The facts, plainly
If you use Publisher through a Microsoft 365 subscription: the app disappears on October 1, 2026. You will not be able to open it or install it after that day, and it will not open your .pub files.
If you bought Publisher outright (Publisher 2019 or 2021, a one-time purchase): it keeps running on your computer. It just stops getting support and security updates after October 13, 2026. You can keep using it, and many small churches will.
Either way, Microsoft is not replacing it. Their advice is to use Word or PowerPoint instead. Here is their notice.
Do this before October 1, whatever you choose next
- Find out which Publisher you have. Open Publisher, go to File, then Account. If it says Microsoft 365, the app is going away. If it says Publisher 2019 or 2021, you can keep it, unsupported.
- Save every bulletin template you care about as a PDF. File, then Save As, then choose PDF. Do this for your regular Sunday layout, your special-service layouts (Christmas Eve, Easter, funerals), and your newsletter. A PDF cannot be edited easily, but it can be printed, shared, and used as a visual reference when you rebuild.
- Copy your announcements and order of service into a plain document. The words are the part that took years to get right. Put them somewhere that opens anywhere: a Word file, a Google Doc, or a note.
- Pick what comes next. That is the rest of this page.
The alternatives, honestly compared
Most church guides right now point to the same short list. Here is what each one is actually like for a weekly bulletin, including the tool we make.
| Tool | Cost | What it is like for a weekly bulletin |
|---|---|---|
| CanvaFree or Pro | Free, or $15/mo Pro | Easiest to learn, pretty templates, clean PDF export. But it starts from a blank design every week and knows nothing about your order of service or last week's announcements. Expect 45 minutes to an hour each Saturday, forever. |
| Word or Google DocsAlready on your computer | Included | Familiar and free. Fine for a single-column bulletin. Two-column half-fold layouts fight you, and every week is copy-paste from last week. |
| ScribusOpen source | Free | The closest thing to Publisher itself: real desktop publishing, real control. Also the steepest learning curve on this list. Good if someone on your team enjoys software. |
| Adobe Express / InDesignDesign professionals | $10 to $23/mo | Professional results, especially InDesign. Overkill and over-budget for a 60-person church that needs one half-fold bulletin a week. |
| Church-specific bulletin servicesDenominational and supply companies | Varies | Some denominational bodies and church-supply companies offer templates. Worth checking with your conference or diocese, though most are templates, not tools: they still start blank each week. |
| PastorPrepBuilt for small churches | $19/mo | Starts from your tradition's order of service, carries recurring announcements week to week, suggests hymns from your hymnal, and prints a half-fold PDF, including a large-print version. Also drafts your sermon, but the bulletin works on its own. Opens October 1. |
We put ourselves last on purpose. If Canva or Word does the job for you, use it. This page exists because a lot of pastors asked us what to do, not to talk you out of a free tool that works.
Why we built the bulletin side first
PastorPrep started as sermon prep software: it learns how you preach from your past sermons, drafts in your voice, and checks every Bible verse against your translation. But when we asked small-church pastors what actually ate their Saturday, the bulletin kept coming up. Copy last week's. Update the announcements. Fight with the layout. Print. Fold.
So the bulletin is not an add-on. It is a full tool on its own. You do not need to write your sermon in PastorPrep to build your bulletin in it. You pick your tradition once, and each week you get a bulletin that already knows your order of service and remembers the potluck notice from last week. You edit, pick a template (traditional or large-print, for the eyes in the back pew), and download a print-ready PDF.
And when the pastor does write the sermon in PastorPrep, the bulletin fills itself in: title, passage, and a prayer of the day, from the sermon that was just finished.
What it costs and when
$19 a month, one price, no tiers. Founding pastors keep that price for as long as they stay, and the first ten join free for a year. The founding price locks until October 1. Beta is live now, with invites going out every Monday at 9am ET; PastorPrep opens to everyone October 1, the same day Publisher shuts off. 7-day free trial, no card required.