Your contacts are the people who receive your announcements, so getting them into Hey Church is one of the first things worth doing. The good news: you don’t have to type everyone in by hand. There are three ways to add contacts, and most churches use a mix of them.
You’ll find all of these on the Contacts page in your dashboard. Analytics on that page, and the ability to see past sent emails, are coming soon. Hey Church does not include an open-rate dashboard.
Option 1: Add a Contact Manually
The simplest way. Click Add Contact and fill in the person’s first name, last name, email, and (optionally) phone number. You’ll also set their consent — whether they’ve agreed to receive email and/or text messages.
Manual entry is great for one-off additions: a new family that filled out a connection card, a volunteer who just joined a team, someone who asked to be added after the service.
Option 2: Import From Planning Center
If your church uses Planning Center to manage people, you can import your Planning Center people instead of retyping them. Connect your account, then run an import from the contacts page, and re-import when your list changes.
Planning Center can stay where you manage people. Hey Church keeps its own list for sending. See our Planning Center integration for the details.
Option 3: Let Members Sign Themselves Up
The best lists grow themselves. Instead of collecting information and typing it in, you can share a QR code and sign-up link that lets members add themselves — name, email, and consent included, automatically. Anyone who scans lands on a simple sign-up page and is added to your contacts the moment they submit.
This is the lowest-effort way to grow your list over time, and it’s covered step by step in how to share your sign-up QR code and link.
A Word on Consent
However you add someone, consent matters. Hey Church tracks email consent and text consent separately, and only sends through the channel a contact has agreed to. Someone who opted in to email hasn’t automatically opted in to texts — and that’s on purpose. It keeps your sending reputation clean and respects your congregation’s inboxes.
When you add contacts manually, make sure you’re only marking consent for people who actually agreed to hear from you. A Planning Center import does not turn consent on by itself. Contacts who sign themselves up through your QR code or link have given consent as part of that process. We explain exactly how this works, including for imported contacts, on our Proof of Consent page.
Which Method Should You Use?
Most churches start with a Planning Center import or by adding people manually, and then put up a QR code so the list keeps growing on its own. You don’t have to pick just one.
Once your contacts are in, you’re ready to create your first announcement and start sending.
The Free plan includes 250 contacts and 500 emails a month.