Church communication statistics

People are reachable on their phones

91%

91% of US adults own a smartphone as of 2025, including 78% of adults aged 65 and older. Source: Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet (2025)

98%

98% of US adults own a cellphone of some kind. Source: Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet (2025)

97%

Texting is the most widely used feature on a smartphone: 97% of owners used it in 2015, the most recent year Pew measured this directly. Source: Pew Research Center, U.S. Smartphone Use in 2015 (2015)

Texts get read, and read quickly

84%

In a 2024 survey of 1,602 US adults, 84% said they read a new text within 15 minutes of receiving it, and 25% read it immediately. Source: EZ Texting, 2024 Consumer Texting Behavior Report (2024)

A note on folklore: You will often see a "98% open rate" quoted for SMS. There is no reliable way to measure whether a text was opened, and Mobilesquared, the firm behind the original figure, has since revised it to roughly 55% read. We avoid the 98% number on purpose.

Email still works, but it is getting harder to rely on

Email is valuable for churches, but open-rate figures should be read with care.

38%

Religious organizations have historically posted the highest email open rate of any industry, around 38% (2015 data, before Apple's Mail Privacy Protection changed how opens are counted). Source: Constant Contact, email open rates by industry (2015)

64%

About 64% of recorded email opens are now machine opens, triggered automatically by privacy features rather than a person reading the message, which inflates every open rate reported since 2021. Source: M+R Benchmarks (2025)

40%

Nonprofit email averages roughly a 40% open rate, though that figure carries the machine-open caveat above. Source: Mailchimp, Email Marketing Benchmarks (2023)

Giving is moving to phones

44%

44% of US adults are digital donors. Source: Barna Group, Meet the Digital Donor (fieldwork 2021) (2023)

74%

74% of US churches offered digital giving as of 2019, up from 14% in 2011. Source: Pushpay and Dunham+Company, Digital Giving Trends (2019)

Why following up matters more than it used to

33%

US monthly religious-service attendance fell from 54% in 2007 to 33% in 2023-24, before leveling off, so staying in touch between Sundays matters more than ever. Source: Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study 2023-24 (2025)

80%

When welcoming guests, 80% of churches still rely on printed connection cards and 38% use an online form, according to a survey of 1,003 US Protestant pastors. Source: Lifeway Research, Churches Aim to Welcome Guests by Different Methods (2025)

The spam problem behind 10DLC

Carrier registration rules exist because text fraud is real and growing.

$12.5B

Americans reported losing more than $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024, up 25% year over year, with text messages the third most common way scammers made contact. Source: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024 (2025)