TL;DR: Planning Center is the most complete church management platform available in 2026. If you’re a mid-to-large US church with a budget, it’s hard to beat. The modular pricing is flexible, the apps are polished, and the ecosystem is deep. But if you’re outside North America, on a tight budget, or need WhatsApp and mobile money support, Planning Center wasn’t built for you. Here’s our full, honest breakdown.
What Is Planning Center?
Planning Center is a suite of church management apps built by a team in Carlsbad, California. It’s been around since 2006, making it one of the most established platforms in the space.
Unlike most competitors that offer a single product, Planning Center is built as separate apps that work together:
| App | What It Does | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|
| People | Member database, households, lists, workflows | Free (up to 100 profiles) |
| Services | Worship planning, scheduling, song management | $0/month (basic) |
| Giving | Online donations, statements, fund management | 0% + no monthly fee (new) |
| Groups | Small group management, sign-ups, leaders | $20/month |
| Registrations | Event sign-ups, payments, capacity management | $10/month |
| Check-Ins | Children’s check-in, label printing, security | $0/month (basic) |
| Calendar | Facility booking, event scheduling, approvals | $10/month |
| Publishing | Church app builder, push notifications | $0/month (basic) |
You can use one app or all of them. You only pay for what you use. This is Planning Center’s biggest structural advantage over competitors that force you into an all-or-nothing package.
What Planning Center Gets Right
Let’s start with what’s genuinely good. And there’s a lot.
1. The Best Worship Planning Tool in the Industry
Planning Center Services is the gold standard for worship team coordination. Nothing else comes close.
- Build service plans with song order, media cues, and notes
- Schedule team members with automated conflict detection
- Attach chord charts, lyrics, and arrangements to each song
- CCLI song reporting built in
- Rehearsal mode for musicians to practice at home
- Integration with ProPresenter, EasyWorship, and other projection software
If you have a production team, a worship band, and multiple Sunday services, this single app might justify the entire platform.
2. People (CRM) Is Rock Solid
The member database is clean, fast, and well-designed:
- Household grouping with relationship mapping
- Custom fields for tracking anything (spiritual gifts, baptism date, allergies)
- Workflows for automating processes (new member follow-up, volunteer onboarding)
- Merge duplicate profiles easily
- Activity timeline showing every interaction with a member
- Lists and saved filters for segmentation
For US churches, People is probably the best church CRM available. The workflows feature alone saves hours of manual follow-up.
3. Modular Pricing Is Fair
Most church management platforms charge $50-200/month for everything, whether you use it or not. Planning Center lets you pick and choose.
A small church that only needs People (free for under 100 profiles) and Check-Ins (free basic tier) pays nothing. A growing church can add Giving and Groups when they’re ready. A large church running all eight apps pays more, but they’re actually using everything they pay for.
This is genuinely respectful of church budgets, especially for smaller congregations.
4. Check-Ins Is Best in Class
For children’s ministry security, Planning Center Check-Ins is the industry leader:
- Print name tags and security labels
- Match children to authorized guardians
- Track allergies and medical notes on labels
- Support for self-service kiosk mode
- Headcount tracking for rooms and services
- First-time visitor workflows
If children’s ministry safety is a top priority (and it should be), this is the app to beat.
5. The Design Is Clean
This might sound minor, but it matters. Planning Center looks and feels modern. The interfaces are consistent across apps. Navigation is intuitive. It doesn’t feel like software from 2012 with a fresh coat of paint.
For church admins who aren’t tech-savvy, this matters a lot. They can figure things out without a training manual.
Where Planning Center Falls Short
Now for the honest part. Every platform has gaps, and Planning Center’s gaps tend to be in the same areas.
1. No WhatsApp Integration
Planning Center communicates via email and push notifications (through the Publishing app). There’s also SMS through a limited texting add-on.
There’s no WhatsApp integration. Not even a basic one.
For US churches, this might not matter. Email and text messages cover most communication needs. But for churches in Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, WhatsApp is the primary communication channel. A 98% open rate versus 20% for email is not a small difference.
If your congregation lives on WhatsApp, Planning Center simply doesn’t reach them where they are.
2. Giving Only Supports US Payment Methods
Planning Center Giving works with:
- Credit/debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover)
- ACH bank transfers (US bank accounts)
- Apple Pay
That’s it. No M-Pesa. No Paystack. No Flutterwave. No mobile money. No international bank transfers. No local payment methods for any country outside the United States.
For a church in Kenya where 96% of households use M-Pesa, Planning Center’s giving feature is essentially non-functional. The same applies to churches in Nigeria (bank transfers and USSD), Ghana (MTN MoMo), and most of the developing world.
3. SMS Is Expensive and US-Only
Planning Center offers texting through Church Center, but it’s limited:
- US and Canadian phone numbers only
- Credits-based pricing
- No international SMS support
- No smart routing to cheaper regional providers
If you need to send SMS to members in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, or the UK, you’re out of luck. And even for US churches, the credits-based model means costs add up quickly for larger congregations.
4. Pricing Scales Steeply for Large Churches
While the modular pricing is fair for small churches, costs escalate for larger ones.
Here’s a realistic breakdown for a 500-member church using most apps:
| App | Tier | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| People | Growth (500 profiles) | $60 |
| Services | Growth | $24 |
| Giving | n/a (free) | $0 |
| Groups | Standard | $20 |
| Registrations | Standard | $10 |
| Check-Ins | Growth | $24 |
| Calendar | Standard | $10 |
| Total | $148/month |
That’s $1,776 per year. Affordable for a well-funded American church. For a church in Lagos or Nairobi? That’s a significant expense, especially when key features (giving, SMS, WhatsApp) don’t work in their context.
5. No Offline or Low-Bandwidth Mode
Planning Center is a fully cloud-based web application. Every action requires an internet connection. Pages are JavaScript-heavy and assume broadband speeds.
For churches in areas with unreliable internet (common across Africa, parts of Latin America, and rural areas worldwide), this creates real usability problems. Slow page loads, timeouts, and lost data when connections drop.
6. US-Centric Terminology and Structure
Planning Center assumes a North American church model:
- Terminology like “campuses” and “service types” follows US megachurch patterns
- The calendar and date formats default to US conventions
- Volunteer scheduling assumes the US model of structured ministry teams
- No multi-language support for the admin interface
For churches that use different organizational structures (cell groups instead of small groups, overseers instead of pastors, zones instead of campuses), the rigid terminology can feel like a poor fit.
Planning Center vs. The Competition
How does Planning Center stack up against the main alternatives?
| Feature | Planning Center | Breeze | Tithe.ly | Subsplash | Gathrik |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member Management | Excellent | Good | Good | Good | Good |
| Worship Planning | Best in class | None | Basic | None | None |
| Online Giving | US only | US only | US only | US only | Global (M-Pesa, Paystack, cards) |
| Check-Ins | Best in class | Basic | Basic | Basic | Basic |
| No | No | No | No | Yes | |
| SMS (Global) | US/Canada only | US only | US only | US only | Africa, Asia, Global |
| Mobile Money | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Pricing (200 members) | $50-100/mo | $82/mo | $49-149/mo | $100+/mo | Regional pricing |
| Offline Support | No | No | No | No | Lightweight/mobile-first |
| API/Integrations | Excellent | Limited | Good | Good | Growing |
Planning Center wins on depth of features and integrations for US churches. It loses on global payment methods, WhatsApp, and accessibility for non-US churches.
Who Should Use Planning Center
Planning Center is ideal for:
- US and Canadian churches with 100+ members
- Churches with a worship production team (Services is unmatched)
- Churches that need robust children’s check-in
- Multi-campus churches needing centralized management
- Churches with budget for $50-200+/month on software
- Tech-comfortable church admins who will use multiple apps
Planning Center is not ideal for:
- Churches outside North America (payment and communication gaps)
- Churches in low-bandwidth environments
- Very small churches under 100 members (free tier is limited)
- Churches that need WhatsApp as a primary communication channel
- Churches whose members primarily use mobile money for giving
- Budget-constrained churches in emerging markets
Setup and Onboarding
Getting started with Planning Center is straightforward:
- Sign up at planningcenter.com (free to start with People)
- Import your member data via CSV or manual entry
- Add apps as needed (each has its own setup)
- Invite your team with role-based permissions
- Connect Church Center (the member-facing app and website)
Planning Center offers solid onboarding resources:
- Video tutorials for every app
- A knowledge base with searchable articles
- Live webinars for new users
- Email support (responsive, generally within 24 hours)
- Phone support for paying customers
The learning curve is moderate. People and Check-Ins are intuitive. Services has more depth and takes longer to master. Budget 2-4 weeks to fully set up and train your team if you’re using multiple apps.
What Real Users Say
We surveyed church admins and read hundreds of reviews across Capterra, G2, and church tech forums. Here’s the consensus:
What they love:
- “Services is incredible. Our worship team can’t live without it.”
- “The modular pricing means we only pay for what we use.”
- “Check-Ins gives our parents peace of mind.”
- “The interface is clean and modern. Our volunteers picked it up quickly.”
- “Workflows in People save us hours of manual follow-up.”
What they wish was better:
- “Giving transaction fees add up. We looked at alternatives.”
- “The mobile app could be more powerful for on-the-go admin.”
- “We wish there was better integration with our accounting software.”
- “No WhatsApp or international SMS options for our global congregation.”
- “Pricing gets expensive when you use 5+ apps.”
The pattern is clear: churches that fit Planning Center’s target audience (mid-to-large US churches with production teams) love it. Churches that don’t fit that mold feel the gaps.
The Verdict
Planning Center is the most feature-complete church management platform available in 2026 for North American churches. The worship planning tools are unmatched. The member database is excellent. The check-in system is the industry standard. And the modular pricing model is genuinely fair.
But it’s a platform built by Americans, for Americans, solving American church problems. The moment you step outside that context, whether it’s a church in Lagos needing M-Pesa, a church in London wanting WhatsApp, or a church plant in Nairobi looking for affordable software, the gaps become significant.
Our recommendation:
- If you’re a US church with budget and a production team, Planning Center is likely your best option. Start with People (free) and Services, then add apps as needed.
- If you’re a small US church on a tight budget, look at Breeze for simplicity or the free tier of Planning Center.
- If you’re a church outside North America, or you need WhatsApp and mobile money, Planning Center isn’t built for your context. Look at platforms designed for the global church, like Gathrik, that support local payment methods and communication channels.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Planning Center free?
Partially. Planning Center People is free for up to 100 profiles. Check-Ins, Services, and Publishing have free basic tiers. But most churches outgrow the free tiers quickly and end up paying $50-200+/month depending on size and apps used.
Can I use Planning Center outside the US?
You can access it from anywhere (it’s web-based), but key features are US-only: Giving only supports US payment methods, SMS is US/Canada only, and there’s no WhatsApp or mobile money integration.
Does Planning Center have a mobile app?
Yes, two. Church Center is for members (giving, event registration, directory). Planning Center apps exist for Services (scheduling, song management) and Check-Ins. The admin experience is primarily web-based, though.
How does Planning Center compare to Breeze?
Planning Center is deeper and more powerful, especially for worship planning and check-ins. Breeze is simpler, cheaper ($82/month flat), and easier to set up. For small churches that don’t need worship planning tools, Breeze might be a better fit. For churches with production teams, Planning Center wins.
Can I migrate from Planning Center to another platform?
Yes. Planning Center allows CSV exports of member data, giving records, and other information. The migration complexity depends on how many apps you use and how much historical data you need to transfer.
Does Planning Center integrate with other tools?
Yes, extensively. Planning Center has APIs and integrates with ProPresenter, Mailchimp, Zapier, QuickBooks, and dozens of other tools. The integration ecosystem is one of its strengths.
Looking for church management software that works beyond North America? Gathrik is built for churches worldwide, with WhatsApp messaging, M-Pesa and mobile money support, and regional pricing that makes sense for your context.