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Planning Center Pricing, Features, Reviews and Alternatives
Planning Center product overview
What is Planning Center?
Planning Center is a church management solution that helps churches of all sizes manage memberships, process online donations, and conduct background checks on volunteers. It allows administrators to create digital sign-up forms, set event reminders, assign tasks, share training notes with volunteers, and monitor participation for various activities.
Typical customers
Platforms supported
Support options
Training options
Planning Center pricing information
Value for money
4.5
/5
1K
Starting from
14
Per month
Per Feature
Pricing options
Value for money contenders
Planning Center features
Functionality
4.5
/5
1K
Total features
31
1 categories
Most valued features by users
Functionality contenders
Planning Center users reviews
Overall Rating
4.7
/5
1K
Positive reviews
- Value for money
- Ease of use
- Features
- Customer support
- Likelihood to recommend9.03/10
771
233
32
1
0
ED
Elizabeth D.
EM
Eric M.
Curtis L.
TB
Tiffany B.
RE
Rachel E.
JW
James W.
Overall rating contenders
Eric M.
Pastor
Nonprofit Organization Management, 1-10 employees
Review source
Transcript
Eric M.: My name is Eric and I am a pastor in the nonprofit industry. I give Planning Center a four out...
Adam J.
Campus Support Team Director
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Review source
Transcript
Adam J.: Hi, my name is Adam and I work as a multi-site church director. And I give Planning Center a...
Simon M.
Verified reviewer
Media Production, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
Review source
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Before we started using Planning Center, all our communication was handled by a one-woman team. Though she was efficient, it was getting difficult to keep up with growing numbers and departments. We were introduced to Planning Center around the time the pandemic hit and it was a godsend. We still have only a couple of people administrating the software side of things, but it has been easier to pool in volunteers; integrated communication has made it easier to create dialogue amongst groups. Coming a traditional use case where we relied on different technologies and disconnected platforms, Planning Center has really helped save a lot of time and effort.
Planning Center came with an easy learning curve. It was just like the other plethora of software products we had used in the past, but all available in one neat, customizable package. We use it to create worship set lists, integrated with ProPresenter, this makes worship planning a breeze. Everyone on the team is well aware of who is and isn't on for a particular week. Communication between teams is also easier. The chances of someone not being in the loop is completely removed. Over time, we have seen that the entire process of managing a growing organization is only getting easier; the scalability of Planning Center is well thought out.
We do not have features that are missing. But if this changes in the future, we will make an update to this review.
Ceci P.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
Review source
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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.
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.
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.
Christopher H.
Verified reviewer
Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
Review source
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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.
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.
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.
Karen N.
Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
Review source
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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.
Makes 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.
Not 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.
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.
Jennifer V.
Religious Institutions, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
Review source
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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!
I like how it is versatile and allows us to plug in other services that help us navigate our business efficiently.
I wish we could have access to a live person quickly if assistance with the program is needed.
Planning Center FAQs and common questions
Q. What type of pricing plans does Planning Center offer?
Planning Center has the following pricing plans:
Starting from: $14.00/month
Pricing model: Subscription
Free Trial: Available
Q. Who are the typical users of Planning Center?
Planning Center has the following typical customers:
Large Enterprises, Mid Size Business, Non Profit, Small Business
Q. What languages does Planning Center support?
Planning Center supports the following languages:
English
Q. Does Planning Center support mobile devices?
Planning Center supports the following devices:
Android, iPad, iPhone
Q. Does Planning Center offer an API?
Yes, Planning Center has an API available for use.
Q. What other apps does Planning Center integrate with?
Planning Center integrates with the following applications:
MediaShout, Checkr, ProPresenter, Clearstream, Kindrid, Faithlife Proclaim, Stripe, Pushpay, PastorsLine, Text In Church, Mailchimp, Aware3, Subsplash
Q. What level of support does Planning Center offer?
Planning Center offers the following support options:
Chat, FAQs/Forum, Email/Help Desk, Phone Support, Knowledge Base
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