churches in the United States. Only people aged 15 or over may have access, and a church should not invite anyone younger.

Your account

Sign-in happens by a link or six-digit code sent to your email, or by a password you set yourself. Unless you use two-step sign-in, whoever holds your email inbox can sign in as you, so keep that account protected. The security policy says what else you are responsible for.

Using Trellis

These terms include the acceptable use policy, which says how Trellis may and may not be used, and what Trellis does when something is wrong. It applies to the church and to everyone who signs in.

What you put in

Files on a group’s shelf are visible to that group’s leaders and the church staff; files on the church shelf are visible to everyone in the church who signs in. The records you create belong to the church, which needs them to carry on the work if you step away.

The church’s role

The church decides who may use its account and what roles they hold. Its administrators and staff can see every group, roster, note, volunteer record and, for those with the finance role, every gift. The church is responsible for how that information is handled, for keeping it accurate, and for answering people who ask what is recorded about them. Trellis processes the church’s records on the church’s behalf and does not use them for any purpose of its own; the privacy policy says exactly what is stored and who sees it.

Communications

When the church emails people through Trellis, it does so under its own name: from an address for the church on Trellis’s shared sending domain until a domain of its own is set up, and from then on through senders on that domain: the church’s voice, shared addresses for a team, and personal addresses for individual staff. A group leader who emails their group or one person from Trellis writes in their own name, from a personal address on the church’s domain or, until it has one, from the church’s shared address, with replies going to their own email; the church can turn that off, and can edit or remove any sender. The church is responsible for honoring the unsubscribe link at the foot of its mailings, which Trellis enforces on its behalf. Sending from a church’s domain affects that domain’s standing with mail providers, so the church is responsible for what everyone with a sender on it sends.

Giving

Online giving runs through Stripe. The church connects its own Stripe account and is the merchant of record: gifts go to the church, and the church issues receipts and year-end statements. Card and bank details are entered on Stripe’s pages and never reach Trellis. Trellis takes no fee on gifts; the church pays for Giving by the month, and Stripe deducts its own processing fee before the gift reaches the church. A church may let givers add the processing fee to their gift; what a giver adds is part of the gift and appears on their statement. Refunds are the church’s decision and are made through Stripe.

Registration

A church can charge for an event through Registration. Payments are taken on the church’s own Stripe account, the same one it uses for Giving, and the church is the merchant: the money goes to the church, and Stripe deducts its processing fee. Trellis takes no fee. A registration fee is a payment for the event, not a gift: it never appears on a giving statement and is not tax-deductible. A person paying online has thirty minutes to finish before their places go back to the event. Refunds are the church’s decision; the church states its refund policy on the event and makes refunds from Trellis or Stripe. The church may also record cash, checks, or amounts it covers itself.

Billing

Paid parts are billed through Stripe to the card the church adds. At checkout the church gives its billing address and, if it has one, a tax ID. Where the church’s state or country taxes software, sales tax is calculated from that address and added to each invoice; a church that is exempt from sales tax can send Trellis its exemption certificate at support@trellischurch.app and will not be charged tax from then on. Invoices are numbered by church and sent to the billing email on the account. A church’s first subscription begins with a thirty-day free trial, which needs no card. If a card is on file when the trial ends, it is charged then, unless the parts are turned off first; without one, the paid parts switch off that day, what is in them is kept, and Groups stays on. Turning a part on or off in the middle of a period is prorated on the next invoice. The church can change its card, see its invoices and cancel at any time from the Parts and billing page. Cancelling stops renewal; access to paid parts continues to the end of the period already paid. Fees already paid are not refunded except where the law requires it. Prices can change. A rise takes effect at the church’s next renewal after at least thirty days’ notice by email to its administrators; a drop applies from the church’s next bill, without notice.

Pioneer pricing is for church plants. A church can apply if its first public service is no more than twelve months away, or took place no more than thirty months ago, and it has not had Pioneer pricing before; Trellis reads each application and may decline it. If approved, every paid part is free until the church’s first public service, and for at least thirty days after approval so that the church has time to add a card. From then until the third anniversary of the first public service, every paid part is billed at one price a month, or a year at a time while at least twelve months of Pioneer pricing remain, whatever the church’s size, as shown on the Pricing page, and the thirty-day free trial does not apply. If no card is on file when the free months end, the paid parts are paused and Groups stays on; adding a card turns them back on. Pioneer pricing ends on the third anniversary of the first public service. Sixty days before then, Trellis tells the administrators of a church with a subscription by email, with the regular price of each part the church has on at its size, and from the church’s first renewal on or after the end date, or sixty days after the notice if that is later, it pays those regular prices for the parts it keeps; a church that has turned every paid part off has its subscription cancelled instead, with the unused time credited to its Trellis billing account and not refunded to its card. Trellis may end Pioneer pricing early for a church that is not a church plant, with the same sixty days’ notice.

When a part is off

Turning a part off closes its pages but keeps its records, so turning it back on restores everything. More group members, and every paid part, stops taking new work when a subscription lapses; nothing is deleted.

Ending the account

An administrator can close the church’s account at any time from Church settings, or by writing to support@trellischurch.app. Trellis may end an account that breaks these terms, after telling the church and giving it a reasonable chance to put things right, or at once where the breach is serious. The acceptable use policy says what Trellis does first. Closing stops the subscription renewing; a church that reopens before the end of the period it paid for carries on with it. When an account ends, an administrator can download the church’s records and files, from Church settings or, once it is closed, from the page they see when they sign in; what is private to one person, such as a preacher’s unshared draft or a group leader’s check-ons, stays out. An administrator can reopen a closed account until the records are deleted; after ninety days the records are deleted, sooner on request. Gifts and event payments already made stay in the church’s own Stripe account; Trellis’s invoices to the church stay in Trellis’s.

You can lose access without the church’s account ending: the church can remove your role at any time, for example when you stop leading a group. You can ask to have your own profile removed. Records you created stay with the church.

Availability and changes

Trellis is provided as it is, without a promise that it will always be available or free of errors. It runs on third-party hosting and payment services that occasionally have outages. Trellis may change the service, and may update these terms. When the terms change in a way that matters, the church’s administrators are told by email at least 14 days before the change takes effect, and the date at the top changes; a change the law requires sooner may take effect sooner. Continuing to use Trellis after that means the church accepts the new terms.

Limits on liability

To the extent the law allows, Trellis is not liable for indirect or consequential losses arising from use of the service, from information other users enter, or from outages at the services it runs on, and its total liability to a church for any claim is limited to the fees that church paid in the twelve months before the claim. Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the state and country where Trellis is operated, and any dispute will be handled in the courts there.

Questions

Write to support@trellischurch.app, about anything including an invoice.