Planning Center
About Planning Center
Planning Center Pricing
A 30-day free trial is available after which the product is available on module-based pricing outlined below. Calendar (10 rooms, unlimited events) - starts at $14 Check-ins (50 daily check-ins) - starts at $14 Giving (100 monthly donations) - starts at $14 Groups (125 group members) - starts at $14 Publishing - starts at $14 Registrations (20 event attendees) - starts at $14 Services (25 team members) - starts at $14
Free trial:
Available
Free version:
Available
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Most Helpful Reviews for Planning Center
1 - 5 of 1,124 Reviews
Anonymous
Used unspecified
OVERALL RATING:
5
Reviewed April 2024
Planning Center Review: All In One For Event Planning.
Chris
Verified reviewer
Religious Institutions, 2-10 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2021
The standard for church management software
Having used almost every Planning Center product, there is nothing else that I would recommend. Our entire team uses it weekly for worship, planning, check-ins, de-briefing through reports, congregant database, volunteer team emails, and so much more. Planning Center does a fantastic job and only keeps improving.
PROSThe ease of use is its best feature. Ease in adding people, features, reports, etc. is unmatched in the industry. Also, Planning Center has a modern look and feel that many of its competitors lack. The worship software with the SongSelect integration, planning tools, database, key management, ability to add various media, etc. it is a must-have product for any church that values communication, strategic planning, and excellence. Every Planning Center Product that I have and continue to use remains the standard for church management software.
CONSRunning reports in "People" is cumbersome and time-consuming to get to the exact information you are looking for. It takes a thorough amount of trial and error to extrapolate the intended data by getting the variables just right.
Reason for choosing Planning Center
The wide-span options of use in Planning Center made it a clear winner. The overall look, feel, and functionality was an added bonus.
Reasons for switching to Planning Center
The ease of use and enhanced options of Planning Center made it a no brainer. The modern look, feel, and functionality was a welcome change, as well.
Vendor Response
Hey Chris, thanks for the review! If you're willing, we'd love to see if we can help make pulling reports simpler for you. Shoot some details to support@planningcenteronline.com and we'll take a look!
Replied March 2021
Tyler
Verified reviewer
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed May 2020
So. Much. Better.
I was the XP at a church that used Planning Center. I went to another church that used one of their main competitors. After 18 months, we are on Planning Center. I'm much happier and the rest of the staff is much happier. I think that pretty well sums it up.
PROSWhen we switched from our previous software to Planning Center, I worked with our staff to see how it was going. The responses I got were always akin to "well, it is frustrating learning a new system...but this is better than what we were on." Basically, in one or two days our staff was less frustrated with Planning Center than they were continually with a system we had been on for three years. As we've been on it longer, the frustrations have decreased and the benefit to our church has increased. Moving to Planning Center has been the best organizational choice we've made in a long time. Oh, and it is about $100 (33%) cheaper each month. And that's on month-to-month vs an annual contract with the old guys. And when our online giving agreement runs out and we switch the Planning Center giving, we'll save another $200 or so a month. And their support is incredible, typically responding within an hour (vs 2 business days on the old platform).
CONSTo my understanding, Planning Center set out to make a great stand alone tool for Check Ins, a great tool for Registrations, a great tool for Giving, etc...to do this, they set up separate development teams for each module. I understand this, having worked with some tools that started as a great online director or great giving tool or great event tool and tried to expand to do much more. The result is often complicated bloat. I do think Planning Center's model largely avoided this because each thing has to stand on its own. In my estimation, I'd like to see some tweaks to certain modules, but overall each of them accomplishes what I need. The one drawback to this, though, is that the tools don't integrate quite as tightly as I'd like. Everything talks back to their People module, but sometimes it would be good to have them talk to each other a little more. E.g., when we set up an event in Check In, we also have to go into the Calendar module to set up the event to request the room. This can be a bit of a hassle. To be fair, it does seem like they are moving in this direction with new features, so hopefully their biggest weakness (to me) will continue to shrink! But, again...this is minor compared to the frustrations I've had with other systems. I've been on ones that I hated even logging into because I knew I was going to get mad. I genuinely like using Planning Center.
Reasons for switching to Planning Center
PC was a much better experience and more functional for our needs
Karen
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed December 2018
Part of it Works for Us
At this point, it is used in a minimal way, to lay out our order of service and schedule 2 ministry teams out of the 10+ teams that serve at each of our services.
PROSMakes scheduling and organizing our order of service very simple for the administration team. When an item such as teaching changes from 30 minutes to 40 minutes, the modifications are easy to implement without having to recalculate the time of day from one item to the next. When that same item is moved someplace else in the order of service it's a simple drag and drop and all times for the service are automaticallly adjusted.
CONSNot a great tool for our volunteers. The scheduling module is a little difficult to train volunteers to use. They all give it a shot but most revert to using excel spreadsheets. Report templates, unless you are an html programmer, aren't flexible enough to give me the layout I am looking for. We tried to use it to check in our children but the unreliability of connecting and printing name tags caused huge delays, aggravated our parents and frustrated the volunteers. I am advised they have resolved that problem, however, due to their prior experience our children's church isn't willing to give it another chance.
Vendor Response
Hi Karen, Thanks for the review! Our support team is able to help you with some parts of coding those reports if you'd like to reach out to them for help, and give them an example of how you would like your report to look. They would also be able to give you some tips for making scheduling volunteers easier in Services. Sorry to hear that hardware issues were keeping your Children's Ministry from using Check-Ins efficiently. If they're willing to give it a second chance in the future, we'll be glad to help troubleshoot those problems up front.
Replied December 2018
Josh
Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed December 2023
Saves so much time!
I love this app and will continue to keep using it to its fullest potential. It makes our life at our church so much better using this!
PROSWe utilize the services app for managing peoples schedules and Sunday morning flow of service. It makes it a breeze and is such a huge help with saving time for scheduling and also planning ahead to know how to properly plan!
CONSI love everything about planning center. It was such a breeze setting up all of the volunteers at our church. And now they love using the app as well!