# Page 9 | Planning Center Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Page 9 - 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 9 - Reviews of Planning Center ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 201-225 of 1137 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use ME Matthew E. Production Technology Specialist Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The only service we need to plan and execute our events" July 3, 2019 5.0 Excellent overall experience, we have never or very rarely had any service issues with the site crashing or anything like that. Just little bugs here and there which are always quickly resolved. Pros The seamless integration of various elements and components of our service or event. The ease of adding songs and lyrics, media elements, notes and documentation, organization of all the pieces, easy scheduling of staff and volunteers and ease of communicating to all those involved. The continued innovation and adding of features, listening well to their user base. Cons Some of the setup and coding of reports has a big learning curve, and some settings have been hard to find in the past, but the user support is there when we need it. Alternatives considered [WorshipPlanning.com](https://www.capterra.com/p/252192/WorshipPlanningcom/) Switched from [Microsoft Excel](https://www.capterra.com/p/176574/Excel/) PCOs cloud based service is so much easier to use and collaborate with all our different teams. Clearly a lot less clunky to use than a single user document based software. Review Source JB Jin B. Finance Administrator Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Great Software for Church Management System" March 18, 2022 5.0 Pros When we started using Planning Center as our CMS, it made our lives so much easier as it was able to keep track of everything from our members, to events, to groups, and it even integrated with our offering, so it's such a great software that's easy to use! Cons Planning Center is really easy to use and they provide tutorials, so there's no complaints here! Switched from [Realm](https://www.capterra.com/p/146265/Realm/) Realm was outdated and Planning Center has so many more options that we took advantage of. Review Source MW Marissa W. Administrator Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Center Review" July 30, 2020 5.0 My overall experience with Planning Center would be amazing. I would recommend this software to many other churches. Pros I use Planning Center every single day in my job. I enjoy using the software because it is easy to use. It holds all of our 30,000 families from our church. It tracks all of their information. I can make registrations through Planning Center and the system tracks these registrations for me. There are countless other things Planning Center does and it is all in one place rather than using many different systems. Cons Honestly, there is nothing bad I can say about Planning Center. I really enjoy using it. It helps keep me grounded as an administrator. Switched from [FellowshipOne](https://www.capterra.com/p/230779/Fellowship-One/) We made the switch because of cost and abilities of the overall software. Review Source Trevor C. Connection Pastor Used the software for: 2+ years ### "IF you want to simplify your life by organizing volunteers start with THIS program" May 30, 2018 5.0 Helps with weekly scheduling and is easy for volunteers to use. Keeps people reminded of when they are serving/helping out. Pros Easy to use. It takes very little time to learn the in's and out's of Planning Center and once you do you'll be happy you did. Multiple ways to organize and schedule teams. Easy to create groupings / area's / services and then break into multiple needs for scheduling. Can look at multiple dates at same time for scheduling ease. Easy to see who has confirmed, and who has declined so you always see where you are at for schedule. Scheduled people can receive both email and text reminders / updates / information. All users can access online or on an app through mobile. Planning Center team is committed to keeping up to date (latest update was awesome!) Cons Some minor process kinks need to be worked out for greater ease of use. Honestly not many cons. Review Source AC Austin C. Director Of Operations Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Planning Center Helps Your Church Grow!" July 23, 2019 4.0 Overall, I LOVE using Planning Center! It helps me keep track of volunteers, materials, rooms, and groups with ease. When working with people in general, but especially with volunteers, communication and organization is KEY and Planning Center makes that all possible and EASY! We ahem seen tremendous growth first of all because of what God is doing in our church but also because of the technology we implement and Planning Center has been a driving force in that. Pros I've used Planning center for about a year now though I've known of it for years. I don't know how other churches get by without it! It has so many different uses from checking in children, to organizing rooms and supplies for events, to keeping track of attendance for groups, and of course scheduling volunteers for services. It's very versatile and brings order to the chaos of being a volunteer based work space. Cons It does have some software bugs with their mobile apps. Often, I've scheduled people on the computer, but when I go to the app it will have other people "pending" under the wrong date and when I try to remove them, I get the "oops, something went wrong" message over and over again. It would also be nice if Planning Center Groups had their own separate phone application to make things more versatile for group leaders, that would be amazing! Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Creative Director Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Center is a beast" February 12, 2019 5.0 PCO is THE SOFTWARE you want to use if you are a church! Pros Wow, PCO suite is amazing. We use each of the different options for our church. It totally intergrades all aspect of church management and brings it all together into one simple interface. Since switching over to PCO it has dramatically reduced our time using the software. Cons The biggest downfall of the software is it price. We love the software and its features, but you pay for those features. As a church endpoint user it can get tough to continue to pay monthly charges. Review Source GS Glenn S. Pastor/Clergy Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Low-Volume User" December 13, 2021 4.0 I am / we are a low-end user. I can only review what I know. In the past, we have used more elements of this product. However, with our reduced size, most of it doesn't even get opened. Pros It has a lot of features for the money - a value product for the price. I wish we were a large enough organization to make better use of it. Cons There is a decent-sized "learning curve" to effectively use this product. While there are a lot of products within the larger product, it gets cumbersome at times to use it effectively. Reason for choosing Planning Center The company was already using it upon my arrival. I simply took over as Administrator and continued its use. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Supervisor of Network Administration Mining & Metals Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great tool - with some frustrating downsides" December 19, 2018 4.0 I'm only a casual user of this software, which I think most of our users are. Perhaps with daily use you would get used to the software's quirks. But for the rest of us, it would be nice to put some effort into making it easier to use. Pros It is a great tool for centrally managing an event where you need to coordinate among individuals with various roles & responsibilities. Has a good communication engine. Cons I found it difficult to do some tasks. Neither the web interface, nor the mobile app are very intuitive to operate. I've wasted a lot of time trying to lookup information, or make simple changes. When I finally figured out how, I thought to myself, "Well that was a dumb way to design that!" I would like their developers to spend a little more time in usability testing. Review Source Response from Planning Center December 20, 2018 We'd love to have you send in your feedback to our support team so we can make sure it's written up for the whole team to see. We strive to make our designs better every day! AW Andrew W. User Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The bigger your team, the more useful this becomes" November 12, 2020 4.0 Overall, Planning Center is really useful for organizing and planning services and communicating to your team. I'm usually on the receiving end, but I have had a little experience assigning team members and scheduling people. It was pretty easy to navigate and get things set how I wanted! Pros Planning Center has been used and implemented at most churches I've been involved with. I like how you can schedule people for specific jobs, and add all your song notes, uploaded pdfs or recordings. It makes communicating and organizing with different volunteers and leaders easy. I also like how everything is located in a central place. I think Planning Center is best when there are more people involved. If you have a smaller group for your worship team, it becomes unnecessary. Cons Planning Center gets weird when you have the same email address associated with multiple churches. I've had issues logging into one because of an association with a different church. I've had to contact church administrators and ask them to remove me from their system in order to get it to work with the correct account. Review Source Response from Planning Center January 8, 2021 We appreciate this review, Andrew! Another option with multiple email addresses to Link your Accounts together, which can be done without contacting churches directly. More info on that here: https://bit.ly/2XlpNH9 Take a look, and reach back out if you run into questions! VR Verified Reviewer Associate Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great software platform, easy to use " January 31, 2021 5.0 This program made children ministry very simple to check kids in and manage attendance, and it was easy to teach to new volunteers! Pros This software makes church management very simple and easy to run and has robust features to help churches run all aspects of their ministries. Cons The software was picky with what printers it used and without notice discontinued support for our label printers. Review Source Response from Planning Center February 2, 2021 Thank you for the review! With regards to the discontinued printers, we would love to chat more about that. Please email us at support@planningcenter.com with more information. Thank you! MM Manelle M. upwork Marketing and Advertising Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "upwork" March 21, 2023 5.0 Pros I frequently used Capterra as a platform to help me choose which software to buy. The platform itself is simple to use, and the sign-up process is straightforward. They do offer a good incentive program whereby they give gift cards to reviewers for each review that is accepted. Reason for choosing Planning Center I frequently used Capterra as a platform to help me choose which software to buy. The platform itself is simple to use, and the sign-up process is straightforward. They do offer a good incentive program whereby they give gift cards to reviewers for each review that is accepted. Review Source Response from Planning Center March 22, 2023 Thank you for your feedback, Manelle! We appreciate it! KH Katie H. Admin Assistant Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Center Implementation" February 21, 2020 5.0 This software has totally revamped our music ministry. For anyone looking for an easy way to empower your choir members, I highly recommend using Planning Center! Pros This software has completely changed our music ministry at our church! Our choir members have moved from having to hold sheet music every Sunday to being able to practice at home on their own time and really dedicate effort to memorizing everything. Putting the music in the hands of our people at home is fantastic!! Cons The scheduling feature of Planning Center has helped with our A/V ministry, but it has also been a bit of a hindrance. It takes away the personal touch that we had before. Instead of sitting down with everyone and being able to plan out schedules and communicate together, now you just get an email when you are needed to serve. Not much of a personal touch. It's a great tool, but it comes with a small drawback for our kind of ministry. Review Source JW Justus W. Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great for churches" July 16, 2019 5.0 Overall PC has helped us with communication, service setup, tracking guests, and registering for events. Pros It integrates almost everything our church needs in into one place. We have giving, serving planning, event registration, directory, etc all in one app/website. Cons Planning center is still somewhat limited in each of its different services. For example, in the giving app/service you can record all of the giving your church gets, which is awesome. But tracking non tax-deductible money is more difficult, and you still have to run another software program like quickbooks pro for expenses and the non tax deductible items. We are hopeful this will change over time as they keep developing. Review Source Response from Planning Center July 23, 2019 Thanks so much for sharing your feedback. I went ahead and have passed on your suggestions as a Feature Request to our Giving Team. If you have any other suggestions you can email our support @support@planning.center and we'd be happy to pass on any feedback for you to our Team. April M. General Manager Health, Wellness and Fitness Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great tool for organizing volunteers" April 14, 2022 5.0 I have used it as a volunteer for years and I love it! Pros The ease of use, and all of the information in one place Cons There are features that we don't use that could probably be beneficial to the organization. I would love to know more about them and how to make them work for us. Perhaps having a live tutorial at some point would help. Review Source Response from Planning Center July 14, 2022 Hi April, Thanks for your kind words! You mentioned you would love more training or possible a live tutorial. Our Support Team is a great resource for help in that area. Hit the '?' icon in the upper-right of the screen when you are looking at your List. Send us a message and our team will jump in to help! Thanks! DE David E. Associate Pastor of Worship Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Worship Planning and Much More" July 16, 2019 5.0 Planning Center now links together all the people and programs in our church from volunteer scheduling, to check ins and even giving. It's nice to have everything all in one place. Pros It's very simple and intuitive to use, and makes planning and scheduling worship teams and services very simple and organized. In addition, the company is constantly working on improving their products and adding new services that add more and more value. Cons It's become very deep over the years and some of the more advanced features (that I watched them add) can be overwhelming to new users. Review Source Response from Planning Center July 23, 2019 Thanks so much for your honest feedback of the applications and we are glad it is a powerful tool for you and your Organization. If you have any suggestions on how to make the process of the new features less overwhelming we would love to hear them so we can continue to make the software the best that it can be. You can open a ticket with our support at support@planning.center this way we can record your Feature Request and pass on to the Team. JC Josh C. Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Saved my mind of exploding" June 27, 2019 5.0 This has become the epicenter for any information needed for a Sunday Service. No more email threads to sort through, google docs to share. It's awesome. Pros This takes the edge off of the Admin work I have to do weekly. The ease of scheduling people is my favorite. Cons \- The new designs, though beautiful, take up too much screen space - As an administrator, I don't like the automatic "Teams" filter applied when I try to view the People page. - I wish it could handle my CCLI reporting for me. Review Source Response from Planning Center June 28, 2019 Hey Josh, thanks for sharing the love for the apps and also some great suggestions. As for the "My Teams" filter, you can select the drop-down, and "unpin" that filter. By doing this you will no longer see that defaulted filter the next time you launch the People tab in Services. In regards to CCLI we can pass on as a Feature Request for you. In the meantime, we have some great reports/resources to help you with reporting. If you have any questions on how these features work, feel free to email us at support@planning.center Christi W. Pastor's Wife, Office Manager Religious Institutions Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "EASY. TO. USE" February 24, 2018 5.0 The most benefit that i get from this software is the expansion of the database users. Because of it's ease of use, we were able to expand it's use to our leaders and entrust them to input their teams and communicate serving times and such. The initial database merge was simple and it's continued use has been amazing! Pros I haven't found anything on this software that it difficult. I input new people each week, do bulk emails frequently, and make lists quarterly. It is so easy to use that I was able to teach a volunteer assistant to help me. She is not technical at all but learned quickly and has not had many follow up questions which is a very different experience from our previous database software. Review Source Scott G. Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Must Have For Every Church" December 8, 2018 5.0 Pros One stop shop for tracking our people, planning our services, managing our groups, checking in our people and registration for our large events. Cons It is pretty costly if you decide to use each of the different modules that PCO offers. Sometimes their pay tiers are frustrating. Review Source AM Andre M. Worship Music Director Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Center delivers the complete solution to production workflow" February 23, 2021 5.0 Planning Center is a huge part of our success. We have used Planning Center online for over 10 years now. The addition of Planning Center's Music Stand feature, saved time, united our musicians, and rescued several trees by eliminating the use of paper chord charts. Pros Planning Center keeps everyone involved with any aspect of service planning connected and informed. Cons I'd like to see the Planning Center team extend their offerings to include Microsoft Windows users. I use an HP tablet, and would love to use Planning Center's Music Stand app in the Windows 10 environment. Reason for choosing Planning Center There are no comparable products on the market. Planning Center is the G.O.A.T. in this arena, because they created the template. Review Source Response from Planning Center March 5, 2021 Thanks for your review, Andre! We're always keeping track of those customers looking for a Windows version of Music Stand, so I've let our devs know this is something you'd like to see as well. We're grateful to be able to serve you and your congregation! AG Angela G. Connections Director Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Center Review" March 5, 2020 4.0 The integration of other programs to Planning Center has been the best. We use Checkr for easy background check processes & Pastorsline for easy communication, & Mailchimp for emails. Keeping it all streamlined is great! Check-ins make our Sunday kids process go smoothly & give parents a sense of security. Pros Great database for all the people & schedules we have to keep organized. Easy to schedule for your ministry area & avoid conflicts in others. Cons Services can be hard to setup initially but began to work really well for us once we got it straightened out. Also, its easy to get several duplicate profiles created for the same person during signup processes if info has changed. Alternatives considered [ChurchStaq](https://www.capterra.com/p/211982/ChuchStaq/) Reason for choosing Planning Center Features, price, integrations & ease of use. Review Source ED Elizabeth D. Pastor Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Such a necessary tool for ministry " April 15, 2021 5.0 We’ve used PCO since 2008 (13 years) and so much has changed and been added. It’s amazing!! We love and enjoy nearly all of the products from them. They are so great to work with and they are always open for feedback and much of the growth and change has come from using its users opinions. Pros So many options! Service planning and structure and scheduling. Small group organization and sign ups. Safe check in for children and students. Cons Duplication of profiles when someone signs up with a different email or incorrectly types their email (.con instead of .com haha) Not being able to precheck children very early. Would be nice to be able to do it a day or two in advance. Review Source Response from Planning Center April 16, 2021 Thank you for your kind words, Elizabeth! If you'd like to, please feel free to send us an email at support@planningcenter.com to share more details about having children precheck prior to the day of the event. We thrive on customer feedback and are glad to pass any details onto the Check-Ins team. Have a great day! BL Becca L. Music Ministry Assistant Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Center" February 18, 2020 5.0 I enjoy being able to communicate with all of my ministers, musicians, and tech crew in one place, so everyone knows what's going on each week. Pros I love that I can put all of my people and my service files in to one application, create an event, then easily pull them all together in one place. I'm a fan of the automatic reminders that I can program, and how customizable the templates are. Putting services and other events is easy and user friendly. Cons There are so many functions and tabs that make using Planning Center through an app difficult. I can label people with a "tag" or a "position," and they can't be used interchangeably which makes putting my teams together difficult at times, so I feel like that could be improved. I would also like more library/database record keeping options for music. Review Source KO Karen O. Children's Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Center Supporter" January 10, 2020 5.0 Planning Center has streamlined our church management. It has every component we have needed and can be accesed virtually anywhere by our staff--a plus in this digital age! Pros I like the variety of features with this software. You can use Planning Center alone or in conjunction with the various other programs they have. Planning Center is great to use as a central data base and is a full church-management software. It is affordable, easy to use, and they have excellent customer service. Cons The only issue we have had is that it is easier to use all of the components to this software when it is in "live" mode, which only occurs when an event is happening. However, you can change those parameters and set-up an test event to bypass this. Reason for choosing Planning Center We chose Planning Center over any other alternative because of the programs offered within the software and its affordability. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Student Worship Pastor Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning center is the best!" November 12, 2019 5.0 I love it! It helps streamline the process of planning worship services, and since I work with youth, it's so important that they have a fully functioning and excellent smart phone app, which they do. Pros I love how easy to use and intuitive planning center is, I've been using the past 15 years, and it only gets better and better. The mobile app is the best part! Cons There's not a whole lot you can customize on planning center, but I feel like it's ease-of-use and intuitive design more than makes up for this. Review Source GW Garrett W. Network Administrator Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great, robust system that helps with the planning for the various teams and safe facilitation of kids during services" December 28, 2017 4.0 Have been a customer for years and despite some issues, will continue to use it! Pros There are many great aspects of Planning Center. We don't use every piece, but the Check-Ins are HUGE. This is THE way to allow kids to be checked in during our Sunday services. Having a barcode scanner makes the process much quicker and easier. The update allowed past registration issues to be fixed (users were listed twice - once as an "employee" and second as "customer"). The second biggest piece we use is the Services portal. Allowing every member of the worship/media team to see the flow of service is great! Everyone can be on the same page while allowing service to flow smoothly - almost without the congregation even knowing there's an order to things... Cons Have to jump through hoops to get any type of technical support. The answers aren't always online in the FAQ or Help pages. On top of that, not "anyone" can create a ticket, it must come from the contact person. That's normally fine, but what if they're on vacation, or just happen to be the person who pays the bill? On a Sunday morning when kids are going crazy and parents are looking at you like you did something wrong - it doesn't help. Review Source Talk to a Capterra advisor for free and get results within 15 minutes.