# Page 18 | Planning Center Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra

> Page 18 - Is Planning Center the right Church 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

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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/)

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Last updated March 13th, 2026

# Page 18 - Reviews of Planning Center

## Showing most helpful reviews

Showing 426-450 of 1137 Reviews

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Most Helpful

Rating

Company Size

Reviewer's Role

Length of Use

Frequency of Use

AW

Austin W.  
Worship Team Member  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Planning Center easy to use"

July 21, 2019

4.0

Pros

This software is a great way to connect with others. It is easy to add new members to the team to be able to easily contact and set up practices etc. The layouts are great and you can store several items in the site along with postings of announcements to actual links to youtube content for practicing.

Cons

if you are not one of the administrators on the site for your specific church, you cannot edit anything and you cannot look at certain songs and change the keys.

Review Source

Response from Planning Center

July 23, 2019

Hey Austin, thanks so much for the feedback. Love that it helps you to connect with others on your Team. Permission wise you can make edits with Editor permissions or higher. As for viewing songs, you can view any song with Viewer Permissions or higher. Permissions can be edited by an Administrator in your Services application. If you have any permission specific questions, our team would be happy to help with this. You can reach our support team at support@planning.center

Derek R.  
Guest Experience & eGroups Director  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Can't live without Planning Center in our church! "

March 29, 2018

5.0

Planning Center is perfect for organizing and executing your weekend services

Pros

Planning Center makes planning out every detail of our weekend experience a breeze. Love the scheduling love, love the ability to send out reminders for shifts, love the flexibility of admin roles. Nothing out there like it. The mobile app works great!

Cons

Not many cons, we love it, our team loves it. I would say any size church can utilize it for their weekend services and church organization.

Review Source

NN

Nathan N.  
Worship Pastor  
Non-Profit Organization Management  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "You have to figure out EMAIL"

June 27, 2019

4.0

good

Pros

Services App. I like Music Stand but room for improvement.

Cons

People Software...You have to figure out better reports tied to easy feasibility of emailing from reports. This is where Fellowship One has you beat hands down.

Review Source

Response from Planning Center

June 28, 2019

Hey Nathan, Thanks for reaching out in order to leave an honest review of our software! We would love to hear more about how you feel the Lists feature in People could be improved. If you haven't done so already, would you mind sending us an email to support@planning.center in order to let us know where you have run into some issues? Thanks!

Luis B.  
Physical Security Manager  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "A great scheduling tool that allows you to dive deep into the details and even schedule volunteers. "

August 1, 2018

5.0

Pros

Planning center allows an avenue for amazing in detail scheduling. We utilize planning center for all of our events and it's great for scheduling volunteers for that specific event. I love that you can view the plan in a live view and compare actual time to what you scheduled.

Cons

It is a great program that has a ton of features. My review does not do them any justice. I can't think of anything wrong or anything that I don't like about this program.

Review Source

Andrew H.  
Technical Director  
Non-Profit Organization Management  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "This is the Standard!"

November 2, 2018

5.0

Pros

I've been a Planning Center user for many many years and it is the standard for planning event services, orders, times, tracking, communication, etc. We use it weekly for scheduling teams, communicating with teams, reminding teams, tracking times through a service, communicating in real time chat, it literally does it all and there is no better solution in my opinion!

Cons

The "teams" and "tags" functions can be a little confusing to people at first.

Review Source

Russ F.  
Infomation Technology Manager  
Mechanical or Industrial Engineering  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Planning Center for Church services"

January 15, 2019

5.0

Pros

Our church music ministry uses Planning Center to plan music, singers and musicians for each of our services each week. It notifies and selected people and shows exactly what will happen that service. The user can then view the sheet music and listen to the song ahead of practice. This software makes planning so much more easy. The recent upgrades to the interface have made it even easier!

Cons

I truly cannot think of any cons with this software.

Review Source

Abner J.  
CIO SOH (Service Operation Hub)  
Management Consulting  
Used the software for: 1-2 years

### "The musician's organizer"

August 2, 2018

4.0

Pros

The app is very simple, I like the block date feature that way I let the admin know if I'm not available during a certain day, also you can integrate dates in google calendar which is very helpful, overall the app is very simple and easy to use.

Cons

The media player has a lot of room for improvement, the fact that you need an internet connection does not help too much in some cases, that is exactly why i mentioned in the "Pros" area that integrating your dates on google calendar is a great feature, because if for some reason you do not have a internet conetions the reminder will not pop out.

Review Source

BL

Betsy L.  
Admin. Asst.  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Powerful, Flexible Solutions - more than volunteer scheduling!"

July 6, 2018

5.0

We used Planning Center for volunteer scheduling and orders of service for years. When they expanded into event registration and giving, we were very excited. In the 2 years we've been using both modules, they have continued to improve and add services to each. They are very open to product suggestions and very quick to respond to support requests.

Pros

Modules for volunteer scheduling, event registration, groups coordination, resources management, giving, and more that work together seamlessly. Responsive support, continually adding new features and refining modules. Very intuitive for users.

Cons

We are currently not able to set up a kiosk for people to register themselves for events without logging in through their email. A POS setting would be amazing.

Review Source

NP

Nathan P.  
Technical Director  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Church Managment"

March 16, 2023

5.0

Recently added attendance to the mix, and is working great

Pros

Great option for church-wide implementation

Cons

Features for worship planning are a bit slim

Review Source

JW

Justin W.  
pastor  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "The best!"

September 10, 2019

5.0

Customer Service is incredible. Fun, loving people want to help your church minister to and reach more people.

Pros

Planning Center makes church administration tasks FUN! You feel like you are getting the job done in a way that is satisfying to the admin as well as the user. Lots of features, always updating and adding (without increasing the price).

Cons

Some features could really use input from a focus group of actual users. 90% of Planning Center is incredible--but a few odd choices here and there leave me scratching my head why certain decisions were made on the development end. But by in large--excellent!

Alternatives considered

[ShelbyNext Membership](https://www.capterra.com/p/71788/ShelbyNext-Membership/)[Shelby Arena](https://www.capterra.com/p/175655/Arena/)

Reason for choosing Planning Center

Ease of use, user interface, features, price.

Review Source

DS

Danielle S.  
pastor  
  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "I have been using planning center for 10 years. It is super helpful and easy to use."

July 11, 2018

5.0

Pros

I love that everything is in one place. It's easy to schedule people and all their contact information is readily available. I also like how easy it is to use as a team. If you work together to keep info up to date planning center is even better. I appreciate the reliability and easy to train new users. I like the music and note features and It's helpful to keep everyone on the same page. Overall this is the most effective and simplest way to schedule ministry teams.

Cons

It could be easier to jump between services and times. I wish it had a task feature. It is important to train users. If you train your church well they will be more likely to utilize this software.

Review Source

MF

Mark F.  
Administrator  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Highly Recommended!"

April 13, 2019

5.0

As my church continues to dive into the PCO ecosystem, we’re continually impressed with the functionality and the cohesiveness with which it all works together with. Get past the learning curve of the different apps and it solves so many problems! The nice thing is that most of the apps function very similarly, so they will all seem pretty familiar.

Pros

The wide spectrum of solutions Planning Center Online offers is amazing! From scheduling to check-ins to giving to facility management, they have a church management solution for just about everything. And each app in the system integrates with one another seamlessly.

Cons

There’s quite a bit of a learning curve. To really get the most out of the software, most are going to need to spend some serious time watching videos and reading how-to articles to get a handle on the complexities. I don’t think that’s avoidable without losing functionality, though.

Review Source

RH

Rick H.  
Associate Pastor  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Planning Center Is Amazing!"

February 10, 2020

5.0

Overall I would highly recommend Planning Center. It is a very efficient and powerful way to plan services. I would not want to do what I do without it.

Pros

Planning Center makes it so easy for me to prepare my worship team for services. I love being able to schedule them and give them all the resources they need all from one place. It is easy to add songs and all of the files that you might need to go with them I can even change song keys and the key of the audio file that goes with them. I don't know how I would plan a service without it.

Cons

My only frustration with planning center has been that I needed to delete several old files at one point and there was no easy way to do that. I had to delete hundreds of files one by one. I was told that there might be an update in the future to fix that issue, but I am not aware if that has happened yet or not.

Review Source

PV

Purva V.  
system engineer  
Computer Software  
Used the software for: 6-12 months

### "Easy to use"

November 29, 2022

4.0

We love and appreciate virtually each of the items from them. They are so perfect to work with and they are generally open to criticism a significant part of the development and change has come from utilizing its client's feelings.

Pros

This is an incredible device for booking volunteers and laying out the arrangement subtleties. This is really useful in the event that we have a wide assortment of things continuing and it's not difficult to show them generally over here.

Cons

The clock synchronization with mixes, for example, Star Moderator can get off some of the time yet other than that it's an incredible tool.

Review Source

Response from Planning Center

December 23, 2022

Thanks for the review and also for the suggestion on clock synchronization. We're always looking for ways to improve our products, and this helps.

JW

Janna W.  
Admin Asst  
Civic & Social Organization  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Planning Center"

November 27, 2018

3.0

Pros

We use planning center for our services at our church. It is great for connecting a large amount of people to get them all on the same page for how services will run each time.

Cons

I really don't enjoy the look/feel of planning center. for a person that does come in and use it all the time, it is not laid out very well, and it feels chaotic in how the pages are organized. maybe its too many boxes or that it just is trying to hard to look organized? I'm not sure, but maybe a product over haul in that it is updated to be more appealing to the eye & easier to follow.

Review Source

Response from Planning Center

November 28, 2018

Hi Janna. Thanks for writing an honest review! These reviews are a part of what helps us continue making improvements to our apps. Services has recently had several of it's pages updated, but we would love to hear your thoughts on what is confusing and how we might be able to make it better. Any questions or requests can be sent to us at support@planning.center. Thanks!

Adam R.  
Helpdesk Technician  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Perfect for Worship Team"

August 30, 2018

5.0

Loved being able to work with this useful tool and that it is also mobile friendly.

Pros

It has really made planning worship so much easier. I was on the media team for a while and this tool really made preparing so much easier. Being in the media booth, we didn't have the ability to talk to the worship leader so being able to look up the song list made a big difference

Cons

In general I didn't see many problems. Obviously if the Internet was down you couldn't login, but that is the world we live in

Review Source

CC

Chad C.  
Safety Director  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: Less than 6 months

### "Great Product/Very Easy to Use"

March 30, 2019

5.0

Overall, I would recommend Planning Center to anyone that I know who is looking for a program for their business that attempts to track people attending or schedules volunteers. This is a great program for the price and it simply does everything that would be needed. The only thing that it does not do is finances, so if someone is wanting an accounting friendly program, then Planning Center is not for them.

Pros

This product does everything that is needed for our church. From tracking volunteer positions to checking in the children for the children's ministry, this program simply does everything. It is easy to schedule, email, confirm volunteer positions, and check-in children and families for the service. Planning Center also helps to find any person(s) that have attended your church at any time. This is extremely helpful to help bring people back to church whom may have not attended in awhile.

Cons

The hardest thing is simply the small print on the sidebar of the program in the Services tab. This makes it tough to see who has confirmed or not confirmed their volunteer service. This is the only con of the entire program and their may be a way to make that bigger, but I have not found a way to do this yet.

Review Source

JE

James E.  
Worship Director & Adult Ministry Coordinator  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 1-2 years

### "Church need organizing? Look no further"

February 6, 2020

5.0

I am able to administer and great forms/ registrations ministry better because of this platform.

Pros

Always improving, customer service is FABOULOUS, each of the apps are well done and help achieve their purpose saving me time, great training resource videos put out and articles on web

Cons

Anything that I have found to not like gets resolved as they improve. If I had to pick one thing it would be cost, it seems expensive to me at times... but honestly I don't know how they could do it for cheeper.

Reason for choosing Planning Center

I didn't consider anything else because of the superior product that is Services. It is incredible and made me look at the other apps.

Review Source

ML

Matt L.  
Assistant Pastor  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Great church database software"

February 4, 2020

5.0

It has been a very valuable tool to perform many different functions in helping our church do what we do more easily.

Pros

It is very detailed in keeping info for members. Also has many different modules to perform many different functions from events, to small groups, to check-ins. All of these work very well.

Cons

Sometimes it can get a little involved in creating lists and workflows with all the rules you have to create. But It is something that wold probably get easier the more you use that function.

Review Source

DH

Danielle H.  
Teacher  
Education Management  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Love going paperless!"

October 18, 2019

5.0

Pros

Our church started using this. Although I don't have admin rights, I have been a user as a worship team member. I have found it useful in being able to see all the information about service and also being able to use musicstand instead of paper copies.

Cons

This is related to planning center but is more of a comment on the musicstand app. There are some annotations that I have within music stand, but when the worship leader posts a different version of a song, it is very difficult to access those annotations from a "different" file. I know how to use the feature where you can put other people's annotations on your screen (and copy them over) without much difficulty, but being able to put the same annotations on a different file doesn't seem possible and makes it a bit of a chore for me to manually copy over.

Review Source

VR

Verified Reviewer  
Director of Business Development  
Internet  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "As a musician, this makes my life so much easier. Have used it for over 5 years."

May 16, 2018

5.0

Pros

I like the iPhone app alot for rehearsing music, looking up set lists, sheet music, and just checking the set in general. I play every service, so it doesn't matter to me for scheduling.

Cons

Sometimes the iPhone app doesn't refresh and I see an old setlist. It's not just me, others have noted this. Also if you aren't invited to a service, it can be a little hard to find them, depending on how your church has organized everything.

Review Source

VR

Verified Reviewer  
Manager, Instructional Design - Leadership and Talent Development  
Restaurants  
Used the software for: 6-12 months

### "Worship Team on the Same Page"

November 12, 2018

5.0

Pros

I love that it creates seamless communication and ease of emailing the team when needed. I also love that it is translatable to a tablet for Sunday morning use - no more mountains of printed music used for an hour.

Cons

There are some issues with the number of users you can sign with in one area. We have issues sometimes getting everyone logged in when using the tablets on Sunday morning. Sometimes we have to wipe the tablet and reload the Planning Center app to get them in and we just dont have that kind of time. It's great when it works - but can derail us when it doesnt because we rely on it so much.

Review Source

Response from Planning Center

November 14, 2018

We'd love to help you with those tablet login issues! You can contact our support team at support@planning.center and we'll work to make sure your Sundays go smoothly.

VR

Verified Reviewer  
Systems Analyst Associate  
Higher Education  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Pretty good, lots of improvements over the last few years"

July 24, 2018

4.0

Pros

I've used Planning Center for 5-6 years now and it's been pretty consistent in its features and ease of use. When there was a big upgrade a few years ago they had problems with their Android app and were pretty responsive and prompt in fixing it

Cons

Kind of lacking in modern UI, but that's ok. The mobile app is more modern and I definitely use that more. The music playback isn't amazing, but it's a lot better than it used to be

Review Source

VR

Verified Reviewer  
Mobilization and Logistics Manager  
Religious Institutions  
Used the software for: 2+ years

### "Great way to get a whole crew working together"

August 7, 2019

4.0

Overall I think its a great tool to plan. As a user I like being able to see what I am signed up for and who I will be working with.

Pros

I think that this software makes it possible to get a whole team working together. I have used this for church services where there are many volunteers with different roles working together. I also really like that I can mark off days that I an unavailable to work/volunteer.

Cons

The mobile site that be hard to see and use.

Review Source

VR

Verified Reviewer  
Web Designer  
Design  
Used the software for: 1-2 years

### "From a user's viewpoint, very easy to use!"

December 3, 2021

5.0

Pros

I like how simple it is to use and understand. I'm a user that gets assigned things by a company through Planning Center and from the notification process, to seeing what commitments are upcoming, it's really easy.

Cons

I have had issues clicking through from emails if i'm not logged into the correct account before, so I've had to log out and log in again to make sure it's in the right area. I'm not sure if this is just my error or an error with the software though.

Review Source

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