# Shelby Arena Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra

> With the help of Capterra, learn about Shelby Arena Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Church Management products and more.

Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/175655/Arena

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# 

 Shelby Arena Software Review 2026: Features, Integrations, Pros & Cons

Last updated on March 13, 2026

Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team.

[Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews)

Shelby Arena

## What is Shelby Arena?

Shelby Arena is a full church management system for medium to large churches with powerful, ministry-oriented tools and complete compatibility with Shelby Financials and ShelbyNext Giving. Arena can help you extend outreach in new ways to both current and potential new members.

## What is Shelby Arena used for?

[Church Management](https://www.capterra.com/church-management-software/)

Overall rating

Based on 38 user reviews

Reviews sentiment

Positive

76%

Neutral

16%

Negative

8%

Starting price

$449

Per Feature, Per Month

Free trial  
not available

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## Compare with a popular alternative

Capterra selects software alternatives based on relevant features, verified user reviews and user interactions. Placement may be influenced by client status.

### Shelby Arena

4.0 (38)

VS.

[4.8 (655)](https://www.capterra.com/p/158103/Clearstream/reviews/)

Starting Price

$449

Per Feature, Per Month

Starting Price

$29

Flat Rate, Per Month

Free Trial

Free Version

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

Ease Of Use

3.5 (38)

Ease Of Use

4.7 (655)

Value For Money

3.8 (29)

Value For Money

4.5 (586)

Customer Service

4.1 (29)

Customer Service

4.8 (560)

## Shelby Arena alternatives

[4.8 (857)](https://www.capterra.com/p/125787/ChurchTrac/reviews/)

Starting price

$9.00

Per User, Per Month

[4.7 (1,137)](https://www.capterra.com/p/76708/Planning-Center/reviews/)

Starting price

Contact vendor for pricing

Highest Rated

[4.9 (151)](https://www.capterra.com/p/184192/Chmeetings/reviews/)

Starting price

$12.00

Per User, Per Month

[4.6 (254)](https://www.capterra.com/p/142758/Text-In-Church/reviews/)

Starting price

$37.00

Per User, Per Month

[View all alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/175655/Arena/alternatives/)

## Features

Features with the highest number of reviews are displayed first. Those that have no reviews appear next, sorted alphabetically.

Donation Management

3.0 (1)

0.00% of 1 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important

Track/record financial donations made by members, along with the issuance of tax receipts/documents

Online Giving

3.0 (1)

0.00% of 1 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important

Outlet for members and visitors to submit donations electronically

Accounting Integration

Integrate with a third-party accounting system

Attendance Tracking

Track the attendance of specific individuals or groups

Child Check-in

Secure process of tracking children during activities

Event Management

Schedule and manage the logistics of activities and other gatherings

Shelby Arena 17 features

Integrate with a third-party accounting system

Track the attendance of specific individuals or groups

Secure process of tracking children during activities

Track/record financial donations made by members, along with the issuance of tax receipts/documents

Schedule and manage the logistics of activities and other gatherings

Contact members listed in the database through email, SMS, social, phone, etc.

Comprehensive list that contains information and details of all the members associated with a particular organization or group

Online gateway through which members can access/update personal information

Database of members to track personal information of individuals and families

Manage and support multiple locations

Online calendar of upcoming events/activities viewable to members and visitors

Outlet for members and visitors to submit donations electronically

Track commitments to donate in the future

Organize members and schedule recurring small group meetings

Manage volunteer information and direct volunteer resources

Built-in website builder or integration with third-party site

Coordinate and schedule the flow of services, plan musical selections, and assign team members

Features

3.8 (38)

3.8

Based on 38 reviews

## Pricing

Value for money

3.8 (29)

Basic

$449.00

Per Feature,Per Month

Value for money

3.8 (29)

3.8

Based on 29 reviews

## Support, customer service and training options

Customer Service

4.1 (29)

Support

-   Email/Help Desk
-   FAQs/Forum
-   Knowledge Base
-   Phone Support
-   24/7 (Live rep)
-   Chat

Training

-   In Person
-   Live Online
-   Webinars
-   Documentation
-   Videos

Deployment

-   Web
-   Android
-   iPhone/iPad

Typical users

-   Freelancers
-   Small businesses
-   Mid size businesses
-   Enterprises

Customer Service

4.1 (29)

4.1

Based on 29 reviews

## User reviews

Overall rating

4.0

Based on 38 reviews

Filter by rating

5(13)

4(16)

3(6)

2(3)

1(0)

Mentioned topic

Sorted by most recent

LL

Leigh L.

Director of Finance

Religious Institutions

### "Research other products first"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

3.0

3.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

5/10

November 23, 2021

My experience has been fair as an end-user. We like managing the datebase locally, since we tend to customize a lot of our reports. However, report output is not as sophisticated as other products.

Pros

We like our ability to write reports and report code locally for custom reports.

Cons

The report writing feaure is limited. At times, both text and $ data will import into one cell, making it impossible to sort. Also, the system design for contributor first name/last name makes it difficult with creating or importing contributions from a company or trust fund.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

CA

Christopher A.

IT Director

Religious Institutions

### "A long history of stability and scalability"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

2.0

2.0

Likelihood to Recommend

3/10

November 11, 2020

Overall we were able to get many things accomplished with our ministry to kick start a new era of tracking and managing congregant data, and were able to directly import check donations including scanned copies. We were also able to provide online event registration for the first time. Despite our issues with it, I still am glad we chose it over many of the other systems we were also evaluating at the time.

Pros

Arena allowed us to track congregants and have them sign up for events and more easily track and record donations. It gave us a single place to store congregant data, and to provide our congregation with a single username and password for everything our church did online.

Cons

It was not as easily customizable as we would like, and many of the issues we had couldn't be resolved by support. It felt like the features it came with out of the box determined what we could do. We ultimately switched away from it after a few years of use.

Switched from

[ChurchStaq](https://www.capterra.com/p/211982/ChuchStaq/)

We weren't using many features of Church Community Builder, and were not having much success having our congregation engage using CCB.

Alternatives considered

[SimpleChurch CRM](https://www.capterra.com/p/131549/SimpleChurchCRM/)

[FellowshipOne](https://www.capterra.com/p/230779/Fellowship-One/)

[ACS](https://www.capterra.com/p/2668/ACS/)

[Rock RMS](https://www.capterra.com/p/141654/Rock-RMS/)

Reasons for choosing Shelby Arena

Arena was the most flexible system with the longest track record of every system we evaluated. We flew many representatives out to talk with us, and attended conferences for a few of them, and ultimately the price for features and flexibility won us over to Shelby Arena. We also did not consider Ministry Platform during the search, so after a few years on Arena we re-evaluated and switched to Ministry Platform.

Review source

Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

Ryan R.

Business Development

Non-Profit Organization Management

### "Arena does it all"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

8/10

April 30, 2020

It makes having many things under one roof worth having since the info can talk to each other and I don't have to find softwares for each thing I need.

Pros

Arena is great because it can do so many different things. That is the greatest thing about it. Having so many things built into one platform makes training people so easy because we don't have to learn different systems. My church has been using it for a very long time.

Cons

While it can do a lot it was a bit messy to set up and the functionality took a curve to get everything flowing the way we needed. You definitely need a dedicated someone to maintain everything.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

LD

Laura D.

Executive Assistant

Religious Institutions

### "Shelby/Next"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

9/10

February 19, 2020

It is a great way to track our financials across all six campuses.

Pros

We can go paperless when submitting check requests. Easy to attach files to each check request for future reference. We have gone back several times to look at invoices. Love that it is Web based too.

Cons

That it times you out in a short time and you have to log back in.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

SS

Sandi S.

Admin Assistant

Religious Institutions

### "Shelby Next Membership Review"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

8/10

February 7, 2020

Great customer service! Prompt and knowledgeable. It has streamlined our processes for tracking membership and visitors.

Pros

Ease of use for both admin and membership.

Cons

Transition from previous software was a little rocky. Took too long.

Switched from

[Shelby Arena](https://www.capterra.com/p/175655/Arena/)

We needed to simplify our process due to downsizing. Arena was too complex for our current needs.

Alternatives considered

[FellowshipOne](https://www.capterra.com/p/230779/Fellowship-One/)

Reasons for choosing Shelby Arena

We were already using a Shelby product, so we felt that would be easier.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

AS

Amy S.

Executive Assistant

Non-Profit Organization Management

### "Shelby Review"

3.0

Overall Rating

3.0

3.0

Ease of Use

1.0

1.0

Features

2.0

2.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

3/10

January 7, 2020

Pros

Easy to navigate contacts and edit notes and other information.

Cons

It did not sync well with our other software.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

Vicki S.

Office Manager

Non-Profit Organization Management

### "Excellent database"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

8/10

August 16, 2019

Overall I have had a great experience with Arena and would highly recommend it. The more we use it, the more we learn, the more we can do with it.

Pros

Customizable Comprehensive Moderately easy to learn to use and teach.

Cons

must have a developer to make many design changes.

Alternatives considered

[Planning Center](https://www.capterra.com/p/76708/Planning-Center/)

[ACS](https://www.capterra.com/p/2668/ACS/)

Reasons for choosing Shelby Arena

It was the easiest transition from Shelby v5 and fit our needs.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

AU

Anonymous User

Field Engineer

Religious Institutions

### "Okay Church Management, outdated interface."

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

4.0

4.0

Likelihood to Recommend

7/10

April 27, 2019

Great for tracking congregation info, and children check-in. Great for arranging events and sending out emails for those events.

Pros

Arena can be customized quite a bit, and have an MSSQL database means custom reports are always possible. Being web-based it works on Mac or PC or even on tablets. Except for the check-in software which is Windows PC only.

Cons

It is large and complicated. Hard to find options for things. Support is hit or miss. Some support is great they really know the product. Some support doesn't seem to know the product at all. I wish the email function had a better built-in WYSIWYG editor. Often copy and pasting HTML into it causing issues with formatting.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

KM

Kristen M.

Coordinator

Religious Institutions

### "Took a while to learn"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

7/10

April 2, 2019

Pros

Once I learned this software, I was happy with it! I knew how to create groups and organize and use it for my needs!

Cons

There was a steep learning curve for me. Some uses and ways to accomplish a goal in the program weren’t simple. Once I learned it l, i didn’t have a problem

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

Austin P.

Groups Pastor

Religious Institutions

### "Better Databases Available"

3.0

Overall Rating

3.0

3.0

Ease of Use

3.0

3.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

3/10

February 27, 2019

Pros

The software is capable of doing so much to help your church implement processes and track data.

Cons

You basically need a full-time developer on staff to make Arena usable for your church.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

Response from Vendor

February 28, 2019

Austin, Thank you for your feedback. As a software provider it is always important to hear feedback from the user. Please reach out to us so we can discuss training and feature benefits with you. Thank you for being a valuable customer!

[View all Reviews](https://www.capterra.com/p/175655/Arena/reviews/)

Popular comparisons

[Clearstream vs Shelby Arena](https://www.capterra.com/compare/158103-175655/Clearstream-vs-Arena)[Tithely Church Management vs Shelby Arena](https://www.capterra.com/compare/132513-175655/Breeze-ChMS-vs-Arena)

[ChurchTrac vs Shelby Arena](https://www.capterra.com/compare/125787-175655/ChurchTrac-vs-Arena) 

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