Planning Center

Overview

Planning Center is a suite of church software products headquartered in Carlsbad, California. It was formed in 2006 by Jeff Berg and Aaron Stewart, who built its Services worship-planning tool while working at a church. The company says it serves more than 78,000 churches, is founder-owned and debt-free, has never taken outside funding, and in 2024 created the Ministry Centered Foundation to ensure it is never sold^[2].

The suite is modular: People, Giving, Services, Check-Ins, Groups, Calendar, Registrations, Publishing and the Church Center member app. People is free with an unlimited database and reporting, and every other product has a free tier with usage-based paid tiers, such as five team members in Services, ten monthly donations in Giving, ten daily check-ins and 15 group members. US giving is processed at 2.15% plus US$0.30 per card transaction and US$0.30 per ACH transfer^[1].

The modular model lets a church pay only for what it uses, but costs must be calculated product by product, and the pricing page does not list most paid-tier prices directly. There is no built-in fund accounting module.

Planning Center features

• Free People database with unlimited records
• Services worship planning (Music Stand add-on US$5/month)
• Check-Ins, Groups, Calendar and Registrations
• Church Center member app
• Giving at 2.15% + US$0.30 per US card

Planning Center pricing

Each product has a free tier: People free; Services 5 team members; Giving 10 donations/month; Check-Ins 10 daily; Groups 15 members; Registrations 5 attendees; Calendar 1 room. Paid tiers scale with usage.

Planning Center strengths and limitations

Appears in

• Best Church Management Software in 2026 #1

Planning Center alternatives and competitors

Alternatives to Planning Center: companies ranked in the same lists.

• RTRealm (ACS Technologies)
• Pushpay
• Breeze ChMS
• Tithely
• Rock RMS
• Subsplash
• ChurchTrac
• Elvanto
• ISIcon Systems
• ChMeetings