Breeze vs. Planning Center: Which Church Management Software Is Right for Your Church?

A church can get surprisingly far with a spreadsheet.

You might have one for member addresses, another for volunteers, and a third for donations. Someone keeps the children's ministry attendance records, while the worship leader manages Sunday schedules through email or a group chat.

For a while, everyone knows where everything is.

Then a volunteer leaves, a family changes its contact information, or the pastor needs a report that requires information from three different people. Suddenly, what seemed like a perfectly reasonable system becomes difficult to manage.

That's often when churches begin looking at church management software.

Two names you'll encounter are Breeze and Planning Center. Both help churches organize their people and everyday activities, but they approach the job differently.

Breeze became popular for its straightforward approach to church administration. Planning Center built its reputation around connected tools for different areas of ministry, particularly worship planning and volunteer scheduling.

Both have expanded considerably.

So which one makes more sense for your church?

The answer depends less on which platform has the longest feature list and more on how your church actually works.

First, a Note About Breeze and Tithely

If you've been researching Breeze recently, you may have noticed something confusing.

Breeze is now called Tithely Church Management.

Tithely acquired Breeze and has since brought its church management capabilities into a broader collection of tools for giving, communication, websites, apps, and ministry administration.

The familiar Breeze approach to managing people remains part of the offering, but the current product is marketed under the Tithely name.

For this comparison, we'll continue using Breeze because it's the name many churches recognize. When discussing current pricing and subscriptions, however, we're referring to Tithely Church Management.

This matters if you're reading older reviews. Some describe Breeze as a separate product with a different collection of features or integrations. Always check what is included in the current Tithely subscription before making a decision.

Two Different Approaches to the Same Problem

The easiest way to understand these platforms is to look at how they're organized.

Breeze, now Tithely Church Management, is designed around a central church management experience. You get tools for maintaining member records, organizing groups, communicating with people, tracking participation, and coordinating church activities.

The emphasis is on having the main administrative functions available together.

Planning Center works differently.

It offers several connected products, each designed for a particular responsibility.

Planning Center People manages your database. Services handles worship planning and volunteer schedules. Check-Ins helps with attendance and children's ministry. Giving manages donations. Groups, Calendar, Registrations, and other products cover additional activities.

These products share information, but churches can subscribe to them individually.

Think of the difference this way.

With Breeze, you're generally choosing a church management package that covers a range of responsibilities.

With Planning Center, you're building a collection of connected tools around the responsibilities your church needs to manage.

Neither approach is automatically better.

A church with one administrator may appreciate having a straightforward package. Another church may prefer to pay for a sophisticated worship planning system while using only free or lower-cost options for other activities.

The important question is which approach fits the people who will actually use it.

Managing Members: The Foundation of Both Systems

A church management database should do more than store telephone numbers.

It should help church leaders understand who belongs to their congregation, who participates in different ministries, and which people may need follow-up.

Both Breeze and Planning Center provide tools for maintaining member information.

How Breeze Handles People

Breeze was originally built around making church databases easier to use.

Its current Tithely Church Management offering includes a people database, family records, groups, tags, communication tools, and reporting capabilities.

Tags are particularly useful.

A tag is simply a label attached to a person's record. A church might create tags for choir members, youth volunteers, new visitors, or people interested in joining a Bible study.

Rather than maintaining a separate spreadsheet for every ministry, staff can organize people within the same database.

For example, imagine a church wants to invite everyone who volunteered at last year's Christmas outreach to participate again.

If those volunteers have been tagged appropriately, an administrator can find the relevant group and contact them without rebuilding the list.

Breeze also supports follow-up and automation features that can help staff manage recurring administrative tasks.

How Planning Center Handles People

Planning Center People is the foundation of its platform.

It provides an unlimited database for member information, household records, lists, workflows, and reporting.

A workflow is a series of steps used to manage a process.

For example, when someone visits your church for the first time, a workflow might help staff track whether the person has received a welcome message, been contacted by a ministry leader, or expressed interest in a small group.

The system helps organize those responsibilities so follow-up doesn't depend entirely on someone's memory.

Planning Center People connects with the company's other products.

A person who registers for an event or participates in a group can be associated with the same central profile.

One particularly attractive feature is that Planning Center People is free, including unlimited database records and users.

A church that only needs a well-organized membership database may not need to purchase anything else immediately.

Which Is Better for Membership Management?

Both can handle the basic work of maintaining member records.

Breeze may appeal to churches that want their database closely connected to a broad set of administrative and communication features under one subscription.

Planning Center is attractive if you want a free database that can grow into a larger collection of specialized tools.

The decision may come down to how much additional functionality your church needs beyond keeping records.

Sunday Morning: Where the Differences Become More Noticeable

Membership records matter throughout the week, but Sunday services bring several other responsibilities together.

There are musicians to schedule, volunteers to coordinate, children to check in, and service details to prepare.

This is an area where Planning Center has a particularly well-established set of tools.

Planning Center Services

Planning Center Services is designed for organizing worship services and the people involved in them.

A worship leader can create a service plan that includes songs, Scripture readings, prayers, announcements, and other elements.

The plan can also contain files and notes relevant to the team.

Volunteers can be assigned to specific positions and notified about upcoming responsibilities.

Musicians can access resources such as chord charts and rehearsal materials, depending on how the church uses the system.

Imagine a church with two Sunday services, a worship team of 12 people, and several rotating sound and projection volunteers.

Planning Center Services provides a way to organize those assignments and keep the relevant information connected to each service.

It is particularly useful when many people contribute to preparing a service and need access to the same information.

Breeze and Tithely Service Planning

Tithely Church Management also includes service planning and volunteer scheduling features.

Churches can organize service responsibilities, coordinate volunteers, and maintain information about upcoming activities.

Tithely also offers additional worship tools through its broader software plans.

The key difference isn't that one platform can schedule volunteers and the other cannot.

It's the way the tools are packaged and how extensively a church wants to use them.

Planning Center Services has long been a dedicated product focused on service preparation. Tithely offers service planning within a broader church management environment, with additional worship capabilities available through certain plans or add-ons.

If worship planning is central to your weekly operations, it's worth spending time inside both systems rather than relying on a feature checklist.

Ask your worship leader to create a complete Sunday plan, assign volunteers, and prepare the materials the team normally uses.

That exercise will tell you far more than a list of advertised features.

What About Children's Ministry Check-In?

Children's ministry often has some of the most demanding administrative requirements in a church.

Leaders need attendance records, parent and guardian information, and clear procedures for checking children in and out.

Both platforms offer check-in capabilities.

Planning Center has a dedicated Check-Ins product designed for attendance tracking and family check-in processes.

Its pricing is based on the number of check-ins on the busiest day, rather than simply the total number of people in the church database.

Tithely Church Management includes check-in and attendance-related capabilities within its church management offering.

For a church with a small children's program, either approach may be sufficient.

For a congregation running several children's classes across multiple services, it's worth comparing the check-in process in detail.

Consider how long it takes a parent to check in two children, whether labels are needed, and how volunteers handle visitors.

Also ask how each system supports your church's procedures for authorized collection, allergies, and other important information.

No software replaces appropriate safeguarding policies or trained volunteers. The goal is to support those procedures with reliable records.

Giving and Donations: Don't Look Only at the Monthly Price

Church giving software deserves careful attention because the cost involves more than a subscription.

Both Tithely and Planning Center offer online giving capabilities, but their pricing and administration differ.

Tithely has a substantial giving platform, offering online and mobile donations, recurring contributions, giving reports, and other tools.

Tithely Church Management includes access to its free giving offering, although transaction processing fees still apply.

Planning Center Giving connects donations with the church's member database.

It supports online giving, donation records, statements, and reporting.

Its subscription pricing is based on the number of donations recorded each month, and payment processing fees are charged separately.

This creates two costs to examine: the software subscription and the cost of processing donations.

A Simple Example

Suppose your church receives 150 online donations each month.

Some donors give $20. Others give $100 or more.

A processing fee consisting of a percentage plus a fixed amount per transaction will affect those donations differently.

The fixed portion takes up a larger share of a small donation.

If your church receives many smaller gifts, that matters.

If most contributions arrive through bank transfers rather than cards, that may also change the comparison.

Don't choose a giving system based only on an advertised processing percentage.

Instead, look at your church's actual giving patterns.

How many donations do you receive? What's the typical amount? How many donors use cards rather than bank transfers? Do you record cash and checks in the same system?

Those answers will help you calculate the real cost.

Comparing Breeze and Planning Center Pricing

This is one of the clearest differences between the platforms.

Breeze / Tithely Church Management Pricing

Tithely currently advertises its Church Management plan at $72 per month.

The plan includes its people database and a range of administrative tools, along with free giving functionality.

It advertises unlimited people and administrative users, no setup fees, and no long-term contract.

For churches that want a wider collection of products, Tithely also advertises an All Access plan at $119 per month.

That package includes additional tools such as a church website, custom church app, and expanded worship capabilities.

Payment processing and certain usage-based services can still involve additional costs.

The attraction is predictability.

A church can estimate its main software subscription without calculating separate prices for every ministry function.

Planning Center Pricing

Planning Center takes a different approach.

Its People database is free.

Other products offer free plans with usage limits and paid levels as needs increase.

For example, Planning Center Services currently offers:

• Free for up to five team members.

• $15 per month for up to 20 team members.

• $32 per month for up to 50 team members.

• $69 per month for up to 150 team members.

Additional levels are available for larger teams.

Other Planning Center products have their own pricing structures.

Groups is priced according to active group membership. Check-Ins uses the number of check-ins on your busiest day. Giving is based on monthly donation volume.

Planning Center also offers free levels for these products.

This means a small church could begin with a free membership database and add paid services only where necessary.

But the total cost can rise as more ministries begin using different products.

Which Pricing Model Makes More Sense?

Consider two hypothetical churches.

Church A has 65 regular attendees.

One part-time administrator manages the database, and a small worship team coordinates services through a shared calendar.

This church mainly needs membership records, basic communication, and a way to organize volunteers.

Planning Center's free People database and selected free or low-cost products could be an economical starting point.

Paying $72 per month for Tithely Church Management might still be worthwhile if the church expects to use the broader administrative tools regularly.

But it wouldn't make sense to pay for features nobody intends to use.

Church B has 350 regular attendees.

It runs two Sunday services, several small groups, a busy children's ministry, and a volunteer program involving dozens of people.

Its office team wants one predictable monthly software expense.

Tithely's flat-rate model may be attractive, particularly if the church plans to use most of the included tools.

Planning Center could also be an excellent fit, especially if the worship team already depends on Services.

The church would need to calculate the combined cost of the Planning Center products it intends to use.

Neither example establishes a universal winner.

They show why church size alone doesn't determine the best option. The way your congregation operates matters just as much.

Prices are based on publicly advertised US plans and may change. Check each provider's current pricing and transaction fees before subscribing.

Communication: Email, Texting, and Follow-Up

A church database becomes more useful when it helps people stay connected.

Both platforms support communication, although their features and costs are organized differently.

Tithely Church Management includes email communication, text messaging, and follow-up tools.

Its current Church Management offering advertises an allowance of 250 text messages per month, with additional messages available for a fee.

Planning Center People includes communication and workflow features, with text messaging available through paid credits.

The difference may seem minor until you consider how your church communicates.

Some churches send a weekly email newsletter and occasional volunteer reminders.

Others rely heavily on text messages to coordinate events, notify ministry teams, or contact families.

If texting is important, calculate how many messages you send in a typical month.

A church with 80 volunteers receiving several reminders each month could use more messages than expected.

It's also worth looking at how messages are managed.

Can staff easily select the right recipients? Can volunteers update their own contact details? Can different ministry leaders communicate without receiving unnecessary access to confidential records?

These everyday details are often more important than the number of communication features advertised.

Small Groups and Events

Church life doesn't stop when the Sunday service ends.

There are Bible studies, prayer meetings, youth activities, community events, and volunteer training sessions.

Both platforms can help organize these activities.

Tithely Church Management includes group management, church calendars, and event-related features.

Planning Center offers separate products for Groups, Calendar, and Registrations.

That separation can be helpful when a church has more involved requirements.

For example, a church hosting a weekend retreat may need registration forms, attendance limits, and participant information.

Another church may only need to maintain a list of people attending a Wednesday Bible study.

Planning Center allows churches to select the tools appropriate to those responsibilities.

Tithely offers a broader administrative package, which may reduce the need to subscribe to several individual products.

Before comparing these features, list the events and groups your church actually manages.

A small congregation with three Bible studies has different requirements from a church organizing conferences, children's camps, and multiple weekly programs.

Ease of Use: Think About Your Volunteers

A software demonstration can make almost any platform look simple.

The real test comes when someone who isn't particularly comfortable with technology needs to use it.

Perhaps your church secretary has managed member records in Excel for 15 years.

Or a volunteer coordinator only logs into the system once a month.

Those people shouldn't need extensive technical training to perform routine tasks.

Breeze built much of its reputation around making church management accessible to nontechnical users.

Planning Center has also invested heavily in making its individual products approachable.

However, a church using several Planning Center products may need to help staff understand which part of the platform handles each responsibility.

That isn't necessarily difficult, but it is a consideration.

Rather than asking whether software is easy to use in general, give prospective users specific tasks.

Ask someone to add a new family, update a telephone number, schedule a volunteer, and find an attendance report.

Watch where they hesitate.

If the process is confusing during a demonstration, ask the provider to explain it before committing.

The people who will use the software every week should have a meaningful say in the decision.

Switching Systems: What Happens to Your Existing Records?

Moving from spreadsheets or another church management platform takes preparation.

Even if a provider offers migration assistance, your church still needs to decide what information to move.

Start by reviewing your existing records.

Are there duplicate families? Outdated addresses? People who haven't attended in years? Information that should no longer be retained?

Moving everything without reviewing it may simply transfer old problems into a new system.

Tithely advertises migration assistance for churches moving to its church management platform.

Planning Center provides import tools and guidance for bringing information into its products.

Whichever platform you choose, test the process before abandoning your existing records.

Confirm that household relationships, custom fields, giving histories, and relevant ministry information can be transferred in the way you need.

Some data may require additional preparation or may not move directly between systems.

Keep a secure backup of your existing records and decide who will be responsible for checking the imported information.

Also plan how you'll train volunteers.

A successful change involves more than moving data. People need to know where to find information and how to carry out their responsibilities.

Five Questions Worth Asking Before You Decide

Instead of starting with a feature comparison chart, bring your staff and ministry leaders together and discuss these questions.

1. What are we trying to fix?

If the main problem is an outdated membership spreadsheet, you may not need a large software package.

If volunteers are struggling to coordinate Sunday services, worship planning may deserve more attention.

2. Who will use the system regularly?

Identify the actual users, not just the person making the purchase.

Include administrators, ministry leaders, and volunteers.

3. Which features will we use in the first three months?

It's easy to be impressed by features you might need someday.

Focus first on what your church can realistically implement now.

4. What will the software cost after a year?

Include subscriptions, payment processing, texting, optional products, and any other relevant expenses.

Look at the expected annual total, not simply the advertised starting price.

5. How easily can we leave if our needs change?

Ask about exporting member records, giving histories, and other important information.

Your church should remain in control of its data.

So, Should Your Church Choose Breeze or Planning Center?

Breeze, now Tithely Church Management, makes a strong case for churches that want a broad set of administrative tools with predictable subscription pricing.

Its people database, communication features, groups, volunteer coordination, and integrated giving make it an option worth considering for churches that want much of their everyday administration together.

Planning Center makes a different case.

Its free People database gives churches an accessible starting point, while its connected products allow them to add specialized tools as needed.

For churches with active worship teams, complicated volunteer schedules, or a preference for choosing individual software products, that flexibility may be particularly appealing.

The best choice isn't necessarily the platform with more features.

It's the one your church can afford, your staff can understand, and your volunteers will actually use.

If you're still deciding, arrange demonstrations of both systems and ask the people responsible for administration and Sunday services to participate.

Give each platform the same set of practical tasks and compare the experience.

You can also explore our Planning Center and Tithely directory listings for a closer look at their features and the types of churches they serve.

A good church management system shouldn't require your team to change everything about how it works. It should make the responsibilities you already have easier to handle.