Today, we updated our pricing due to inflation affecting our business costs. In this current economic climate, we must adjust to continue providing excellent products and best-in-class support for our churches.

The updated pricing is effective immediately for new customers. Current customers won’t see the increase until their first bill after October 9, 2024. 

All Organization Administrators and Billing Managers of our customer accounts will receive an email today with their new subscription total included.

In our eighteen years of doing business, we’ve kept the price of our products the same for existing customers, and a change is now necessary. Although we hope our customers know we’d only make this change if necessary, we still want to provide some background on our decision, explain why we think our pricing is worth it, and answer potential questions—all of which we’ll cover below. 

Changing Our Prices to Meet Growing Costs  

We want to continue providing you with the best products on the market and the tools and support you need to use them well. Adjusting our subscription prices will help us do just that.  

We will use these additional resources to increase our servers for customer traffic, upgrade security, expand our support team, hire, and create new training and onboarding resources. 

With this additional infrastructure, we can continue to build stronger products with new features for our products (like chat in Services!), as well as free system-wide features and products (like People). In the last year alone, we’ve released over 90 updates!

A Few Quick Facts About Pricing 

We understand this change might raise questions for you and your church. We have answers!  

  • What if I need to change my subscription? You can always upgrade or downgrade your plan anytime without paying fees or losing your church’s data. 
  • Does this pricing change impact my processing fees for donations through Planning Center Giving? No, not at all. Your processing fees remain at the lowest possible rate we can offer through Stripe. Our fee calculator allows you to calculate your estimated monthly savings. 
  • When will the pricing change take place? Existing customers will not see any change to their monthly bill until after October 9, 2024. Customers who sign up today will receive our new pricing immediately. 
  • Is Planning Center in financial danger of being acquired? No. If you came to Planning Center after your last church management system was acquired, you may have seen higher prices and worse support as a result. Our pricing change is about the opposite: staying self-reliant, sustainable, and getting better. Read our CEO’s statement on why we value our independence.  
  • Are you going to have to increase pricing again? We do not plan to increase our pricing anytime soon. While we dislike making such changes, they are sometimes necessary due to macroeconomic conditions beyond our control.

We know you may have additional questions. If you do, please reach out to our support team so we can help! We want to provide you with more context, answers, and any additional resources you might need.

5 Important Things Planning Center is Not Changing 

Our pricing is changing, but there are core things about who we are that never will. These five things make us different from all other church management systems. 

Updating our prices ensures we can keep delivering these promises to our customers. 

  1. Planning Center is privately owned and not for sale. You, not investors, help shape our product and business. Our product is for the churches that use it, not investors or potential buyers. That means we release every update and new feature because it’s a tool the church needs. Check out our CEO’s statement for more on why we prioritize our independence.  
  2. Responsive support: first response in ~1 business hour. Our support team comprises product and ministry experts who will respond with kind, in-depth answers and suggested resources on how to use our tools best. 
  3. Weekly product updates and new features. We’re always looking for new ways to make our products more helpful for churches to do their best ministry work. Check out the blog for the biggest new feature releases and the changelog for a list of every improvement update. 
  4. Low processing fees for donations. We process online donations through Stripe at 2.15% + $0.30 per transaction for credit cards and 0% + $0.30 per ACH bank transfer donations (in the US). The standard processing rate for non-profits is 2.9% with additional markups from the donation platform. You can check out the processing fee calculator to learn how much Planning Center helps reduce your monthly spending. 
  5. No contracts. You’re in charge of your subscription. You can upgrade for seasonal events, adjust plans without penalties or fees, and cancel anytime. Your ministries dictate your cost, not a contract. 

These are core aspects of who we are as a company and what we promise to our customers. We value what you do as a church for your communities, and we’re committed to being here and providing the best resources we can for you to do that work. 

Thank you for using our products. We love doing this work and supporting you.

💙 Planning Center