# How to use SermonAudio



## jwithnell (Sep 3, 2012)

I'm trying to get an idea of how much it costs to use SermonAudio to broadcast sermons as a link off our website. They give the $29.99 rate for full membership, but say other fees may apply. Are there additional charges depending on how much is stored? Accessed? When you join, can you upload existing sermons or are there additional charges related to that? 

At one point, our church looked at the service and dropped it almost right away because someone said it appeared you had to pay for access. I've never seen a request for anything other than basic info "help us to help you" and the option to get more features for a fee. Is this really a turn-off? I've used this service since back when it was a tape library and have never felt like they were bilking users for money. Any info on this point would be appreciated.


----------



## HaMetumtam (Sep 3, 2012)

I dont bath so much but do use cologne a lot. I used sermon audio for my Church it was full membership which is the cost you quoted, i uploaded two sermons per week and the only hidden fee for me was the overseas transfer fee for the direct debit, it was about 99p not even a pound. Perhaps if your uploading videos there may be a higher charge but from my experience the fees were as stated on the site no hidden charges. 

It will depend on what your uploading i.e videos or audio and how much. Most folks upload a morning and evening sermon once a week and for that the standard fee applies. You can email these concern to Sermon audio directly they are very helpful as i had the same concerns as it was coming from my personal bank account.


----------



## Romans922 (Sep 3, 2012)

Extra fees depend on what you do.

You get to upload 10 sermons a month (that is at the cost of you monthly fee). If you add in more sermons, it is $1 per sermon.

If you use video, that will cost more. If you broadcast live, that will cost more. 

But if you just add 10 or less sermons per month, than it will only cost you the monthly fee.

To access the site and listen to sermons is free for anyone. If you want to have the sermon transcribed into a document, that will cost money, but is unneeded for most people. 

My congregation just started using it and we like it.


----------



## jwithnell (Sep 3, 2012)

Thanks y'all. Our changeover to Squarespace 6 has been difficult in dealing w/info for our current storage and feed.


----------



## Pilgrim (Sep 3, 2012)

I think there is or was a start-up fee but that it is waived at various times throughout the year.


----------



## Semper Fidelis (Sep 4, 2012)

A few have hit on the monthly fees that may accrue. Here's a look at some of the options you have that are either free with the base package or additional:


*HIFI Audio/Video*:	Additional $10/month
*iPhone Church App*: Custom iPhone App just for your Church. $199 to set up and $10/month additional.
*Live Webcasting*:	Only $10 added to your base monthly fee. Only $2.00 per webcast hour (additional usage fee), OR... Only $5.00 per VIDEO webcast hour (additional usage fee). 
*Auto-Blog Import*: Free	
*Auto-Upload MP3*: $1 charge for every sermon uploaded	
*FTP Batch Upload*: $1 charge for every sermon uploaded
*SOLO Site Feature*: Additional $10 per month
*Email Upload*: $1 per sermon uploaded
*Online Donations*: Free

For what it's worth, we pay for the HiFi option (Sermons sound much better this way). As already noted, your monthly fee includes 10 sermons uploaded in that month using either the website or their upload tool. If you upload a video they charge extra for that but the 10 free sermon upload thing is for any length MP3.

I've been recording and uploading sermons for Churches since 2000 before MP3 was the preferred method. Back then we uploaded Real Audio sermons that could be streamed over dialup. Yes, dialup.

When I started recording in MP3, I initially saved at 32 kbps as Fred Greco rightly noted that it was a sweet spot for quality vs size. That said, I host Church web sites for free and I can tell you that even a year's worth of sermons recorded at 32 kbps adds up. One of the things that started making me think that the idea of hosting sermons on my own site was a bad idea was that just to back up all the zipped up files (including audio) was over 4GB after two years. I still host this traditional method for a few friends but I don't recommend it any more.

We've been really happy with Sermon Audio. We signed up at the 2011 PCA GA. We had about 150 sermons in our library already so I used the FTP batch uploading feature. That cost $150 but it brought us up to date.

Now this may seem steep but it's really an advertising expense. I'm pretty impressed at the number of people that find us through Sermon Audio. It's an additional way to find our Church. In fact, I just got an email from a Father whose daughter and son-in-law were stationed at Quantico and he sent us a note asking us to reach out to them to invite them to our Church. He found us on Sermon Audio and thought we were solid.

One of the recent features I discovered is Twitter integration as well as a Blog Feed thing. You have the option to have your own Blog on SA (free) but we already post every sermon on our website (e.g. Glimpses of Glory (Mark 9:2-29) | Hope of Christ Church). When I post a new sermon, Sermon Audio daily checks the RSS feed and will add a blog entry. It's just another way to be found. Here's what it looks like at SA: Hope of Christ Church - SermonAudio.com (not a pretty URL but it's still free advertising). I also have it set up to send out a Tweet whenever there's a new sermon added or blog entry: https://twitter.com/HopeOfChrist

Neither the Pastor nor I are really big Tweeters so this is a nice way to keep our feed active.


----------



## Humble_penitent (Sep 5, 2012)

[video=youtube;V9xFgyv8BJI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9xFgyv8BJI[/video]


----------



## jwithnell (Sep 5, 2012)

The person most affected by this has been willing to go back in and work with each file independently so I can hardly complain. The additional online presence would be great, I agree. 

Thomas: plus card counting?


----------



## Semper Fidelis (Sep 5, 2012)

jwithnell said:


> The person most affected by this has been willing to go back in and work with each file independently so I can hardly complain.


That's good. I don't know how many sermons you guys already have uploaded but keep in mind that you're limited to 10 uploads per month by the tools they provide. On any given month that means you'll be uploading 4-5 sermons for Sunday and that leave 5-6 sermons that you can upload for free from the past. If you have 120 sermons to upload this way it will take you almost two years to do it this way (or the volunteer).

Assuming the person is going to use the FTP to save time then I have some advice for that person. Please PM me and I'll make sure they know how to upload in a way that will get everything uploaded nice and pretty via FTP.

I like to listen to First Presbyterian in Columbia but they recently uploaded a ton of sermons from the past and never organized them according to date so their podcast became a jumbled mess where it was nigh impossible to determine what was preached last week and what was a Sunday School delivered 3 years ago. You need to be careful in how you upload things from the past to keep the series and the dates intact.


----------



## Pilgrim Standard (Sep 5, 2012)

Semper Fidelis said:


> You need to be careful in how you upload things from the past to keep the series and the dates intact.


I can not agree more. It is terrible trying to get some of the sermon series in order.
I would also encourage the use of Listed Text Preached Upon, Grouping series by Series name, and utilization of "Subjects" so that the sermons show when someone searches by subject.


----------



## SolaScriptura (Sep 5, 2012)

I have a few old OLD sermons on Sermon Audio. Crazy!


----------



## Andres (Sep 5, 2012)

When I researched using it about a year ago, in addition to the monthly fee, there was also a start up fee that was pretty significant. I know it was over $100 but I don't remember the exact price.


----------



## SolaScriptura (Sep 5, 2012)

$100 fee is significant? 
I'm out of touch with the common man!


----------



## Semper Fidelis (Sep 5, 2012)

Andres said:


> When I researched using it about a year ago, in addition to the monthly fee, there was also a start up fee that was pretty significant. I know it was over $100 but I don't remember the exact price.



We signed up at GA in 2011 for $1. They occasionally offer this promotion so look out for it.


----------



## Andres (Sep 5, 2012)

SolaScriptura said:


> $100 fee is significant?
> I'm out of touch with the common man!



$100 is significant compared to the monthly fees and yes, I've thought you out of touch for some time now.


----------



## SolaScriptura (Sep 5, 2012)

Andres said:


> SolaScriptura said:
> 
> 
> > $100 fee is significant?
> ...



You're hurting my feelings!


----------



## Semper Fidelis (Sep 5, 2012)

Andres said:


> When I researched using it about a year ago, in addition to the monthly fee, there was also a start up fee that was pretty significant. I know it was over $100 but I don't remember the exact price.



The cost is relatively high when you compare it to the ability to host your own sermons on an existing hosting plan. This is why I held off for so many years for our Church but, as I noted, space adds up on local hosting and Sermon Audio exposes your Church to a much wider audience.


----------



## Romans922 (Sep 5, 2012)

Semper Fidelis said:


> jwithnell said:
> 
> 
> > The person most affected by this has been willing to go back in and work with each file independently so I can hardly complain.
> ...



Rich, 

You guys should have morning and evening worship, so you can have 2 sermons per Lord's Day. So 8-10 sermons per month.


----------



## Semper Fidelis (Sep 5, 2012)

My point was the minimal upload if one sermon per week. We actually upload about 8-10 every month in our case.


----------



## jwithnell (Sep 5, 2012)

Sorry to start a rabbit trail -- each sermon entry on our website, not SermonAudio, is being revisited so SermonAudio is no longer and option : (


----------



## Humble_penitent (Sep 5, 2012)

Reformed churches tend to attract intellectually driven people who strive to understand the harder aspects of theology. It is so wonderful to see that God has begun to cast a much wider net and bring other people into His reformed churches.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!


----------



## JoannaV (Sep 5, 2012)

Thanks for the info Rich. I had looked into SermonAudio a little while ago but decided against it. Some of the features and the "advertising" would be nice but it's not quite enough incentive for us. It is enticing though, perhaps I will finally succumb like you did.


----------



## bonk1971 (Sep 6, 2012)

Hey guys, sorry to jump in so late but if you need info on SermonAudio I can help. I work there.


----------



## Humble_penitent (Sep 6, 2012)

Oh I never said they were mutually exclusive but those that are intellectually driven and those that have the brain of an eggtimer define "lightheartedness" differently.


----------



## a mere housewife (Sep 8, 2012)

I think it's generally better not to infer anything from intellectually driven jokes. 

'A merry heart does good like medicine.' I think your humor is set to a medicine timer Joshua. It often does me good when I need it.


----------

