All Planning Center Reviews

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Adam

11 - 50 employees

Used more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

Reviewed December 2020

It's the standard for church software for a reason

User Profile

Christopher

Verified reviewer

Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed May 2022

Great software!

Overall, we love Planning Center. It's easy to use & the team there is super friendly and helpful when needed. We wish it was more customizable, but overall, we love all of their products and use them frequently.

PROS

We love how intuitive PCO is. It's easy to navigate & use, with very little extensive training required. It's the "Apple" of software. It is seamless for volunteer & attendee management, and it makes sign ups, giving, groups, etc. a breeze.

CONS

It's not quite a customizable as we would like. All solutions are out of the box, and there's not the option to really change or amend things (functionality, reporting, etc.). I also wish the API, specifically for registrations, was open to developers so we could connect that into our main church database.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

Ease of event registration & seamless integration into the People database of PCO. Volunteer scheduling/maintenance is robust.

Vendor Response

Hi Christopher, Thanks for your kind words! You mentioned feedback regarding our lack of customization and API concerns for Registrations specifically. Our Support Team is a great resource for help in that area. Hit the '?' icon in the upper-right of the screen when you are looking at your List. Send us a message and our team will jump in to help! We welcome feedback and feature requests, too. Thanks!

Replied July 2022

Anonymous

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed October 2020

Best service planning software around

Around Services and Check ins, Planning Center has been exceptional with customer service and helping us sort through issues. Their tutorial videos are also great. We didn't have great luck with customer service around the financial module, hence the choice to go another direction with our overall database while continuing to use Services.

PROS

Planning Center Services automates really helpful admin and communication work and allows teams to learn and grow with all of the resources they need. From an administrator's perspective, the ability to schedule and view services in matrix mod and keep track of multiple teams of volunteers with various limitations and requests using the preferences and blackouts is easily worth the monthly cost. Services is the backbone of planning center, and there's good reason that it's the standard in mid-sized and larger churches. The interface is intuitive and easy for volunteer users to figure out, and they do a great job of continuing to innovate features and usability.

CONS

While the other modules across planning center have great integration, our church found that the finances side lacked necessary features, meaning we are now running a separate database/CRM while still running planning center services. We wanted to be able to add financial information (givings) into the database without the person entering the data seeing previous data - essentially the ability to enter data blindly. I suspect many other churches are running different databases as well as planning center services, and the multi-system approach isn't ideal, so it would be nice to have a more responsive development team as planning center's interface is generally well built and user friendly.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

Services fit all of our needs well when it came to service planning and Sunday morning volunteer management, and there didn't seem to be any other products that could compete in terms of functionality and ease of use.

Tara

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

3

EASE OF USE

2

VALUE FOR MONEY

3

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

2

Reviewed April 2021

Not the most user friendly

Planning center makes it easy to keep church records and maintain a database. Not only can you use it to schedule and email volunteers, but it also has an add on that allows you to background check volunteers as well. It is very helpful to have this tool included in the software. My main complaint about the product is that it is difficult to create teams Volunteers and the service planning tool is awkward when applied to children’s ministries.

PROS

There is a great system for tracking attendance and check-in‘s at Sunday services. It can be a very helpful database for church management with lots of different functionalities.

CONS

The “Services” is not user-friendly at all. The menus are not intuitive, and it takes lots of trial and error to achieve the desired result. This area of the program could use a major overhaul to make it more functional and helpful.

Vendor Response

Hey Tara! Thanks for taking the time to share the review. We're sorry to hear you are running into issues with the volunteer management portion of Services. Our support team is standing by today and ready to assist with any pain points you are running into. Would you be up for emailing us at support@planningcenter.com? We look forward to hearing from you.

Replied April 2021

Mitchell

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed November 2023

Incredible Software to help Manage your team!

PROS

We love how easy it is to add people to the program, how intuitive it is to create services plans and items and adding people into various positions, and we love how you can upload the music and chord charts for each song so that volunteers can easily rehearse and practice on their own!

CONS

It is a little more on the expensive end of the market; however the features they include mostly off set this. We also wish it could do more.

Vendor Response

Thanks for your kind words, Mitchell! We always appreciate hearing from our customers!

Replied November 2023

Mitchell

Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed March 2023

The MUST USE platform for Worship Planning!

I love using Planning Center and do not plan on switching anytime soon. It has blessed our church and helped me do my job so much more effectively!

PROS

Planning Center is a wonderful platform to create services, organize your volunteers, and create/edit songs! You are able to add lyrics and chords AND transpose both chord sheets AND .mp3's that you can upload (if you have the right copyright)! Users can easily see their schedules and decline/block out dates they know they will be out of town. You can integrate this with ProPresenter for easy service creation and lead your teams to success!

CONS

The only thing I wish Planning Center could do is replace the current membership and online giving platform we currently use. It's getting close but for church management it falls just shy.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

Planning Center has much more features and much more integration options. Plus it is easier to use!

John Marc

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed February 2023

Planning Center for Churches

Overall, we enjoy using Planning Center and the apps work extremely well. Everything is customizable and extremely flexible with any kind of organizational system that you may have. They have a great Slack community as well where you can ask for help with any questions you may have.

PROS

We really enjoy using Planning Center. It is easy to use, fast, and very intuitive. The different apps help to keep the data separate and they work together really well. We use like how the apps are quick and easy to find the information that we need.

CONS

The only downside that I find is the cost. I feel that it is slightly overpriced. Everything works great but they charge you for for each app separately. In some ways it could keep costs down but it would be nice if there was an option to save when you are using every app they offer. They also charge to track donations which many companies do not.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

The ease of use and ease of teaching our volunteers and staff to use it was a huge selling point. Also, the lack of a contract played into our decision.

Reasons for switching to Planning Center

The ease of use was a huge selling point for us. Breeze is slow compared to Planning Center and lacks some of the functionality that Planning Center has.

Vendor Response

Hey there, John Marc! We're glad to hear that you're enjoying our products and that our Slack Community has been helpful to you and your team. If you have any questions or other comments you'd like to pass along, you can always email us at support@planningcenter.com. We're glad to hear from our customers! Thanks again for the great review!

Replied February 2023

Jennifer

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed March 2022

Planning Center is an all in one software that makes management easier.

Planning Center is easy to learn and manage. It has helped our church navigate managing over 200 members. This includes using online giving, member database, scheduling, music, emailing members, managing attendance to events and conducting background checks. Planning Center certainly has made our life easier in the office!

PROS

I like how it is versatile and allows us to plug in other services that help us navigate our business efficiently.

CONS

I wish we could have access to a live person quickly if assistance with the program is needed.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

They had more to offer for a great price.

Reasons for switching to Planning Center

Planning Center had more options to use and they were more cost effective.

Vendor Response

Hi Jennifer, Thanks for your kind words! You mentioned wishing you could have access to a live person. We are here in the wings ready to support you. You may be surprised how quickly we respond! Our Support Team is a great resource for help in that area. Hit the '?' icon in the upper-right of the screen when you are looking at your List. Send us a message and our team will jump in to help! Thanks!

Replied July 2022

Ceci

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed January 2022

Necessary for worship/service planning, other features could integrate better

We actually like Planning Center a lot. It has its issues, but overall it's nice to be able to integrate every area of our church in one database. I do like that it's a sliding pricing structure and you can choose what you need and what you don't. I wish it were cheaper, but I get it.

PROS

The worship planning software (Services) is unmatched as far as I can tell. It pretty much contains everything we would want in a database solution, the Giving portion is fairly easy to use, Groups and Registrations both work pretty well and our congregation doesn't seem to have a lot of trouble with signups through those. Scheduling volunteers is very simple through Services. Their customer support seems to be pretty consistent and helpful.

CONS

2 things: 1. The individual modules for Planning Center, though I like that you can select which ones you need and don't need, don't seem to integrate super well with each other. The fact that you need to re-import people from the database portion into the other modules can be annoying, and the navigation among them as a whole doesn't seem to be totally cohesive. 2. (My biggest pet peeve) It is ENTIRELY too easy for people to add themselves as a duplicate. We've had 5-6 profiles with the exact same email and name, and people can just create a new profile over and over again. If this could be solved, I would honestly be a lot happier with Planning Center.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

Planning Center is the gold standard for worship planning, so we did not want to use a different product or 2 separate products for our database solution.

Anonymous

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2020

Excellent Church Management Software

Overall my experience with Planning Center has been a fantastic one, and I'm looking forward to using their current and new products in my church now and in the future!

PROS

Planning Center offers a fantastic suite of software that makes behind the sences tasks for church management a breeze.

CONS

The pricing for some of their products is a little higher than what can be found from the competitors, but it is almost always made up in their excellent customer service.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

We chose Planning Center over Rock RMS due to its ease of setup and not having to maintain/configure the server to run Rock RMS ourselves. In the future, we may move to Rock RMS for some apps given the greater customization and flexibility that Rock RMS offers.

Ciarra

Verified reviewer

Public Relations and Communications, 2-10 employees

Used weekly for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed November 2019

Planning Center

Works for our scheduling needs week to week, able to email reminders of the positions scheduled seamlessly

PROS

The options to customize and add tabs that meet your scheduling needs are all there, available and ready to use

CONS

The kids check in option requires a laptop/desktop and cannot just use a tablet which we prefer to do

Reason for choosing Planning Center

It was able to integrate easier with our attendance reports and the cost was less

Vendor Response

Hey Ciarra, Thanks for reaching out and leaving an honest review. We just wanted to pop in to let you know that we do actually support using any iOS or Android devices as your Check-In stations. If you need any assistance in going through your options and picking out a tablet don't hesitate to email us at support@planning.center. We would be happy to help!

Replied November 2019

Justin

Religious Institutions, 201-500 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed July 2019

A must for Houses of Worship!

Overall, it's an excellent tool and I would highly recommend it. It's a must-have for anyone planning events, especially those in Houses of Worship.

PROS

It makes planning an event flow very easy and intuitive. It's a simple process to upload files and media to attach when creating an event flow, and it's easy to add additional notes and comments to aid in transitions. The timing features make it easy to track session lengths, and PCO Live is a great way to communicate real-time updates to users.

CONS

The Teams feature could be developed a bit more. When managing a checklist, there's no way to skip over items and come back to them later...everything must be completed linearly. In addition, it's difficult to go back and make edits after the fact or even view past progress and notes.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

Broader feature set, especially when it comes to the integration of team/volunteer management.

Reasons for switching to Planning Center

We needed more features and function, along with a built-in communication tool.

Vendor Response

Hey Justin, Thanks for taking the time to write an honest review of our software! Sounds like you may have some ideas for how it could be improved. If you haven't already, we'd love it if you shot some of those ideas over to us at support@planning.center. Thanks!

Replied July 2019

Sean

Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed September 2019

Church management software that scales with your organization

The overall experience with PCO is a good one. It is robust and continually has new, helpful features being added. It is a fantastic tool for tracking and managing people resources, donations, volunteers, and communication. I would highly recommend PCO for any church looking for a full featured ChMs without an oversized price tag.

PROS

Planning Center Online (PCO) is a scalable church or organizational software that adapts with your needs and provides great features that meet nearly all of the organizational needs. PCO offers event organization, people management, resource management, a donation platform, volunteer scheduling, and groups management. All this along with a solid communication platform and several third party integrations make PCO a powerful tool for any church or organization.

CONS

There are some features lacking such as built-in texting capabilities or whole-organization integration such as web site and app. The PCO app is not branded and lacks in features but most parts of PCO will integrate into other website platforms such as Wix.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

Lots of great features without feeling or looking like 'bloatware'. Easy to use and easy to figure out more complicated tasks through their intuitive help pages.

Reasons for switching to Planning Center

Difficult to use, complicated features and rules for communication, did not have great integrations at the time. Required much more than general web or computer experience to use effectively for the average pastoral or administrative team.

Wesley

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed February 2020

Church Done Right!

Planning Center has streamlined our ministry operations and has allowed us the freedom to operate in a way that helps grow smaller churches into larger ones without skipping a beat.

PROS

Planning Center Online (PCO) has been amazing for our church over these last several years. PCO Services gives us what we need to schedule and plan our Sunday services without any trouble. We love the templates that PCO allows us to set up in order to duplicate a service style easily. Easter and Christmas every year are a breeze with PCO Services. We also use PCO Giving, Check-In, People, and Groups as our foundation of running the behind the scenes of our ministry. The user interface (UI) of each module is similar and easy to use, understand, and follow. I tell pastors about PCO all the time. Especially the People account, which is Free!

CONS

I do wish that PCO would create an app for each of its modules, such as groups. It would be a little easier for a Small Group Leader to access all that PCO Groups has to offer without having to open a computer. Also, the cost of each module seems to be adding up quickly. A "small church" with a tight budget may be put off by the cost. However, I can say that it is worth every penny if that church is a planning church.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

Ease of use and all around the incorporation of all of their modules and options.

Jacob

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed February 2020

The Best All-in-one ChMS

We started using Planning Center 10 years ago for our service planning. A few years after that, we migrated our kids' check-in system to Planning Center, then our Groups. Now we are transitioning away from CCB and PushPay to go all-in on Planning Center for every aspect of our database management.

PROS

Planning Center's interface is intuitive, attractive, and friendly to users who are intimidated by traditional technology applications. Planning Center just works, which cannot be said for the majority of players in the world of church management software. Lists are powerful and integrations flexible. Mobile apps are robust.

CONS

There are still missing pieces in the Giving App, especially as it relates to importing previous contributions and handling non-deductible transactions. But Planning Center is constantly evolving, and I am confident that within a couple of years their donor management will be up to full spec.

Reasons for switching to Planning Center

CCB has not kept up with the times. It was a powerhouse in 2010 but has not evolved to meet the needs or feel of software in 2020.

Alex

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed January 2021

Planning Center Does it All!

We liked the smooth and more cost-effective check-in system with PC so much that we switched our giving platform over as well - saving us time, aggravation, and even more money!

PROS

Our church was looking for a better, more reliable system for children's check-in than the big-name, big-ticket system we were using before and PC was the answer! Its modular setup ensures that we don't pay for features we don't use, but also leaves us with plenty of options should our needs change and we decide to expand our functionality.

CONS

There is literally nothing that we have encountered about Planning Center that has not been easily remedied. We are completely and totally satisfied.

Reasons for switching to Planning Center

We switched because our previous system was just too cumbersome. Every Sunday morning was an adventure in aggravation seeing what new issue we could encounter with what we were using. With minimal setup and transition, we were able to move to PC and have a better, more reliable system for less than what we were paying with the big guy.

Vendor Response

Hey Alex - So glad to hear that Planning Center has been helpful for you! If anything ever comes up, don't hesitate to reach out to us. :-)

Replied January 2021

Marissa

Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed July 2020

Planning Center Review

My overall experience with Planning Center would be amazing. I would recommend this software to many other churches.

PROS

I use Planning Center every single day in my job. I enjoy using the software because it is easy to use. It holds all of our 30,000 families from our church. It tracks all of their information. I can make registrations through Planning Center and the system tracks these registrations for me. There are countless other things Planning Center does and it is all in one place rather than using many different systems.

CONS

Honestly, there is nothing bad I can say about Planning Center. I really enjoy using it. It helps keep me grounded as an administrator.

Reasons for switching to Planning Center

We made the switch because of cost and abilities of the overall software.

Jonathan

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

2

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2018

A strong suite with a little too much monopoly

Quality way of maintaining a database of church members that integrates well into scheduling them to serve, checking in their kids, or having them sign up for events or small groups. Nothing else quite like it out there in the market right now!

PROS

I love that it has a variety of different tools that are not only practical but have swiftly become necessary to running ministries in the church. I can't imagine using another software for scheduling teams, checking in kids, or organizing our small groups. This truly is a robust central point for our database management at our church, and it's in a whole other category than any other church management software because of its significantly lower price point.

CONS

Perhaps it's because of the price point, but where Planning Center fails in its ability to stay innovative and continually becoming more intuitive in its design and structure. I can't tell you how many times, even after years of use, I have spent dozens of minutes trying to find a certain feature or settings option that still evaded my insight for where it should go. Also, despite regular suggestions for updates to make the software stronger, I rarely see them innovating. If they didn't hold such a strong monopoly, I would not be surprised to see them ousted by a more aggressively advancing competitor.

Vendor Response

Thanks for your honest review, Jonathan! We'd love the chance to chat with you about your comments. You can email us at support@planning.center. We're working hard to update our apps often to keep them competitive. This month, we've pushed out major feature updates to Resources, Registrations, Groups, and Services. We have many exciting updates coming before the end of the year as well!

Replied November 2018

Kevin

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed July 2017

I couldn't imagine church service planning without PCO!

It revolutionized my planning and communication process. It made it so much easier to see who is serving when and to know whether or not they've been sent certain communication pieces and resources. It also makes it simple to collaborate with others on the planning process.

PROS

I've been in church music ministry for over 14 years now. I've tried and evaluated several pieces of software over the years. I always came away with the sense that software packages certainly worked for someone, but I would have to change several things to fit into most of them. That was until I found Planning Center. During my first contact with the product, I was thinking, "Who has been spying on me and conspiring to make my work simpler?" Planning Center is designed for church event & volunteer management by people who operate in that realm. They understand the challenges and needs of people serving in churches, and their software makes it incredibly easy to keep people in the loop and keep spots filled. Their customer support is second-to-none. In their early days, they had some issues with their hosting company. They live-tweeted as someone drove to the server farm, pulled their servers, and drove to a new hosting company that offered guaranteed up-time. We all understand that stuff happens. They won a lot of loyalty as their customers saw them doing everything humanly possible to make their product reliable.

CONS

One feature I'm hoping for soon is the ability to incorporate calendar invitations into people's serving schedule. As it stands now, you can subscribe to a calendar of your PCO activity, but it's a separate calendar. Not everyone will do that. As a result, I've been inviting people to Google Calendar events based on who is serving when, just to try to make sure it gets on people's schedules. It would be nice for that functionality to be integrated into PCO instead of doing it separately. When someone accepts an invitation to serve, they get a calendar invitation sent to the email address they indicated was their primary calendar. Other than that, I really have no complaints.

Tania

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed January 2023

Customizable packages - value for money

Overall this is a great program, a great way to keep everything in one place and keep all databases accurate. It helps keep our small groups organized, our calendar organized, and is great for registrations.We track giving and use it for receipts and it has worked nicely for that as well, and takes into account CDN giving rules/laws.

PROS

I love that you can customize which modules you need. You can try a module for 30 days, you don't pay for large usage unless you need it. They give a grace period, where you can get the small package but if you use it more for one month, you don't have to upgrade. It keeps donor management and people database in the same place, so if someone changes their address, it is changed across all modules.

CONS

Reports seem to be difficult to generate accurate results. For example, if you want to generate a report that includes everyone who gave any amount in the past year and attended an event or volunteered. We have tried this report and didn't get back proper results when run by someone other than the giving users. They don't need to know specifics on giving but should be able to add that as a criteria. Also, if someone accidentally deletes a user then there is no way to get them back even if they had giving. There should be a safeguard in place so that only giving users can delete a profile that has giving.I don't like that you cannot use VISA/MC debit for paying,

Reasons for switching to Planning Center

We wanted something more cost effective and wanted to be able to use the other modules that are available with PCO

Vendor Response

Thanks for your kind words, Tania! You mentioned having a bit of trouble with List rules in People. A People Admin that is not a Giving Admin cannot access Giving list conditions. This is a guardrail and privacy structure we created intentionally. Only a Giving Admin can run a list to return that info. Also, if you delete a user, we still keep the records of these donations that can be reassigned to the donor's correct profile or if you need to recreate the profile. Lastly, there are different regulations in Canada that are above our control as far as what cards are allowed but we will submit this as a Feature request. Our Support Team is an excellent resource for help in that area. Hit the '?' icon in the upper-right of the screen when you are looking at your List. Thanks again!

Replied January 2023

Hillary

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2020

Great Product, Needs a Few Organizational Upgrades

Overall, my experience is great. There are plenty of options and they are really intuitive when it comes to what churches need. Each weekend I schedule several services and probably 20 volunteers. I'd be lost without this product. Our church has 2,500 attenders. We live stream our services - it takes a lot of work to pull it off. Throughout COVID I have been able to clearly communicate to my team because of PCO. They do think about everything - it's just that they need to teach us solutions they have created.

PROS

I think this is incredibly easy to use overall. The Scheduling software is what I use most often as I schedule teams for our weekend services. It's intuitive and there are several ways to streamline the sometimes tedious tasks of scheduling the same times every week. Additionally, this software makes it easy to keep track of how often volunteers are scheduled - which is extremely helpful because they are volunteers and I don't want them to burn out.

CONS

I think there could be better training on how to use all aspects of PCO effectively. I feel like we take advantage of only 80% of what PCO is capable of doing for us, and a lot of that is simply because there are no simple guidelines for the massive amount of possibilities for building plans and scheduling teams. More in depth training - that is organized and dives into the details would be extremely helpful. Whenever I have time, I test plans and templates using our employees profiles, but it's really time consuming. I'd rather just sit down and study the system - or have easy access to detailed videos on specific topics.

Vendor Response

We can help with training! Our team does a live stream every quarter with detailed training of our products. We recorded our last training and you can watch it here: http://planningcenter.com/university

Replied November 2020

Jennifer

Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed September 2020

Planning Center is Extremely Versitile and Flexible

Planning Center has allowed all aspects of church administration to be kept in one platform with appropriate permission levels allowed for each user in each app we've subscribed to. The customer service is also hard to beat! They are very helpful and prompt in their responses.

PROS

We have loved that we can subscribe to individual PCO apps at the usage levels we need, and the subscription can be changed at any time, as many times as you need to. There is no contract. You can also try any of the different apps out for a month for free! Also, if you have subscribed to an app at a particular usage level and accidentally exceed the allowed amount (ex. You've subscribed to Check-Ins up to 50 people/event, but have 65 people check-in on a baptism Sunday because of visitors.), PCO will allow the overage in the moment and email the administrator asking them to please adjust the usage subscription if the overage is expected to continue.

CONS

As the finance manager, I wish I could use the Giving app to also track our members' non-tax deductible contributions (ex. youth retreat fees, bible study purchases, building rental, etc.). Other software we've used (Church Community Builder and Servant Keeper) have allowed contributions to be marked as non-tax deductible. This would allow members to have a complete record of funds they have given to the church when giving statements are sent out.

Reasons for switching to Planning Center

PCO offered more apps that were helpful to overall church administration, was easier to use, was more customizable, and was more cost effective. We also appreciated that we weren't locked into an annual contract.

Chad

Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed May 2019

Indispensable software, far outshines the competition

Planning Center is an absolute must for any church or non-profit. They have everything you need, and they help you organize even better than you thought you could. There's literally no reason not to use it!

PROS

Planning Center has a suite of software that integrates so seamlessly and offers so much to help the teams. The team who plans and develops Planning Center has a deep understanding of the unique environment that churches are in, and their software constantly delivers modern tools to navigate it. I use Services the most, and it does everything you could ask it to. The newly redesigned interface is beautiful, intuitive, and fast. The power user features make editing and managing songs and people easy. The android and iOS apps are top notch as well. You can do most of what you would need to on mobile, and the apps report any updates instantly. Oh yeah, pricing is incredibly affordable and there's a free version to boot. Once, the gracious support team even helped me add more members than my plan allowed.

CONS

In services, I wish the apps allowed you to edit more song details, such as adding new keys and changing song sequences. Other than that, there are no cons.

Vendor Response

Hi Chad! Thank you for your kind words and honest review! For the Song details, let us know what you'd like to see in the mobile app. We have plans for what we want to add, but your feedback would be valuable, for sure. Contact us through the helpdesk in the mobile or web apps and we can start the conversation, there! - Clay

Replied May 2019

Micah

Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

FUNCTIONALITY

3

Reviewed February 2018

Great at discrete tasks... not yet ready for primetime as a whole-church DB replacement

Planning Center is hard to review because it's not one product, it's actually six different products. That's both a strength and a weakness. Most people using Planning Center are used to its core functionality: Planning Center Services. This is the tool used for actually planning a worship service (complete with tech sheet, ProPresenter integration, etc) and scheduling people to be there. It also has a Check-In component, a Groups component, a Resources (room scheduling) component, and a Giving component. Supposedly, if you add them all together you get a viable whole-church database solution. It's hard to see that being the case, since a lot of the functionality you'd want to see for a whole-church database (especially around reporting, metrics, dashboards, etc) are missing. But the parts that are there mostly work well. It's impossible to overstate how far ahead Planning Center Services is from everything else in the field. Everyone I'm in contact uses Services for service planning. Their other modules, though, are all missing important features. Work is clearly being done to improve those components, but mostly it seems more like rearranging existing features than adding the ability to solve new problems. We'll keep using Planning Center Services, but have transitioned away from Planning Center Groups and anticipate moving away from Planning Center Resources. Luckily our new system integrates well with PCO, so we'll be able to keep our contact databases in sync. This is an underappreciated feature for PCO: a full API to develop and integrate against!

PROS

Great ease of use. Excellent for planning services and scheduling volunteers. Makes it easy for volunteers to respond to schedules without having to remember account details. Solid people management.

CONS

Everything outside of the core (service planning & scheduling) functionality seems half-baked. Very difficult to pull reports, group scheduling & attendance don't work well.

Justin

Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed May 2022

Planning Center - Great Value, Product and Service!

Planning Center makes life in a busy church manageable! It gives me the confidence that things aren't getting overlooked and that our members can have an enjoyable experience every time the doors are open! If I were asked to cut the budget, this would be one product I'd fight for.

PROS

Planning Center is your one-stop shop for all things related to managing a growing and thriving church! I don't even want to begin thinking about how we would manage membership, service planning, small groups, communications, and everything else that goes into running a church without this software. It is definitely worth every penny!

CONS

There isn't really anything I don't like about Planning Center. If I had to choose one pain point it would be that there are so many features within each module that its difficult to understand all the ways they interacts. I'm constantly learning new things and how this product can make our job easier in many ways!

Vendor Response

Hi Justin, Thanks for your kind words! You mentioned having a bit of trouble understanding all of the features we offer and how it's a lot to learn. Our Support Team is a great resource for help in that area. Hit the '?' icon in the upper-right of the screen when you are looking at your List. Send us a message and our team will jump in to help! Thanks!

Replied July 2022

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