If you’ve served in a church of any size, you know the behind-the-scenes work that keeps Sunday mornings running — scheduling volunteers, managing events, tracking attendance, processing donations, and keeping everyone on the same page. Planning Center was built for exactly that: a modular suite of church management tools designed to take the stress out of ministry administration so your team can focus on people.^1
Founded in 2006 by Jeff Berg and Aaron Stewart while working at a church in Southern California, Planning Center started as a single app to help worship teams plan services and schedule volunteers. That tool — now called Services — grew so quickly that Jeff went full-time on the software and expanded it into a complete church management system.^2 Today it includes integrated products spanning People (free membership database), Services (worship planning and volunteer scheduling), Giving (online and in-person donations), Check-Ins (child and volunteer check-in), Calendar (event and facility management), Registrations (event sign-ups), Groups (small group management), Publishing (Church Center customization), and more. All products share a central People database, so information flows seamlessly without siloing.^1
What makes Planning Center unusual in the church tech world is its independence. The company is privately owned, fully bootstrapped, and 100% debt-free — no investors, no venture capital, no sales team. In 2024, Jeff Berg established the Ministry Centered Foundation to ensure Planning Center can never be acquired, even after he steps away. As he wrote: "Selling out to a big corporation contradicts everything we stand for."^3
For congregants, the free Church Center app (iOS and Android) provides a clean experience for giving, event registration, group discovery, check-ins, messaging, and more — all powered by what the church has subscribed to.^4 In April 2026, Planning Center also launched a unified mobile app for church staff, bringing push notifications, dashboards, and task management from every product into one place.^5 And through PicoLabs, staff can now connect Planning Center People to AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to query their congregation data with natural language — an experimental but promising step toward AI-assisted church administration.^6
Why Churches Love It"Planning Center is a life-saver for our organization, freeing up our time to focus on the people that truly matter." — Darien C., Associate Pastor^7
"Our previous software was frustrating and expensive. Support took days and the people were always sleazy and about the sale, while Planning Center support takes minutes and the people are all fabulous." — Steve DePaul, Church Administrator^1
"Since switching to Planning Center, we save so much time managing all of our data in one place. And there is no other ChMS out there that can do what Planning Center can do that offers the low fee structure. That money saved goes right back into your budget for the mission." — Greg Dietrich, Pastor of Administration^1
Notable- Trusted by 100,000+ churches worldwide, with 4 million active users and 200+ employees^2
- Processed over $29 billion in donations^2
- 42 features, fixes, and improvements shipped in the last 90 days; ~40 code deploys per day^1
- Capterra rating: 4.7/5 from 1,135+ verified reviews^7
- Church Center app: 4.5 stars on Google Play (1M+ downloads)^4
- Support responds within ~1 hour (Monday – Friday)^2
- Open API for custom integrations; new MCP integration for AI assistants^6
- CEO Jeff Berg supports Samaritan Aviation on behalf of missionaries worldwide^8
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android (Church Center for congregants; Planning Center app for staff) Pricing: Freemium (People always free; other products offer free tiers with usage-based paid plans; monthly and annual options)
