--- description: Detailed reviews on Planning Center based on features, pricing, usability, and ratings. Get a quick overview advantages and disadvantages. Compare Planning Center with similar products. image: https://gdm-localsites-assets-gfprod.imgix.net/images/getapp/og_logo-94fd2a03a6c7a0e54fc0c9e21a1c0ce9.png title: Planning Center Reviews, Prices & Ratings | GetApp Canada 2026 --- Breadcrumb: [Home](/) > [Church Management Software](/directory/166/church-management/software) > [Planning Center](/software/2035379/planning-center) # Planning Center Canonical: https://www.getapp.ca/software/2035379/planning-center Page: 1 / 47\ Next: [Next page](https://www.getapp.ca/software/2035379/planning-center?page=2) > Planning Center is an all-in-one church management system made to help you organize information, coordinate events, communicate with your team, and connect with your congregation. Use different tools for your ministry needs while keeping everyone informed about what's happening around the church. > > Verdict: Rated **4.7/5** by 1137 users. Top-rated for **Likelihood to recommend**. ----- ## Overview ### Key benefits of Planning Center \- Welcome children to a safe environment using secure check-ins and require background checks for every volunteer with Check-Ins. - Organize get-togethers, classes, camps, and VBS with an easy signup process through Registrations. - Keep families engaged, follow up with first-time guests, and send invitations with People's automations. - Help people stay connected by offering event signups, recorded sermons, and much more on the free mobile app and web experience, Church Center. - Allow volunteers to set their availability and organize schedules and Plan services months in advance, organize volunteer schedules, and allow volunteers to set their availability through Services. - Host event request forms, plan events, manage rooms and resources, and get a central view of everything at your church with Calendar. ## Quick Stats & Ratings | Metric | Rating | Detail | | **Overall** | **4.7/5** | 1137 Reviews | | Ease of Use | 4.4/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Customer Support Software | 4.6/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Value for Money | 4.5/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Features | 4.5/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Recommendation percentage | 90% | (9/10 Likelihood to recommend) | ## About the vendor - **Company**: Planning Center - **Founded**: 2006 ## Commercial Context - **Pricing model**: Other (Free version available) (Free Trial) - **Pricing Details**: 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 - **Target Audience**: Self Employed, 2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000, 5,001–10,000, 10,000+ - **Deployment & Platforms**: Cloud, SaaS, Web-based, Android (Mobile), iPhone (Mobile), iPad (Mobile) - **Supported Languages**: English - **Available Countries**: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States ## Features - API - Access Controls/Permissions - Activity Dashboard - Activity Tracking - Alerts/Notifications - Attendance Management - Attendance Tracking Software - Campaign Planning - Catalog Management - Child Check-in - Collaboration Tools - Communication Management - Configurable Workflow - Contact Database - Contact Management Software - Content Library - Content Management System (CMS) Software - Credit Card Processing - Customizable Fields - Customizable Forms ## Integrations (13 total) - Aware3 - Checkr - Clearstream - Kindrid - Mailchimp - MediaShout - PastorsLine - ProPresenter - Proclaim by Logos - Pushpay - Stripe - Subsplash - Text In Church ## Support Options - Email/Help Desk - FAQs/Forum - Knowledge Base Software - Phone Support ## Category - [Church Management Software](https://www.getapp.ca/directory/166/church-management/software) ## Related Categories - [Church Management Software](https://www.getapp.ca/directory/166/church-management/software) - [Donation Management Software](https://www.getapp.ca/directory/167/donation-management/software) - [Worship Software](https://www.getapp.ca/directory/1201/worship/software) ## Alternatives 1. [Clearstream](https://www.getapp.ca/software/112607/clearstream) — 4.8/5 (656 reviews) 2. [Tithely Church Management](https://www.getapp.ca/software/102871/breeze-chms) — 4.8/5 (623 reviews) 3. [ChurchTrac](https://www.getapp.ca/software/105371/churchtrac) — 4.8/5 (859 reviews) 4. [Tithe.ly](https://www.getapp.ca/software/105501/tithe-ly-church-giving) — 4.7/5 (691 reviews) 5. [Chmeetings](https://www.getapp.ca/software/117775/chmeetings) — 4.9/5 (154 reviews) ## Reviews ### "Planning Center is key to Making Sundays Happen" — 5.0/5 > **Roberto** | *June 8, 2024* | Religious Institutions | Recommendation rating: 10.0/10 > > **Pros**: We are a bilingual congregation. So, ease of use and implementation are key for our team. We need to train, build, and use the application in our bilingual environment. > > **Cons**: File management is a challenge. There is no easy way to log into Planning Center and delete multiple, old files in the system. > > We use several modules in Planning Center such as Services, Giving, People, and Publishing. All four are key to making us “make Sunday happen.” ----- ### "Great software\!" — 5.0/5 > **Christopher** | *May 20, 2022* | Religious Institutions | Recommendation rating: 9.0/10 > > **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. > > 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. ----- ### "Extremey frustrated with the new layout. Not logical." — 3.0/5 > **Verified Reviewer** | *September 22, 2021* | Religious Institutions | Recommendation rating: 6.0/10 > > **Pros**: Access to plan, songs and sheet music/chart access. > > **Cons**: I used to absolutely LOVE Planning Center. But the new design is just awful and frustrates me greatly. It is not laid out logically. Common things that need to be done quickly and used to be easy to find, I now have to dig for and if I every find them, where they are makes no sense. What used to be easy to access is now cumbersome and it takes at me least twice as long to plan services. Scheduling teams is too difficult and confusing. > > Previously awesome, now frustrating. ----- ### "Great Church Management System for Small - Medium Sized Churchs" — 5.0/5 > **Cameron** | *June 17, 2021* | Religious Institutions | Recommendation rating: 10.0/10 > > **Pros**: I like that Planning Center has all of the features that we need integrated into a single suite. Previously, we had 2-3 tools for membership management, communication, and online giving. We have been able to consolidate that down to a single system and saved money. > > **Cons**: The member directory in the mobile app can be a little confusing for some of our members that are not tech-savvy. To overcome this, our technology team has been promoting our digital outreach and making ourselves available to the congregation to assist with getting them setup in the directory and using the mobile app. > > My title says that it is a great ChMS for a small - medium sized church, that is just because that is the size of the church that volunteer. Planning Center also has the potential to be great for a large church as well. So far we have been very happy with the transition to planning center, my next project is going to be integrating our website with their API so that we can sync the events and other features of Planning Center. ----- ### "So. Much. Better." — 5.0/5 > **Tyler** | *May 2, 2020* | Religious Institutions | Recommendation rating: 10.0/10 > > **Pros**: When 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). > > **Cons**: To 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. > > 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. ----- Page: 1 / 47\ Next: [Next page](https://www.getapp.ca/software/2035379/planning-center?page=2) ## Links - [View on GetApp](https://www.getapp.ca/software/2035379/planning-center) ## This page is available in the following languages | Locale | URL | | de | | | de-AT | | | en | | | en-AE | | | en-AU | | | en-CA | | | en-GB | | | en-IE | | | en-NZ | | | en-SG | | | en-ZA | | | es | | | es-CL | | | es-CO | | | es-MX | | | fr | | | fr-BE | | | fr-CA | | ----- ## Structured Data