The worship night that ended up next to the nightclub
It was a Tuesday afternoon when a church organiser sent us a screenshot. Her worship night, listed on Eventbrite, appeared directly below a nightclub event in the same city, same day, same venue category. She'd paid the platform's fees, filled out all the fields correctly, and yet to any casual browser scrolling the events near them, the distinction was gone. That image sat in our Slack for three days before anyone said what we were all thinking: 'That shouldn't happen.'
The problem isn't Eventbrite's fault, but it's still a real problem
Eventbrite is a brilliant platform. It does exactly what it was designed to do: take any event from any sector and let people book tickets. A wedding, a pottery class, a tech conference, a worship night. All treated the same way. All processed through the same fee structure.
That's the issue, though. When you're a church organiser trying to reach people in your community, the last thing you want is your event nestled between a stag do and a nightclub. It's not that there's anything wrong with those other events. It's that the people looking for them aren't looking for what you're offering. And you're paying 6.95% plus 59p per ticket to sit in that algorithm alongside them.
We heard versions of this from churches across the UK. Some switched platforms three times in a year chasing something cheaper. Others used a mix of Facebook, email lists, and printed flyers because they didn't trust anywhere else. One Methodist minister told us she felt like she was 'competing for attention' rather than 'sharing what we're offering.' That phrase stuck with me.
Faith communities don't need a generic events platform
What churches and faith organisations actually need is different. They need a directory that only shows faith events. They need to find or list a prayer meeting, a retreat, a conferences for youth leaders, a community gathering, without having to sift through noise. They need the fees to make sense for how they operate. And if they're a UK charity, they need Gift Aid to work properly, not as an afterthought.
We started Gathrd by MRVL with that single idea: build a platform built for faith communities, by people who understood how they work. Not as a charity project. Not as a add-on. As the default place where churches list events and where people discover them.
The pricing reflects that. At 3%, we're half Eventbrite's cut. The Gift Aid integration splits the checkout automatically for UK churches, so supporters can tick the box and the charity gets the money it's entitled to without creating friction. No more spreadsheets at the end of the month trying to figure out who consented to Gift Aid and who didn't.
The faith-only directory changes how people browse
When we launched, the faith-only directory was non-negotiable. Not because we're snobby about other events. Because if you're scrolling Gathrd, you're looking for what we list. A worship night. A conference. A prayer gathering. A community event hosted by a church. That's it. That's the whole catalogue.
It sounds simple, but it changes the experience entirely. There's no algorithm deciding whether a nightclub is 'similar' to your event. There's no generic 'events near you' that treats a baptism preparation course the same as a concert. The events you see are the ones that exist for the same reason you're browsing.
We added denomination filtering early on because churches kept asking for it. So a Presbyterian looking for CofE conferences can find them, or filter to their own tradition, or see everything. A Catholic retreat attendee can discover prayer meetings in their parish. A Baptist minister can find Baptist conferences, or widen out to all faith events. It sounds like a small thing. In practice, it makes the platform feel less generic and more theirs.
The money works differently too
The operational reality of running an event in a church is different from running one anywhere else. You're often relying on volunteers. Your budget is tight. You might be running three events a year to raise funds for the building, or twelve community gatherings that don't charge at all. You need to know exactly what you'll keep, and you need it in your bank account quickly.
On Gathrd, the 3% is the only fee on paid tickets. No per-ticket surcharge. No payment processing cut on top. Our Church plan is £19.99 a month or £199.99 a year and covers unlimited events, multi-denomination filtering, and the QR door check-in with offline support built in. If you're running conferences or larger operations, the Conference plan gives you white-label options and priority support.
The payouts go through Stripe Connect, so your money lands in your account fast. We've built PPP discounts into pricing for 37 countries, because faith communities doing this work exist everywhere, not just in wealthy Western cities.
What changed after that screenshot
The image of a worship night sitting next to a nightclub wasn't the reason we built Gathrd. But it was the reason we knew it was necessary. That organiser had done everything right. She'd written good copy, set a fair ticket price, picked the right date. The platform just didn't understand what she was doing.
Since we launched, we've watched what happens when faith communities get a platform that treats their events as sacred rather than interchangeable. A church youth group discovers a retreat an hour away. A conference organiser lists one event and reaches people across three denominations because the platform shows it to everyone looking for faith gatherings in that region. A small prayer group finds that door check-in works offline, so they don't stress about WiFi on Sunday mornings.
It's small. It's unglamorous. It's not tech for its own sake. But it's the difference between being lost in a crowded generic directory and being found by people who actually showed up to find you.
The screenshot that started this is still in our Slack. When someone new joins the team, we show it to them and ask: 'Why should a worship night ever sit next to a nightclub?' The answer they come up with is usually their own version of why Gathrd exists.
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