# Page 7 | Planning Center Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Page 7 - Is Planning Center the right Donation Management solution for you? Explore 1137 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/76708/Planning-Center/reviews --- Planning Center 4.7 (1137) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Page 7 - Reviews of Planning Center ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 151-175 of 1137 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use WA Walter A. Creative Arts Director Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Must have for church teams" February 4, 2020 5.0 We couldn't operate as smoothly as we do with the help of Planning Center. It's a vital part keeping our team informed and involved. Pros While service planning and resource management (sheet music, audio files etc) are wonderful, I like the volunteer scheduling the most. The main thing being the ability for volunteers to add their own "block out" dates. This almost eliminates the seemingly endless "I can't make it that week" conversations. Cons When adding a resource to an item on a playlist, it doesn't attach to the "song" itself. This can make it difficult to track down resources or reference material is someone places it there instead. Reason for choosing Planning Center Other products have great features (some have better practicing or transposing tools) but the benefits of being extremely organized and having great communication tools built in far outweight any negative aspects. Review Source Response from Planning Center February 5, 2020 Hey Walter! So glad to hear that Planning Center has helped you schedule your Teams on a new level. We noticed you had a pain point with attachments. We'd be happy to look into this with you. Would you be up for writing into our support at support@planning.center? This way we can definitely look into this with you. Micah S. Associate Pastor of Music Ministries Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best Church Management Software" March 26, 2019 5.0 I use Planning Center on a daily basis as the Associate Pastor if Music at my church. It makes communicating with my church family so easy! I can literally have my church directory right on my phone in their People App. And I get instantly notified when someone that I have scheduled to serve will be unavailable that weekend. They also have a fantastic app for safely checking in people to classes, as well as an app to set up online giving. Their pricing is extremely competitive, and their customer service is second to none. Pros Planning Center is very easy to learn! I've been using it for years and a first time volunteer can get set up within minutes through the Services app. Scheduling people to serve is a breeze, and their free People app makes for a great church management software. I've tried others but I won't be switching anytime soon. Cons I honestly have no complaints about this software personally. Review Source Jason R. Owner Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Unique, Full Featured, and Time Saving" October 20, 2019 5.0 This is a necessary piece of software. Even with the occasional bugs, you need it if you're in church leadership. Pros I'm a worship leader, so I use the scheduling, chord-chart features, etc. Music Stand and Services, mostly. The auto-scheduling saves so much time. So does Music Stand with the key changing features and chord chart sharing. It's great how the whole church can use this. Cons Every once in awhile there will be a bug on Sunday mornings. Each worship team member has his own iPad with the set. If I change a key or make an update, sometimes it doesn't update on each iPad. Also, sometimes when I change the page, it will change the pages wrong on the other iPads. This can cause some pretty bad disasters on stage... There are workarounds and these problems are intermittent. It's still frustrating. Reason for choosing Planning Center It's one of a kind. Nothing else does all the stuff this does. Especially from a worship team management perspective. Review Source Response from Planning Center October 22, 2019 Thanks for your review Jason! Our support team would like to help you with those issues you pointed out. That is not normal behavior and we'd like to get those resolved! CS Chris S. Assistant Director of Student Achievement Education Management Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Planning Center makes scheduling easy!" May 12, 2023 5.0 I have found planning center easy to use in terms of planning my attendance, seeing other members who will or won't be able to attend, and using the attachments for planning purposes. Pros Planning Center makes it easy to respond to requests for scheduling purposes. It's also very easy to block out days in advance that you will not be available. Cons There are still features I'm learning about so it's too early if I would have recommendations on improving any features. Review Source Response from Planning Center May 15, 2023 Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review, Chris! We always appreciate hearing from our customers! If you run into any questions, our Support Team is always happy to help. Tap the "?" icon in the upper-right of the screen on any page in Planning Center to reach Support! KN Karen N. Executive Assistant Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Part of it Works for Us" December 18, 2018 3.0 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. Pros 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. Cons 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. Review Source Response from Planning Center December 19, 2018 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. Rachelle G. Worship Leader Entertainment Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Amazing for Scheduling Worship Teams" May 14, 2019 5.0 We are able to organize and schedule over 60 people who play on multiple days for differing events easily and smoothly by scheduling them for practices and services. Pros I love being able to easily put together the worship team/band for any service by selecting the people, choosing their instrument or vocalist position, and letting them know when practice is, when the service time is, and what songs they should practice. Cons I would love to be able to see more easily who has been scheduled in past services and possibly even remind my band members when a service or practice is upcoming. Review Source Response from Planning Center May 24, 2019 Hi Rachelle! Thank you for your kind words and honest review! Reminders for your band members can be set from within the Times Field in a Plan. This way your Team Members are reminded when a practice or service is coming up when they are scheduled. If you'd like help setting this up, you can email our support at support@planning.center and our team would be happy to help. CS Chris S. Worship Leader Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Couldn't survive without it" November 13, 2023 5.0 Almost every employee uses it on a daily basis. I don't think there's any way our church could survive without it at this point. Pros It literally does everything for our church. There's no way we could survive without it. Cons Setting up and scheduling events could be a little easier. Review Source MO Micah O. Groups Guy Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great at discrete tasks... not yet ready for primetime as a whole-church DB replacement" February 12, 2018 4.0 Planning Center is hard to review because it's not one product, it's actually six different products. That's both a strength and a weakness. Most people using Planning Center are used to its core functionality: Planning Center Services. This is the tool used for actually planning a worship service (complete with tech sheet, ProPresenter integration, etc) and scheduling people to be there. It also has a Check-In component, a Groups component, a Resources (room scheduling) component, and a Giving component. Supposedly, if you add them all together you get a viable whole-church database solution. It's hard to see that being the case, since a lot of the functionality you'd want to see for a whole-church database (especially around reporting, metrics, dashboards, etc) are missing. But the parts that are there mostly work well. It's impossible to overstate how far ahead Planning Center Services is from everything else in the field. Everyone I'm in contact uses Services for service planning. Their other modules, though, are all missing important features. Work is clearly being done to improve those components, but mostly it seems more like rearranging existing features than adding the ability to solve new problems. We'll keep using Planning Center Services, but have transitioned away from Planning Center Groups and anticipate moving away from Planning Center Resources. Luckily our new system integrates well with PCO, so we'll be able to keep our contact databases in sync. This is an underappreciated feature for PCO: a full API to develop and integrate against! Pros Great ease of use. Excellent for planning services and scheduling volunteers. Makes it easy for volunteers to respond to schedules without having to remember account details. Solid people management. Cons Everything outside of the core (service planning & scheduling) functionality seems half-baked. Very difficult to pull reports, group scheduling & attendance don't work well. Review Source PF Paul F. Technical Support Representative Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Hands Down Best Planning tool for volunteer worship team members" December 3, 2019 5.0 Like I said I can't image how churches planned and scheduled services before this application was out. Its so easy to see my schedule, and hear and prepare for the songs I am scheduled to play. As a volunteer it has made my service a breeze and I know what to expect. If you have an organized leader I believe this software would be the best thing that leader could invest in for themself and their volunteers. I have never had an issue with this software, I just wish it was around sooner! Pros I love that I can see when I scheduled to play, I can block off dates very easily, and I have the opportunity to decline or accept when I am scheduled. The app for the phone/tablet is awesome and I mainly use that. Sometimes when I am on my work computer the website also works great. Its super helpful to see the services in order and easy to access the mp3's and chord charts for the music I am playing to better prepare me for the service I am scheduled for. I do not know how churches did this before planning center. I also Like that I can see other members of the teams info incase I need to reach out to them and talk about splitting parts. I love the music stand addition as well. Using my iPad as a music stand has been the best! Cons Sometimes on the phone app I will play the mp3's of a particular service week and when that song is done it starts playing songs from a completely different service and has that services songs pulled up, even though I was not even looking at that service. It is annoying, but that is the only flaw I have found with the application. Review Source Brandon A. Creative Director Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The BEST Option for Church Service and Event Management" April 29, 2022 5.0 Pros Planning Center incorporates many great tools in its platform — service preparation, event management, form data collection, and more. It all works seamlessly in one platform and integrates everything beautifully. It's the easiest and best option for all types of church management. Cons I've used Planning Center for years and have found absolutely no issues involving the software's use or available features. Simply put, it is the best. Review Source TH Tara H. Children’s Pastor Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Not the most user friendly" April 9, 2021 3.0 Planning center makes it easy to keep church records and maintain a database. Not only can you use it to schedule and email volunteers, but it also has an add on that allows you to background check volunteers as well. It is very helpful to have this tool included in the software. My main complaint about the product is that it is difficult to create teams Volunteers and the service planning tool is awkward when applied to children’s ministries. Pros There is a great system for tracking attendance and check-in‘s at Sunday services. It can be a very helpful database for church management with lots of different functionalities. Cons The “Services” is not user-friendly at all. The menus are not intuitive, and it takes lots of trial and error to achieve the desired result. This area of the program could use a major overhaul to make it more functional and helpful. Review Source Response from Planning Center April 12, 2021 Hey Tara! Thanks for taking the time to share the review. We're sorry to hear you are running into issues with the volunteer management portion of Services. Our support team is standing by today and ready to assist with any pain points you are running into. Would you be up for emailing us at support@planningcenter.com? We look forward to hearing from you. DR Dita R. Teacher Education Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Use it all the time!" August 2, 2023 5.0 Pros I love using Planning center for weekly lessons and materials in kids ministry. I also enjoy being able to access music charts for worship. Cons It has been difficult managing multiple profiles with different churches and deleting an "old" or unused account from my profile is not easy. Review Source Response from Planning Center August 7, 2023 Hi Dita! Thank you for your kind words! You mentioned having some trouble with managing multiple profiles. Our Support Team would love to help with that! Click the '?' icon in the upper-right of the screen when you are logged into your Planning Center account. Send us a message and our team will jump in to help! We look forward to hearing from you! DL Dorothy L. Illustrator Arts and Crafts Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Helps me keep track of everything happening across ministries" January 11, 2023 4.0 Pros This app helps me keep track of all my commitments at church. I love that I can see who else is serving across various roles on a Sunday I'm also working -- I can see which appropriate people to look for when needed. It also helps me learn peoples' names -- my church is big so sometimes I might recognize someone's face but never have the chance to ask what their name was, or I might forget. Cons The experience of the interface isn't always smooth. At one point I was involved in multiple churches and wish there was a way to access all the churches at the same time. Currently I'm required to sign out and sign back in, in order to switch to another church. Review Source Response from Planning Center January 12, 2023 Hi Dorothy! Thank you for your kind words. You mentioned having a bit of trouble with the user interface. Our Support Team is a great resource for help in that area. Hit the '?' icon in the upper-right of the screen. Send us a message and our team will jump in to help! EE Eric E. Lead Pastor Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best ChMS every church needs" September 28, 2019 5.0 Workflows, workflows, workflows. This saves us a ton of a time each week. Attendance is easy to track with the Headcounts app. Services app for planning worship, communicating with volunteers, and scheduling the team is essential. Pros I like having individual apps for the different functions in PCO. Each module/app is easy to use and setup. Plus they all integrate seamlessly with one another. Workflows for everyday tasks like first time guest follow up, volunteer email/communication, event registration, and attendance is extremely valuable. Cons After using multiple church management systems, PCO has all the features we need...so not real cons for me. Alternatives considered [FellowshipOne](https://www.capterra.com/p/230779/Fellowship-One/)[Churchteams](https://www.capterra.com/p/103773/Churchteams/)[ChurchStaq](https://www.capterra.com/p/211982/ChuchStaq/) Reason for choosing Planning Center Checked all the boxes for us. Review Source Jeremiah F. Investment Advisor Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Takes a bit to learn and understand, but exceptionally functional for planning." December 11, 2017 4.0 Organization, communication, functionality. Pros One of my favorite aspects to Planning Center is being able to email/communicate with multiple volunteers from one screen. The email/communication screens are very simple, maybe too simple at times, but they let you send basic messages. I never had any issues with messages not going through, and it was easy to find which people I needed to communicate with. As the application for Mobile has been updated, the software has become easier to use. Cons I had a little bit of a hard time accessing administrator settings from the mobile application. I wanted to edit volunteer information (i.e. their email and phone number). It was tricky to find where I needed to go, and eventually deferred to someone with the desktop version. Another thing I came across was the learning-curve. The application tends to require someone to walk you through how to setup teams if you have never used it. Once you know how to run things, it makes life very easy. Review Source KM Kevin M. Worship Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Don't Do Church Music Without This Tool!" November 5, 2016 5.0 I've been a church music director for 13+ years. I've looked into a lot of online products over the years. Most of them looked like something that worked for someone, but I would have to change how I did things to make it work. Enter Planning Center. As soon as I started poking around, I starting thinking, "Who has been spying on me and conspiring to make my life easier..." Not only is this product incredibly well-made, their customer support is second-to-none. Planning Center makes service planning and volunteer scheduling a breeze. I also use it to handle all of my music stand & chord chart needs. They also have products available for Event Registration, Giving, Volunteer Check-In, Church Management and more! Their products are designed to serve the local church because that's how they started. They designed products that they themselves needed in their own churches. All of their stuff is web-based, so it's accessible anywhere from any device. Seriously, do yourself a favor and start using PCO. Pros It's incredibly easy to use, not only for me but my volunteers. It is designed to target the needs & issues I face in service planning and volunteer management in a local church. It integrates with a host of other products I use to help my teams prepare every Sunday. Cons Because it's web-based, Internet access is required for most functionality. That doesn't hinder me because I know it's a requirement, so I plan for it. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Senior Learning Technologist Higher Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Amazing service and music tool" September 30, 2019 5.0 We use it mainly through the mobile app for rota'ing all the different teams and groups, for planning and delivering music across several physical sites and styles of team. It has improved efficiency hugely, it has increased team responsiveness, and it has reduced our carbon footprint by not having to print on so much paper. Highly recommended. Pros This product is an amazing church service and management system. It has comprehensive functions around the building of rotas, planning services, managing and delivering music (along with the two mobile apps), supporting communication, and data management. It really is very comprehensive in its suite of functions for our church administrators and provides a reliable service for all we need and more. The functionality around the mobile apps for music are extremely impressive and they are always making them even better. Cons Occasionally there are some glitches in the mobile apps but the suppliers are quick to solve these. It would be good to have more detailed contact directory management functionality. Review Source BP Brad P. Worship Pastor, Senior Associate Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Can't Imagine Life Without Planning Center" May 20, 2021 5.0 This software makes me appear more organized than I actually am. It helps prevent disasters. Pros Ease of Clear Communication with teams! Moving from a six month spreadsheet of volunteers in various positions (which became obsolete almost as soon as it was published) to Planning Center Online drastically improved our scheduling process, and, most importantly, our elimination of "no shows." Cons It's so comprehensive that some features get missed early on in its use, and some of the customization features are a bit clunky to set up and get just right. Reason for choosing Planning Center Recommended at The Drive Conference in Atlanta, GA, many years ago, when it was brand new. Review Source Response from Planning Center May 24, 2021 Thank you so much for the feedback, Brad! We're delighted that using Planning Center has helped you with your daily scheduling rhythms. Our aim has always been to help schedulers organize and ease the burden of managing volunteers. Overall, this review was fairly positive, but we'd love to hear more about what you found to be clunky within customization settings and setup. Should you want to offer more detailed feedback, please contact us at support@planning.center. Have a great day! Jacob P. Finance & Information Systems Director Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great Company That Makes Incredible Apps" December 18, 2017 5.0 This product requires very little training to my staff and helps us do less admin work and more ministry work. Church is all about relationships, so when we don't have to spend as much time in a "system", we can focus more on those relationships. Pros Easy to jump in and learn. All apps have a free subscription level to test the app. This is such a great approach and allows new and existing churches to really "drive" the product before committing. Their support and documentation is by far the best of any CHMS. Cons This is necessarily bad, but the overall system is still pretty new, so they are still working to add more features and grasp how each app needs to communicate with another. Review Source RK Rick K. Engagement director Civic & Social Organization Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Planning Center does it all … " April 29, 2022 5.0 Ease of Navigation and Data provided makes this a very helpful software. I like the way you can toggle back and forth between functions. I can’t imagine our Day to day operations without it. Pros Planning Center makes organizations such as ours run smoother due To the capabilities of this product. Easily ties different activities and functions with each other for quick measurement and status. The different functions of the software incorporate the key components of what it takes to run our organization with more efficiencies. Cons Have had reoccurring problems with the mobile app not working properly. But the help desk of Planning Center is usually able to remedy through problem Review Source Response from Planning Center July 1, 2022 Hi Rick! Thanks for your kind words. You mentioned having a bit of trouble with our mobile app. Our Support Team is a great resource for help in that area. Hit the '?' icon in the upper-right of the screen. Send us a message and our team will jump in to help! Kaitlin W. Utilization Review Specialist Mental Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great for churches" March 21, 2019 5.0 Overall, my experience was great and so was the praise bands experience. Couldn't imagine us using any other software. Pros What I like most about this software is being able to get all the services our church needs to track and manage things into one system. I primarily used planning center for planning our church services as a worship leader and it was so easy for myself and the praise band to use. The band could block out dates they wouldn't be able to play, I could add in all of the songs with a timeline and keys, all the music was right there at our fingertips. Made it so easy for us to just meet and start practicing/worshipping. Cons I did not like the PowerPoint portion of this software. I could never figure out how to use it and create powerpoints through the software, instead I had to constantly use Microsoft powerpoint and create them myself. I was paying for a service as part of planning center that I couldn't actually use with our team. This is my only complaint about the service. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Host Team Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Center is the Best Practice for church management tools!" March 12, 2019 5.0 Without fail, no matter how many other options we research, Planning Center is the only software that truly enables our church to grow and it will scale with us! It's become a tool that allows our multi-site church to truly take care of our span of care well. Pros I love Planning Center's customer support and how they've helped us to customize/better utilize Services and People for our volunteer teams. Cons Planning Center Services seems to change the user interface a little bit too frequently. They change the layout and navigation just enough and, when a change occurs, the walkthroughs tend to be insufficient because each team uses it in a somewhat different capacity. Also, we happen to have a very large database of individual records for our attendees and volunteers, so for users who download the Services app and accidentally open the "people" tab, the app tends to crash or freeze. Review Source Response from Planning Center March 13, 2019 We're happy to help you with that app-crashing issue! This should not be happening, regardless of how many people are in your database. Please contact our team at support@planning.center and we'll work with you to get this fixed. AL Aaron L. Lead Worship Arts Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The best possible planning tool for teams" December 18, 2019 5.0 Planning Center allows me to solve frustrating team communication issues. Everyone on my team knows all the details. Songs... check. Service times... check. Rehearsal times... check. Media and lighting cues... check. It’s been a game changer for my team overall. Pros Team communication: planning center allows me to organize and communicate with over 150+ volunteers and staff. It’s absolutely essential for my job and for serving my team as effectively as possible. Cons The GUI is a tad bit intimidating at first, as is with most planning center modules. However in a few hours or days, you are up and running in no time, and there is also a vast FAQ and help section on their support page. Alternatives considered [ChurchStaq](https://www.capterra.com/p/211982/ChuchStaq/) Reason for choosing Planning Center There’s simply no comparison. Planning Center is the best church organization software out there. Nothing comes close to the functionality or amount of features. Review Source Chad K. Associate Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A Complicated Group Management Software" February 9, 2021 4.0 We use this for database management, volunteer scheduling, child check-ins and a variety of other needs. Pros Planning Center incorporates a lot of different group management functionality under one software umbrella. Cons You often have to pay for the additional add-ons and because of church on right on the "larger" tier, it can become expensive. Also, some of the functionality isn't easy to use and creates frustration for less knowledgeable users. Review Source Response from Planning Center February 12, 2021 Thanks for the review, Chad! To clarify, all tiers of all plans include full functionality. We just limit the amount of users able to operate within each of those tiers. We'd love to help clarify! Shoot us a message at support@planningcenteronline.com JL Jason L. Pastor of Worship Ministries Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A Mission-Critical Component of Workflow" February 18, 2020 5.0 Planning Center empowers our teammates to prepare for services, events, and rehearsals through resourcing them with media, resources, and scheduling data. Planning Center helped me to accomplish many individual tasks all within the suite of features offered through my subscription to Planning Center. Pros I like the versatility of the software whether our team is using a laptop or mobile device. The ability to connect a variety of other media subscriptions (i.e. PraiseCharts, SongSelect) to this software is also a big plus. Cons I only have two gripes and one of them is outside of the control of Planning Center. The first con is that emails sent from Planning Center are often not sent to an email provider's primary inbox. This leads to some hit-and-miss communication with teammates when using Planning Center's email function. The second con is the lack of an automatic update to teammates when/if a change is made to a plan. It would be beneficial for all people scheduled for a plan to receive a summary of any changes made to the plan as a plan develops. Review Source Talk to a Capterra advisor for free and get results within 15 minutes.