Frequently asked questions

No. The Sermon Coach reads a sermon you have already written. It doesn't study the passage for you, write for you, or pray for you. The study, the prayer, and the slow wrestle with the text on a Tuesday morning stay yours.

What comes back is an honest read of what you wrote. Think of it less as a ghostwriter and more as the seminary friend who would tell you the truth about your manuscript before Sunday, if only he weren't three states away and as buried as you are.

No. None of them has endorsed it, and none of them is affiliated with it. Their published work shaped the criteria, and all six sources are named on the How It's Scored page so you can read them for yourself. The criteria, the weighting, and the arrangement are The Sermon Coach's own synthesis.

A general chatbot answers whatever you ask it, in whatever way you happen to ask. Ask twice and you get two different frameworks. It also tends to encourage you.

The Sermon Coach applies the same eleven criteria to every sermon, and each one traces to a published source. Every note is anchored to a line from your manuscript. Every evaluation goes into your library, so over months you can see what keeps holding and what keeps slipping. And it won't write your sermon, even if you ask.

Then take it seriously and weigh it. The evaluation is an assessment, not a verdict. It reads the page. It has never met your people, and it can't hear how the sermon sounded in the room.

Read the notes before the number. A small change in score between two drafts isn't worth chasing. If a criterion misread your sermon, email Chris and tell him. Those emails make the product better.

Your sermon as text. That can be a manuscript you wrote, a transcript of a sermon you preached, or a YouTube link to a sermon you preached, and The Sermon Coach will pull the transcript for you.

If you preach from notes, send what you have. The evaluation can only read what is on the page, so a notes-only submission will say less about flow, illustrations, and the landing than a full manuscript.

Yes. Submit a sermon written or preached in Spanish and it is evaluated against the same framework.

Yes, and many preachers find that the most useful way to use it. Submit your manuscript on Thursday or Friday, read the evaluation, and you still have time to fix what needs fixing before Sunday. You walk up to preach having already heard the hard feedback.

A few minutes. It comes back while you're still at your desk.

Each of the eleven criteria is scored out of five, with a note explaining the score and quoting the line that earned it. Above the criteria you get what the sermon did well, where it can grow, and your top three priorities with a practical step for each. An overall band tells you where the sermon landed.

Every evaluation also includes How It Preaches. See the sample evaluation for the full format.

The rubric tells you how the sermon handles the text, measured against eleven criteria. How It Preaches tells you whether it lands.

It sets the scores aside and reads your sermon the way it plays for the person in the pew, through five movements: the open, the big idea, the structural logic, the illustrations, and the landing. No numbers. Just an honest paragraph on each movement: where the sermon grips, where it goes slack, and whether the ending arrives or just stops.

A check on your sermon's direction and structure before the manuscript is finished. Answer six questions about what you're planning to preach and you get a short read back on whether it holds together. It's free, and you don't need an account. See the sample sketch for what comes back.

It works best for preachers in the expository, gospel-centered, text-driven stream, because that is the tradition the framework comes from. If you're not sure it fits, email Chris before subscribing. He'll tell you honestly.

Yes. A standalone sermon is read as a standalone sermon. It isn't judged against a series it was never part of.

A topical sermon is still read against the same framework, so expect the evaluation to show you where the text is driving the sermon and where it isn't.

Every Coach subscriber gets growth reporting. Once you have several evaluations in your library, it shows the strengths that keep repeating and the gaps that keep returning.

If an evaluation shouldn't count, such as a test run or a sermon someone else preached, you can exclude it from growth tracking. It stays in your library. Excluding it doesn't return the credit.

A subscription is for the preacher in the pulpit most weeks. You get ten credits a month, and the cost per sermon is low.

A pack is for the preacher who steps in a few times a year: elders, guest preachers, lay preachers, retired pastors doing pulpit supply. You buy credits once and use them when you preach. Packs cost more per credit because there is no commitment and no renewal.

One evaluation of one sermon uses one credit. Revising a sermon and resubmitting it uses another credit, which is how you compare drafts.

Unused subscription credits don't roll over to the next month.

Wait for your next billing cycle, or buy a pack to cover the gap. There are no automatic overage charges.

Yes, though the window is long. The Terms of Service state how long pack credits stay valid, and it comfortably covers a preacher who is in the pulpit once a quarter.

Yes, anytime. Unused pack credits stay in your account and are used after your monthly subscription credits, so nothing is wasted.

Yes. Annual billing is $290 a year instead of $348, the equivalent of two months free. Same evaluations, same features.

Probably, as the product grows. Coach is at introductory pricing, and your rate stays locked for as long as your subscription stays active. Packs are priced separately and aren't covered by the lock.

Every subscription and every seat comes with a money-back guarantee. If The Sermon Coach isn't useful for your preaching, email Chris and you'll get a full refund.

Packs can be refunded shortly after purchase if no credits have been used. The Terms of Service state both refund windows.

From the billing page in your account. There are no contracts. Your subscription stays active through the period you've already paid for, monthly or annual, and then ends without another charge. Packs aren't a subscription, so there is nothing to cancel. Mentoring seats are managed from Manage seats and billing, on your Billing or Mentoring page.

Your first evaluation is free when you create an account. No card, no commitment. Submit a sermon, read the full evaluation, and decide from there. If it isn't useful, you've lost the time it took to paste in a manuscript.

One of the first ten subscribers. The offer is closed.

Both give another preacher his own account and his own library, which you can read.

An Apprentice seat is $12 a month with two submissions a month. He reads the coaching and How It Preaches right away, and his scored evaluation is held until you decide to release it.

A Colleague seat is $25 a month with four submissions a month, and he sees everything as it comes back.

Seat submissions never use your own credits.

The sample Mentoring debrief shows one sermon on an Apprentice seat, read both ways.

It stays open through the period you've paid for. When it closes, the mentoring relationship ends and any scores you are still holding are released to him. He keeps his account, his sermons, and his evaluations. If you'd like to talk through a held score with him first, release it before the seat closes.

For a church where several people preach, each to a different room. Each preacher gets four evaluations a month for $25. The lead pastor holds a full Coach subscription and can read every preacher's work. The preachers can't see one another's. Request a team and Chris will set up every account by hand.

For a seminary course, a church planting cohort, a denominational track, or the men your church is raising up. The instructor reads every preacher's evaluations. Each preacher's library is private to him and never visible to classmates. The instructor's seat is free.

$12 per preacher per month for coaching without the score and two sermons a month, or $25 per preacher per month for the full evaluation and four sermons a month. Five preachers or more, billed by the term, one invoice. Smaller groups run as a Preaching Lab through the same form.

A ten-preacher class over a four-month term is $480 at $12 or $1,000 at $25.

The instructor, and no one else. Classmates never see one another's work.

Every preacher keeps his account, his sermons, and his coaching.

Register your class with the form on the pricing page. Chris sets up every account by hand before your term starts and sends the institution a single invoice.

You. The only other person who can read your sermons is someone you've joined on purpose: the mentor on a seat you accepted, the lead pastor of your Pastoral Team, or the instructor of your class. Nobody else can see them, including other preachers on the same team or in the same class.

No. The Sermon Coach runs on Anthropic's Claude API, and Anthropic does not use API inputs to train its models under its commercial terms.

Never sold. Your sermon text is shared only with the services needed to store it and run your evaluation, and those are listed in the Privacy Policy.

Yes, from your dashboard. A deleted sermon can be restored for a limited window, after which it is permanently removed. The Privacy Policy describes how long we keep your data. Deleting a sermon doesn't return the credit it used.

To delete your entire account and everything in it, email Chris.

Yes. Email Chris and he'll send it.

Dr. Christopher M. Daukas, a former church planter in Phoenix, Arizona, with 25 years of pastoral ministry experience and a PhD along the way. He built The Sermon Coach for a plain reason: somewhere after seminary, the honest feedback on his own preaching dried up, and he wanted it back. It is the framework he runs on his own sermons.

Chris also serves as Executive Vice President of Global Training Network, which trains pastors across the Majority World. The fuller story is on the Story page.