Planning Center Review (2026)
Pick-your-modules freemium — powerful, can add up fast
Last checked: July 2026 · Visit Planning Center →
Pros
- People (the member database) is free and unlimited — genuinely, not a teaser tier
- Every product (Services, Registrations, Giving, Check-Ins, Groups, Calendar) has its own generous free tier before you pay anything
- No setup fee, no cancellation fee, no monthly minimum — you scale spend module by module as the church grows
Cons
- There's no single "Planning Center price" — you're pricing out 5-7 separate products and the total isn't obvious until you configure it
- Free tiers are real but tight (5 Check-Ins/day, 10 monthly donations on free Giving) — a live Sunday will blow past them fast
- Because it's modular, a church that wants everything ends up paying for six small subscriptions instead of one
Best for
Churches that want to configure exactly the tools they need, product by product
Pricing
Free tier per module; paid tiers scale per-product
The full picture
Planning Center is really a family of products — People, Services, Check-Ins, Groups, Giving, Registrations, Calendar — each with its own free tier and its own price when you outgrow it. People, the core member database, is free and unlimited regardless of church size, which is unusual and genuinely useful even if you never pay for anything else.
The catch is that "Planning Center pricing" isn't a single number. A church using Check-Ins, Giving, and Services simultaneously is paying three separate subscriptions, each metered differently (team members, donations, daily check-ins). It's the most configurable option in this list and also the hardest to budget for in advance.
Best fit: a church with a specific, narrow need (just a free member database, or just Check-Ins for kids' ministry) that wants to add modules deliberately over time rather than buy a bundle up front.