The B2B sales playbook for BetterFaith.
Everything you need to sell BetterFaith into churches, faith-led employers, ministries, and creators: the offer, the price, the pitch, the objections, and a warm list of 445 targets already waiting.
Executive summary
You are selling a faith-native care benefit that no therapy platform can legally offer, into institutions that already have the audience, at a price that costs the partner nothing to say yes to.
Sessions are 100 dollars, 85 for partner members. Partnering is free, with no cap and no minimum. You inherit 445 vetted targets, 90 reachable today by direct email, and four repeatable motions. This playbook gives you the offer, the math, the pitch, the objections, and the competitive answers.
Why this works
Christians do not find spiritual care through search ads. They find it through their church, their workplace, the ministries they support, and the people they already follow. Your job is to meet them in those rooms.
The wedge: a free-to-adopt benefit our competitors are legally barred from matching.
BetterFaith pairs a member with a Guide who disciples them, pours into them, and walks with them in everyday growth, and who is also there for the hard seasons. It is biblical counseling and pastoral care, not therapy and not clinical mental health. That framing keeps it outside HIPAA and state licensing, and it is exactly why a church or a faith-led employer can extend it to their people without the regulatory weight a clinical benefit carries.
Every partner is a distribution channel into a pre-trusted audience. A church newsletter, an employer benefits page, a ministry email, or a creator who already has the audience's confidence does the qualifying work that cold paid media cannot. You are not convincing strangers that faith-based care matters. You are handing an aligned, gathered audience a benefit their leader is glad to offer.
Why the offer is easy to say yes to. Partnering is free. There is no cap on members or sessions, and no minimum commitment. The partner is not buying software or signing a spend contract. They are turning on a 15 percent member benefit and choosing how much, if anything, to subsidize. That removes the biggest reason a first meeting stalls.
What we sell
Know the product cold. When someone asks what a member actually gets, this is the answer.
A recurring, 50-minute video session with a Guide matched to them: a pastor or biblical counselor with seminary training or ACBC or CCEF credentials. Not a crisis hotline and not a therapist. Someone in their corner for both everyday discipleship and the heavier seasons, week over week.
The congregation discount
- What
- Every member of the partner gets 15 percent off every session, applied automatically, with no cap on members or sessions.
The Pastor Dashboard
- What
- Aggregate engagement data, common themes, and member-chosen updates only. The partner sees the shape of care across their people, never a private conversation.
Theology-matched Guides
- What
- The partner can interview and select Guides who match their theology. BetterFaith handles the matching between member and Guide.
Care for their own team
- What
- Reserved Guide hours for staff and key volunteers, so the people who carry everyone else have someone too.
Commercial model
The church model is live on betterfaith.com. The service and referral models below extend the same economics; treat them as the proposed starting point and confirm terms per deal.
Illustrative gross session revenue at the 85 dollar partner rate. Figures are directional, show the reach of one partnership, and sit before Guide payout. Use the math to prioritize, not to promise.
| Church size | Light adoption | Moderate adoption | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 attendance | ~8 sessions / month | ~30 sessions / month | Roughly 8k to 31k dollars a year in member sessions. |
| 2,000 attendance | ~30 sessions / month | ~120 sessions / month | Roughly 31k to 122k dollars a year. |
| 10,000+ / multi-site | ~150 sessions / month | ~600 sessions / month | Roughly 153k to 612k dollars a year from one relationship. |
| Motion | How the partner runs it | Economics |
|---|---|---|
| Service partner (employer) | Offers BetterFaith to staff as a faith-based care benefit, like an EAP. Refer, subsidize, or fully cover, same four options as a church. | Free to set up. Staff pay 85 dollars or the subsidized difference. Employer chooses coverage. |
| Referral, member benefit | The org offers its audience the 85 dollar partner rate as a perk. No payout, pure distribution. | Free. This is the referral deal we want: reach with no margin given up. |
| Referral, revenue share | The org actively refers and earns on the members it sends, once attribution is in place. | Fallback only: 10 percent for the first 3 months. See section 5 for the full model and the margin math. |
| Creator | Produces content BetterFaith licenses and runs, and can promote as an affiliate. | See section 12. UGC buy plus the affiliate model in section 5. |
How you get paid. Rep compensation and quota are set with leadership and sit outside this document. The model rewards partners that drive activated session volume, not logos on a page, so prioritize partners who will actually put the benefit in front of their people.
Affiliate & revenue share
Affiliates promote BetterFaith to their own audience with a tracked link or code and earn on the members they bring. This is the audience motion at individual scale, and it is where margin leaks if the deal is wrong. So be explicit about the deal we want.
Default to a plain member benefit or a flat activation bounty. Use revenue share only when a partner will not take a flat deal, and keep it low and short: 10 percent, first 3 months.
BetterFaith makes its margin on repeat sessions, not the first one. A flat bounty pays once to acquire a member and hands us every session after. Revenue share is a standing claim on the recurring margin that is the whole point of the business, and it grows the longer a member stays. Fifteen percent over six months would hand an affiliate roughly half the margin on every member they send. We do not offer that.
Member benefit Best
- What
- The partner offers its audience the standard partner discount. No payout.
- Cost to us
- Zero. Pure distribution; we give up no margin.
Flat bounty Default
- What
- 30 dollars, one time, per referred member's first paid session.
- Cost to us
- A fixed cost we recover in about one session. Every session after is full margin.
Revenue share Fallback
- What
- 10 percent of gross, first 3 months, paid sessions only.
- Cost to us
- A cut of recurring margin for the window. Above 10 percent or beyond 3 months is a leadership exception.
Per referred member, illustrative. Assume a member who does about 6 sessions over 6 months, and that BetterFaith keeps about 30 dollars of gross margin per session, so roughly 180 dollars of margin across that member's first six months.
| Deal | Affiliate is paid | BetterFaith keeps | Affiliate share of our margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Member benefit (discount only) | $0 | ~$180 | 0% |
| Flat $30 bounty (default) | $30 once | ~$150 | ~17% |
| 10% rev share, 3 months | ~$30 | ~$150 | ~17% |
| 15% rev share, 6 months (we avoid) | ~$90 | ~$90 | ~50% |
For a light member the bounty and the short revenue share cost about the same. For a heavy member the bounty stays fixed at 30 dollars while revenue share keeps climbing, which is the exact reason the bounty is our default. The 30 dollar margin per session is a working assumption; confirm the real Guide split and the absolute numbers update, but the ranking of the deals does not.
Partners care about their number. Here is what each structure pays, per referred member and at scale.
| Structure | Per member | Across 50 engaged members | Per 100 referred sessions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat $30 bounty | $30, once | $1,500 | n/a (paid per member, not per session) |
| 10% rev share, 3 months | ~$30 | ~$1,500 | $1,000 |
| 15% rev share, 6 months (not offered) | ~$90 | ~$4,500 | $1,500 |
The 15 percent, six-month deal pays a partner about three times more than our default, and every extra dollar comes straight out of BetterFaith's margin. That is the deal to walk away from, not toward.
Time-bound by design, and we keep it short. When we use revenue share, it runs the first 3 months of a member's activity, paid sessions only, first-touch attribution, one partner credited per member. After that the member is pure margin for BetterFaith.
Per referred session, at the standard 100 dollar rate. The Guide payout is a working assumption; confirm the real split and this table updates.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Session price (standard) | $100.00 |
| Guide payout (assumed ~70%) | $70.00 |
| BetterFaith gross margin | $30.00 |
| Affiliate commission at 10% (fallback) | $10.00 |
| BetterFaith net during the 3-month window | $20.00 |
| BetterFaith net after the window, or on a bounty deal | $30.00 |
Why the bounty wins on margin. We pay it once and earn it back in a single session, then keep the full margin on every session after. Revenue share keeps taking a cut for the whole window. Set the bounty near one session's margin and the payback is one session; anything a partner books beyond that is profit.
Do not stack discounts. An affiliate-referred member pays the standard 100 dollars, not the 15 percent congregation rate. Stacking the member discount and a commission would give away 30 percent of gross before the Guide is even paid. Affiliate pricing and church-partner pricing are separate lanes; never run both on the same member.
Build it in
- Lead with the plain member benefit; it costs us nothing
- Default individuals to the flat 30 dollar bounty
- Cap any revenue share at 10 percent and 3 months
- Paid sessions only; clawback on refund or chargeback
- First-touch attribution, one partner credited per member
Never allow
- 15 percent, or a 6-month window, without leadership sign-off
- Stacking the congregation discount with a commission
- Self-referral or a partner enrolling their own household
- Bidding on the BetterFaith brand name in paid search
- Open-ended commission with no time cap
Four partnership motions
Four partners, four value exchanges, four doors. Run them in parallel with separate plays.
Church partnership Capacity
- Offer
- Extends the church's counseling capacity, a referral destination beyond staff, and care for the church's own team.
- Door
- Care or counseling pastor; executive pastor for multi-site.
- The ask
- A 4-week pilot: turn on the member benefit and reserve free staff hours.
Service partner Staff benefit
- Offer
- A biblical care benefit for employees, like an EAP but pastoral rather than clinical.
- Door
- HR or People team, or an existing chaplaincy program.
- The ask
- A subsidized pilot for one team or department.
Referral partner Audience
- Offer
- Point the audience to BetterFaith via referral, member benefit, sponsorship, or content.
- Door
- Partnerships, BD, or sponsorship contact.
- The ask
- A co-branded member benefit; revenue share only as a fallback.
Creator Trust + content
- Offer
- License their content for our ads; run them as affiliates to their own audience.
- Door
- Direct DM, management, or media-kit contact.
- The ask
- A UGC deal plus free founding access for a testimonial.
Your pipeline
You are not starting cold. The working CRM holds 445 vetted targets with a pre-scored priority, a fit angle, a contact path, and a reputational flag where one exists. Ninety have a direct public email today.
| Motion | Targets | Direct emails | Notes on reachability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creators | 155 | 24 | Most have no public rate card; reach by DM or media kit. 49 affiliate-capable, 37 both. |
| Churches | 135 | 42 | Across 61 traditions; the rest reachable via a care-ministry or general church email. |
| Service partners | 77 | 8 | Reach via HR, People, or chaplaincy; channel networks unlock many at once. |
| Referral partners | 78 | 16 | Reach via partnerships or sponsorship contacts. |
| Total | 445 | 90 | Counts approximate as of June 2026; re-verify before contracting. |
Open the CRM. Your live list is the BetterFaith Partnerships CRM. Work the 90 direct-email targets first. Every tab leads with priority, stage, owner, next step, and next-step date, so day one is loading those 90 and booking discovery calls, not building a list.
ICP & qualifying
Spend your time where the yes is fastest and the volume is real. Chase the left column, skip the right.
Prioritize
- Churches with 500-plus attendance or multiple sites
- An existing biblical-counseling ministry (ACBC or CCEF) or a large recovery or care program (Celebrate Recovery, GriefShare)
- A named care or counseling pastor to talk to
- Faith-led employers that already fund chaplaincy or state Christian principles
- Ministries and apps with a large, engaged Christian audience and a partnerships function
Deprioritize or skip
- Very small churches where session volume will not justify the effort
- Catholic-only platforms and audiences, a narrower fit for an ecumenical product
- Any partner mid-scandal or mid-leadership-vacuum (see Risks)
- Orgs with no real way to reach their people
- Anyone conflicted by an existing therapy-competitor relationship
A church hiring a counseling pastor, launching Celebrate Recovery, or running a sermon series on anxiety or mental health. A waitlist to see a staff counselor. An employer posting a chaplain role. A ministry that already runs an affiliate or partner program. Any of these means the pain is already named, and your job is timing, not persuasion.
Church partnerships
The highest-leverage motion. One large or multi-site church puts BetterFaith in front of thousands of aligned people through a channel they already trust.
| Church | Priority | Why it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Life.Church | High | Largest US church with 40-plus campuses; one partnership reaches an enormous distributed congregation. |
| Church of the Highlands | High | Heavy investment in counseling and Celebrate Recovery; BetterFaith extends existing care. |
| North Point Ministries | High | Eight Atlanta congregations plus an established care-and-counseling track. |
| Saddleback Church | High | Home of Celebrate Recovery; already believes in referral-based care. |
| Crossroads Church | High | Already pays an outside provider for member counseling; BetterFaith can be that provider. |
The ask. A 4-week pilot. Turn on the 15 percent member benefit, reserve free Guide hours for staff and key volunteers, and review the Pastor Dashboard after 30 days. No cost, no commitment, and the church sees the shape of care across its people.
Service partners
Faith-led employers who already see employee care as part of their mission. BetterFaith becomes the biblical care benefit, the EAP for a company that runs on Christian principles.
| Employer | Priority | Why it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Hobby Lobby | High | Already offers optional chaplain services and runs on Christian principles. |
| Coca-Cola Consolidated | High | Funds chaplaincy across all sites and frames its purpose around honoring God. |
| David Weekley Homes | High | Existing Marketplace Chaplains client with a documented faith-driven culture. |
| Cru | High | A ministry workforce that would value structured pastoral care for its own staff. |
Channel shortcut. Marketplace Chaplains, Corporate Chaplains of America, and C12 Group are chaplaincy and peer networks, not employers. Partnering with one puts BetterFaith in front of many faith-led employers at once. Approach these separately and early.
Referral partners
Faith-led orgs with large Christian audiences. They do not employ the audience; they have its attention and trust. The play is referral, member benefit, sponsorship, or content.
| Partner | Priority | Why it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Glorify | High | Devotional users already engage with prayer and wellbeing content; a warm audience for a Guide. |
| Lectio 365 (24-7 Prayer) | High | Ecumenical daily-prayer audience focused on rest and renewal; close map to BetterFaith. |
| Christian Healthcare Ministries | High | Healthshare members carry real burdens; CHM is non-clinical, so BetterFaith complements without overlap. |
| Samaritan Ministries | High | Large engaged Christian membership facing health hardships; an ideal referral audience. |
| Promise Keepers | High | Already runs strategic, content, and affiliate partner tracks at national reach. |
The ask. Lead with a co-branded member benefit; their audience gets the 85 dollar partner rate and we give up no margin. Use the revenue share from section 5 only if they will not move without it, and keep it at 10 percent for 3 months. For the healthshares, frame BetterFaith as the non-clinical complement to medical care, never a replacement.
Creators
155 vetted faith creators across discipleship, marriage, motherhood, men's ministry, hope-and-anxiety, worship, and YouTube. This motion does two jobs: it produces content BetterFaith owns, and it borrows trust the brand has not earned yet.
| Lever | How we buy it | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| UGC (priority) | BetterFaith licenses content and runs it on its own ads. | Roughly 3 videos to start, about 150 to 250 dollars per video for nano and micro creators, around 12 months usage rights. |
| Founding access | Give free founding access first, in exchange for a real testimonial. | No cash; builds an authentic story before any paid ask. |
| Affiliate (bolt-on) | Per-signup commission once attribution exists. | Uses the affiliate model in section 5: flat 30 dollar bounty by default, 10 percent for 3 months as a fallback. |
| Paid reel (fallback) | Creator posts on their own channel. | Nano 50 to 150, micro 150 to 500, mid 500 to 1,500 dollars. Use only when UGC and affiliate do not fit. |
Clinician creators need a brief. Several strong affiliate creators are licensed therapists. They must describe BetterFaith as Guides and biblical counseling, never as therapy, because BetterFaith is non-clinical and outside HIPAA. One creator runs BetterHelp host-reads, which requires a category-exclusivity conversation before any deal.
The pitch & discovery
One core narrative, tailored per persona, opened with the right questions.
You cannot hire enough counselors to meet your people's need, and the need is not only crisis. It is the everyday work of growing in faith. BetterFaith gives every one of your people a Guide who disciples them and walks with them, and who is there when the season gets heavy. Our Guides are pastors and biblical counselors, seminary or ACBC and CCEF trained, and you choose the ones who match your theology. It is free to turn on, every member gets 15 percent off, and you decide whether to subsidize or cover it. You see the shape of care across your people, never a private conversation. And it extends to your staff and pastors too.
Capacity without hiring. Your waitlist and after-hours load get a trusted destination, and you keep oversight.
Free to launch, scales with the church. No software spend, no cap. A member benefit you can announce this month.
A faith-based EAP. The care benefit that fits a Christian culture, that your people will actually use.
A resource for your audience. Give your people real care and a benefit, with a referral relationship behind it.
For a church
- How does your team handle the counseling and care load today, and what is the wait to be seen?
- What happens to someone after a sermon series on anxiety or marriage ends?
- Who is caring for your staff and your pastors right now?
- When something is beyond your team, where do you send people, and do you trust it?
- If it cost you nothing to turn on, what would make a 4-week pilot an easy yes?
Objection handling
The questions you will hear in nearly every conversation, and the honest answer to each.
Competitive battlecard
You will be compared to these. Know the honest difference. Verify any competitor pricing before you quote it, and win on category, not on a price war.
Licensed clinical therapists, sold direct to individuals as a subscription. Not faith-specific.
Faith-native pastoral care, sold through the institutions people trust, free for the partner to offer, with a church dashboard and staff care.
The closest look-alike: Christian-framed but still licensed clinical therapy, sold to individuals, inside the healthcare regime.
Biblical counseling and discipleship, not clinical treatment. Church-partnered and theology-matched, so the church chooses who represents it.
Secular, clinical, low-utilization employee assistance, bought as a line item and rarely used.
A values-aligned benefit employees actually engage with, framed as faith, not a hotline. Free to set up, employer chooses coverage.
One or two staff counselors, a waitlist, and burnout. Capacity capped by headcount, and nothing for the staff themselves.
Extends the team without hiring, absorbs overflow and after-hours need, and finally cares for the caregivers.
Sell it clean
The language is not decoration. It is what keeps BetterFaith outside HIPAA and state licensing. Hold these lines on every call, deck, and email.
Never say therapy
No therapy, therapist, treatment, diagnose, patients, or clinical. Say biblical counseling, pastoral care, Guides, and members.
Growth, not just crisis
Lead with the Guide who disciples and walks with someone in everyday growth. It is not only for the hard stuff.
Adults only
The offer is for adults. For a Christian school network, the partner offer is for adult staff, not students.
Ecumenical
Gospel-centered, not tied to one denomination or political wing. Do not let a call drift into a tribe or a vote.
Health partners
For health systems and healthshares, frame BetterFaith as a non-clinical complement to medical care, never a replacement.
No conversion therapy
BetterFaith does not and will not offer it. A binding line in positioning and insurance.
Your first 90 days
Public launch is today, July 1. Front-load the 90 warm targets and the channel shortcuts, then scale what converts.
Learn the offer, work the warm list
- Know the product, the four church models, the affiliate model, and the objections cold.
- Load the 90 direct-email targets and open first contact.
- Book 15 discovery calls; sign 1 to 2 church pilots.
- Brief any clinician creators on non-clinical language before they post.
Run pilots, pull the shortcuts
- Approach Marketplace Chaplains, Corporate Chaplains, and C12 to reach many employers at once.
- Launch the first referral member benefit with a healthshare or prayer app.
- Capture a testimonial and the first Pastor Dashboard readout from a live pilot.
Turn pilots into standing partnerships
- Move pilot churches to full partnerships; add subsidy where it lifts adoption.
- Formalize referral member-benefit terms; use revenue share only where it is unavoidable.
- Re-verify and re-prioritize the next wave from the CRM.
Risks & flags
Every flagged row in the CRM carries a note. Clear these before you reach out.
| Partner | Flag | How to handle |
|---|---|---|
| Grace Community Church (Sun Valley) | Removed from ACBC approved training centers, April 2026, amid an abuse-case controversy. | Approach cautiously or hold. |
| Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, The Potter's House | Mid leadership transition. | Name the institution, not a departed leader. |
| Crossroads Church | Founder leadership status reportedly fluid. | Verify current leadership before outreach. |
| Tyson Foods, Forever 21, Pilgrim's Pride | Child-labor exposure, bankruptcy history, and diluted faith posture respectively. | Kept for completeness, flagged; deprioritize. |
| BetterHelp-affiliated creators | Existing host-read relationship with a therapy competitor. | Category-exclusivity conversation before any deal. |
Data caveat. Attendance, employee, and audience figures are approximate and self-reported or third-party. Confidence ratings reflect how solid the data is, not how good the partner is. Re-verify any number and any contact before contracting. No personal emails were fabricated.
Proof & resources
The ammunition you have today, and where to find the rest.
Guide quality
- Use it
- Every Guide is vetted, roughly 1 applicant in 5 is accepted, all with seminary or ACBC and CCEF credentials. The partner interviews and selects.
The offer page
- Link
- betterfaith.com/for-churches lays out the four models and the Pastor Dashboard. Your leave-behind for a church buyer.
The CRM
- Open it
- BetterFaith Partnerships CRM: 445 targets with priority, stage, and contact. Work it, do not rebuild it.
Who to loop in
- Contact
- dakota@betterfaith.com for pricing exceptions, subsidy structures, and any partner outside the guardrails.