RightNow Media vs. Multiply:
Two different problems. Two different tools.

Pastors are often confronted with the same question from their leadership teams: "Should we get RightNow Media or Multiply?" It's an understandable question — both platforms use the word "discipleship," both cost money, and both promise to help your congregation grow. But they solve fundamentally different problems, and confusing them leads to either buying the wrong tool or, worse, deciding you can only afford one when you might actually need both.

This isn't a takedown of RightNow Media. It's one of the most valuable tools in the church technology landscape, and for good reason. But understanding what each platform actually does — and doesn't do — will save you money, set realistic expectations, and help you build a discipleship strategy that actually holds together through the week.

The Core Difference: Content vs. Process

RightNow Media's value proposition is access. For a flat annual fee, every member of your congregation gets a login to over 25,000 Bible study videos from Francis Chan, Tim Keller, Andy Stanley, Dave Ramsey, and hundreds of other well-known teachers. It functions like Netflix for Bible studies — your members browse, choose what interests them, and watch on their own time.

Multiply's value proposition is movement. It takes your pastor's actual sermon from last Sunday and automatically converts it into a guided weekly rhythm — a 5-minute micro-lesson, a story-sharing prompt, and one concrete action step — that members follow throughout the week, all tied to the teaching your church just heard together.

One gives you depth of content. The other gives you continuity of rhythm. Both matter. But they are not the same thing, and they are not interchangeable.

What RightNow Media Does Well

RightNow Media excels at providing professional, topical content that your pastor doesn't have time to produce. If you want your small groups to go through a 6-week study on marriage, a series on finances, or a kids' program that runs alongside adult classes, RightNow Media gives your leaders an immediate library to draw from without building anything from scratch.

Its strengths are real: the production quality is excellent, the teacher roster is trusted, and the flexibility is genuinely useful. Members can watch from any device, at any time, on any topic that matters to them in their current season of life.

But there are meaningful limitations that pastors often discover after the fact:

• It's not tied to your preaching. Members are watching Francis Chan, not their pastor. That's not a criticism of Francis Chan — it's a reminder that discipleship rooted in the local church voice is different from discipleship rooted in a celebrity teacher's voice.
• It doesn't track movement. RightNow Media can tell you who logged in and what they watched. It cannot tell you who took a step, shared a story, or surfaced a gift. Consumption data and discipleship data are different things.
• It's passive by design. Members watch. There's no automatic pathway from watching to acting to reporting back. The platform assumes that engagement happens — but it provides no structure for it.

What Multiply Does Well

Multiply's starting point is the sermon your congregation just heard. Research shows that 75% of sermon content is forgotten within 72 hours unless people have a simple, predictable rhythm to return to it. Multiply closes that gap automatically — no extra work from the pastor, no curriculum to purchase, no new program to run.

Every week, Multiply produces a branded, mobile-first discipleship experience tied to the Sunday message. Members receive a link — no app to download, no login to create — and move through three steps in about five minutes: they revisit a key sermon highlight, share a story from their own life, and commit to one concrete next step before the following Sunday.

Unlike RightNow Media, Multiply captures behavioral data — who took a step, who shared a story, who is ready to serve. This is the data pastors actually need for board reports, denomination accountability, and strategic ministry planning.

Multiply also handles specific discipleship challenges that no content library can address: new member journeys, volunteer onboarding, livestream viewer conversion, and conference follow-up — all built automatically from the content your church is already producing.

Side-by-Side Comparison

When to Choose RightNow Media

Choose RightNow Media if your primary discipleship gap is content access. If your small group leaders need curriculum options, your families need age-appropriate resources outside Sunday morning, or your leaders need development content from trusted voices — RightNow Media fills that need better than anything else at its price point.

It's also the right choice if your church culture values external teaching voices, or if you need something immediately deployable with minimal setup and training.

When to Choose Multiply

Choose Multiply if your primary discipleship gap is sermon continuity and movement tracking. If you've watched your congregation leave Sunday genuinely moved and then return the following week unchanged, the problem isn't a lack of content — it's a lack of structure for what happens between Sundays.

Multiply is also the right choice if you need to report measurable discipleship outcomes to your board, denomination, or major donors. Attendance and giving data only tells part of the story. Multiply tells you what's actually happening in the lives of your members throughout the week.

A Note on Budget

If you're working with a limited budget and can only invest in one, the question to ask is: What is your most urgent discipleship gap?

If it's content — if your small groups have nothing to study, your families have no resources, and your leaders have no development pathway — start with RightNow Media.

If it's rhythm — if your sermon disappears by Monday, if you can't measure who is actually growing, and if your new members are slipping away because there's no pathway from first Sunday to real belonging — start with Multiply. At $297/month, most churches recoup the investment in one new family who stays, engages, and gives because they experienced a clear discipleship pathway from the very first week.

The Bottom Line

RightNow Media gives your church a deep bench of professionally produced content. Multiply gives your church a sermon-powered discipleship system that tracks real movement and extends your preaching into a weekly rhythm the whole congregation can follow.

One gives you a library. The other gives you a rhythm. Both matter. But if your Sunday sermon is currently the most important moment in your church's week — and for most pastors, it is — then closing the gap between Sunday and the rest of the week isn't just a nice feature. It's the work.