Pastors often hear the same question from their leadership teams: "Should we get RightNow Media or Multiply?" It's an understandable question. Both use the word "discipleship," both cost money, and both promise to help your congregation grow. But they solve different problems, and confusing them leads to buying the wrong tool, or 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 church technology, and for good reason. Understanding what each one actually does, and doesn't do, will save you money, set realistic expectations, and help you build a discipleship strategy that holds together through the week.
RightNow Media is a library. Multiply is a rhythm. Libraries don't make disciples. What you do with what you read does.
The core difference: content vs. process
RightNow Media's value is access. For an annual fee, every member of your congregation gets a login to a library of more than 25,000 Bible study videos from well-known teachers such as Francis Chan, Andy Stanley, and Dave Ramsey. It works like a streaming service for Bible study: members browse, choose what interests them, and watch on their own time.
Multiply's value is movement. It takes your pastor's actual sermon from last Sunday and turns it into a guided weekly rhythm: a five-minute lesson, a story-sharing prompt, and one concrete action step, 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 aren't the same thing, and they aren't interchangeable.
What RightNow Media does well
RightNow Media excels at professional, topical content your pastor doesn't have time to produce. If you want your small groups to go through a six-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 without building anything from scratch.
Its strengths are real: excellent production, trusted teachers, and genuine flexibility. Members can watch on any device, at any time, on whatever matters to them in their current season of life.
There are also limits pastors often discover after the fact:
- It isn't tied to your preaching. Members are watching a well-known teacher, not their own pastor. That's not a criticism of those teachers. Discipleship rooted in your local church's voice is simply different from discipleship rooted in someone else's.
- It measures viewing, not movement. RightNow Media can show who logged in and what they watched. It isn't built to show who took a step, shared a story, or discovered a gift.
- It's self-guided by design. Members choose and watch. There's no built-in path from watching to acting to reporting back.
What Multiply does well
Multiply starts with the sermon your congregation just heard. Nobody has reliably measured how much of a sermon people forget. But research on learning is clear on what helps teaching stick: recalling it a few days later roughly doubles what people keep, talking it through with others changes behavior more than listening alone, and a specific plan beats a good intention. Read the research.
Every week, Multiply builds a branded, mobile-first experience from the Sunday message, with no extra work from the pastor. Members receive a link, with no app to download and no login to create, and move through three steps in about five minutes: they revisit a key moment from the sermon, share a story from their own life, and commit to one concrete step before the next Sunday.
That's the information pastors need for shepherding, board reports, and ministry planning. Multiply also handles work no content library is designed for: new member journeys, volunteer onboarding, livestream viewer follow-up, and conference follow-up, all built from the preaching your church already does.
Side by side
| RightNow Media | Multiply | |
|---|---|---|
| Content source | Outside teachers and ministries (25,000+ videos) | Your pastor's own sermons and church voices |
| Primary function | Content library: browse and watch | Weekly rhythm: learn, connect, act |
| Member experience | Self-guided: choose what interests you | Guided weekly journey tied to Sunday's message |
| What you can see | Viewing and completion | Steps taken, stories shared, gifts surfaced |
| Branding | RightNow Media's platform | Fully branded to your church |
| Pastor involvement | Minimal: the library runs itself | Minimal: the sermon is the input, Multiply does the rest |
| Small groups | Strong topical curriculum options | Aligns every group with Sunday's message |
| Kids and family content | Extensive kids' programming | Not a family content library |
| Access | Account and library navigation | One link, no app, no login |
| New member onboarding | No built-in pathway | Automatic three-week New Member Journey |
Based on each company's public materials as of September 2026. Features change; check with each company for current details. If anything here is out of date, tell us and we'll correct it.
When to choose RightNow Media
Choose RightNow Media if your biggest gap is content. If your small group leaders need curriculum options, your families need age-appropriate resources beyond Sunday morning, or your leaders need development content from trusted voices, RightNow Media fills that need better than almost anything at its price.
It's also the right choice if your church values outside teaching voices, or if you need something ready to use with minimal setup.
When to choose Multiply
Choose Multiply if your biggest gap is what happens after Sunday. If you've watched your congregation leave Sunday genuinely moved and return the next week unchanged, the problem isn't a lack of content. It's a lack of structure for the days in between.
Multiply is also the right choice if you need to show your board, denomination, or donors what's actually happening in people's lives. Attendance and giving tell part of the story. Multiply shows the rest of the week.
Many churches eventually use both: RightNow Media for topical depth in small groups and families, and Multiply for the weekly rhythm that keeps Sunday's message alive. The mistake is treating them as either-or when they solve different problems.
A note on budget
If you can only invest in one right now, ask: what is your most urgent discipleship gap?
If it's content, meaning your small groups have nothing to study, your families have no resources, or your leaders have no development path, start with RightNow Media.
If it's rhythm, meaning your sermon fades by Monday, you can't see who is growing, or new members slip away because there's no path from their first Sunday to real belonging, start with Multiply. Plans start at $900 a month, and individual systems start at $250 a month. To see what drift is already costing your church, run the Drift Calculator.
The bottom line
RightNow Media gives your church a deep bench of professionally produced content. Multiply turns your pastor's sermon into a weekly rhythm your whole congregation can follow, and shows you who is actually moving.
One is a library. The other is a rhythm. Both matter. But if Sunday's sermon is 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 a nice extra. It's the work.
See what Multiply would build from your sermon.
Bring one recent sermon to a 15-minute call. We'll show you the week Multiply would build from it, and what you'd see about your people the Monday after. No pitch, just your sermon, applied to your church.