Auto-Post to Social
Publish an event once and GLAD fans it out to Facebook, Instagram and YouTube — same story, every channel, zero copy-paste.
Built for churches that are done duct-taping tools together
Your whole church.
One platform.
GLAD is all-in-one church management software: manage people, schedules, volunteers, giving, worship, and administration in one place, so your team spends less time on software and more time on ministry.
Setup in minutes · Free forever on Starter · Upgrade only when you grow.
Not a video. This is GLAD's page builder, sketched live by your browser.
Built to work together
Every ministry, in orbit around one home.
People, events, giving, chat, and the presenter screen all draw from the same living center — so your team enters a name once, not five times.
- People
- Calendar
- Giving
- Chat
- Presenter
Roles, Permissions & Safety
Your whole team, one dashboard — never priced per seat.
GLAD is built for churches with real teams. Give every staff member, board member, and volunteer their own login, then decide exactly what each person can see and do with 43 granular permissions across 15 areas — including dedicated safety permissions for background-check tracking, medical & allergy access, and data privacy & erasure. Your price is based on the size of your congregation, not on how many people help run your church.
- Unlimited staff & volunteer accounts on every plan — add your whole office, worship team, and kids-ministry crew without a per-seat charge.
- Safety & Screening built in: background-check tracking with expiry alerts, medical & allergy access control, and data-privacy & erasure tools.
- One system, role-scoped — everyone signs into the same dashboard and sees exactly what their role allows. No juggling six separate apps.
- Sensitive data stays sensitive: giving, medical, and screening records sit behind explicitly flagged permissions — and admin impersonation redacts them automatically.
Roles & Permissions
43 permissions · 15 areas
Depicting GLAD's real permission catalog — 43 permissions across 15 areas, Safety & Screening included.
Straight answers for teams comparing church software
Comparing GLAD with Planning Center, Breeze, or Tithely? Here are the questions bigger church teams ask us most — with plain answers you can hold us to.
Does GLAD support multiple staff members and large teams?
Yes — every GLAD plan includes unlimited staff and volunteer accounts. Bring your whole office, board, worship team, and kids-ministry volunteers; each person gets their own login and sees exactly what their role allows — nothing more. GLAD's permission system, 43 granular permissions across 15 areas, was built precisely so larger teams can delegate without second-guessing.
Does GLAD charge per seat or per team member?
No. GLAD never charges per seat. Plans are priced by congregation size, so your tenth volunteer costs exactly what your first did: nothing. Planning Center prices its Services product by how many team members you add — with GLAD, your whole team is included at every plan level, even the free Starter tier.
Is GLAD a good fit for larger churches?
Yes — larger teams are exactly what GLAD's permission system is for. Preset roles cover every hat — board, staff, treasurer, ministry leaders, service teams — and every role works from one shared database with its own scoped view. That means one system to learn instead of six separate apps, and no per-seat pricing wall as your team grows.
Who can see medical, allergy, or other sensitive information?
Only the people you explicitly allow. Medical & allergy access is its own permission — separate from general contact info — so a kids-ministry leader can see allergy alerts without seeing addresses or giving. Background checks and individual giving are separately restricted, sensitive permissions are clearly flagged, and when an admin views the member portal as someone else, GLAD automatically redacts giving, medical, and screening data.
Can a ministry leader see other ministries' or the church's financial data in GLAD?
No — GLAD enforces least-privilege access. A role only receives the data its granted permissions cover; everything else is never sent to that person at all, not just hidden from view. So a kids-ministry leader sees allergy alerts at check-in but no addresses, giving, or other ministries' records, and your treasurer sees finances but never medical notes. You decide exactly where each role's walls sit, with 43 granular permissions across 15 areas.
How do GLAD's permissions compare to Planning Center's?
GLAD gives you 43 granular permissions across 15 areas, assignable per role and overridable per person, all over one shared database — each leader gets a scoped view of the same system, not a separate product per team. Planning Center organizes its permissions per product, with access managed separately in each one; GLAD applies one fine-grained permission model across people, giving, check-in, worship, and communications — included at every plan level, with no per-seat charge.
Does GLAD support pledge campaigns and faith-promise commitments?
Yes. GLAD's Pledge system lets each giver commit to a total amount toward a fund over a start and end date, with an optional frequency (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual). Givers make and track their own pledges from a self-service portal in the member app, watching real-time progress toward their commitment; staff can also enter a pledge on someone's behalf from a paper card. Every pledge's "received" total is calculated live from GLAD's real giving ledger — never a separate number that can drift — and funds can carry a public campaign goal your church chooses to display on its website.
Is GLAD's volunteer scheduling powerful enough for a real team?
Yes. GLAD's Schedule Matrix gives you a multi-week, drag-and-drop grid — every role across the next several services, on one screen — the same view Planning Center's Services board offers. The difference is what comes with it: AI auto-drafts the first pass for you, repeating last week's volunteer when they're free and picking a rested replacement from real burnout data when they're not; rotation templates handle recurring A/B teams automatically; and any role left open can be filled by a qualified volunteer through open-slot self-service signup, no admin required. Swapping anyone is one click — the outgoing person is marked replaced, never deleted, and notified — and Burnout Watch flags amber and red risk before a reliable volunteer quietly disappears, with blackout dates that work even for volunteers who don't log in. It's all included at one flat rate — Planning Center prices its Services product separately; with GLAD, the matrix, the AI, and Stage Deck access come from the same login, the same subscription.
One subscription replaces
Planning Center
Breeze ChMS
Worship Tools
GLAD
Everything in one plan
One platform. The whole ministry.
Eight flagship features that usually take four separate subscriptions — live today, in one place, all talking to the same people list.
Church Texting Paid add-on
Your church gets its own dedicated number. Snow closure, prayer chain, schedule change — one text reaches every opted-in phone in seconds.
AI Website Builder
Drag blocks, pick a theme, hit publish. A beautiful church site with events, sermons and giving wired in — no code, no web guy.
Events, RSVP & Check-In
One flow from the invite to the room: publish the event, collect RSVPs, and check people in at the door — attendance records itself.
Online Giving
Recurring gifts, designated funds, and year-end statements that build themselves. Givers tap once; the books stay clean.
Stage Presenter
Lyrics and slides on the big screen, live. Advance from a phone or tablet, black out everything but the confidence monitor, never fumble a verse.
Song Library + AI Chart Import
Drop in a PDF chord chart and AI turns it into an editable ChordPro song — sections, chords and keys ready to transpose and present.
Live Chat & Groups
Real-time chat for teams, life groups and the whole congregation — community that lives where the ministry happens, not in someone's group text.
All of it runs on the same people list — that's the point.
Everything your church runs on
Fifteen fully-integrated modules. No separate logins, no double entry, no per-module pricing.
People & Families
Full member directory with families, medical records, engagement scores, life groups, and ministry assignments. Role-based access so staff see only what they need.
- Member, family, and household management
- AI Engagement Score + burnout prediction
- Background check integration (Checkr)
- Planning Center CSV import
Service Planning
3-column drag-and-drop scheduler with conflict detection, volunteer blackouts, and duplicate-assignment warnings. Your worship director gets their Saturday nights back.
- Visual service planner with itinerary builder
- Volunteer blackout dates + conflict detection
- Auto-generate run sheets and bulletins
- Team Manager roster integration
Worship & Stage Deck Exclusive
A song library your worship team will actually use. Drag songs into a setlist, edit chords on a tablet, and watch every musician's screen update at the same time, even mid-service.
- ChordPro editor + auto-transpose to any key
- Visual metronome with 20 tempo styles
- Multi-device sync: every musician's tablet stays together
- Backing tracks, PDF sheet music, YouTube reference
- CCLI licensing report: automatic compliance + CSV export
- Bluetooth foot pedal for hands-free page turning
Presentation, Slides & Prompter Live
Full presentation software, built in: lyrics, scripture and custom slides on the projector, plus a private prompter for the speaker, all driven by the same service plan you already built. Tap "next," and every screen advances together. ProPresenter and Planning Center Stage, replaced.
- Sanctuary projector display: lyrics, scripture, slides, countdowns
- Minister prompter: speaker-only view with notes and timing
- Tap-to-advance: every device syncs live via Reverb WebSockets
- Auto-built from your service plan: zero duplicate setup
Check-in Kiosk Child Safety
A tablet at the door does what two greeters used to. Families search themselves in, print security-coded name tags for kids, and check out matches by pickup code. Volunteers get a roster, parents get peace of mind.
- Self-serve family search + new-visitor flow
- Printed name tags with matching pickup codes
- Live attendance roster for room leaders
- Attendance feeds straight into engagement scores
Background Checks Child Safety
Manage every volunteer's background check in one place. Record a check from any provider, or order one through Checkr, and GLAD tracks the status and expiry date for you. Automatic expiration reminders and event-level requirements keep volunteers without a current check from being scheduled.
- One-click order from a member's profile
- Bulk-run across every volunteer who needs one
- Mark events "background check required": uncleared volunteers can't sign up
- Auto-warn 14 days before expiration
Giving & Financial
Fund-based giving with Stripe Connect, recurring donations, batch entry, tax receipts, and AI-powered lapsed-giving insights. The giving system churches actually want.
- Fund-based giving (Tithe, Building, Missions…)
- Stripe Connect: funds go directly to your church
- Annual tax receipts in one click
- Recurring giving + donor portal at /my/give
Accounting & Payroll Beyond ChMS
A full church bookkeeping stack: not just "online giving." Run payroll, import bank statements, reconcile accounts, post journal entries, track expenses against budget, and hand the board a PDF report on Monday morning. Planning Center doesn't ship any of this.
- Staff payroll runs + downloadable pay stubs
- Bank statement import + reconciliation workspace
- Journal entries + chart of accounts
- Expense receipt submission + approval workflow
- Budget vs. actual + one-click board PDF
AI Everywhere
AI built into the workflow: not bolted on as an upsell. From volunteer scheduling to setlist curation to communication drafting, GLAD's AI handles the grind.
- AI Setlist Architect: builds sets from your library
- Burnout Prediction: flags over-scheduled volunteers
- Communication Co-Pilot: drafts announcements
- Life Group Matching Engine
Online Life Groups
Connect your Zoom account once and every life group gets a recurring meeting room automatically. Members tap "Join" from the app, no link wrangling, no late-night Zoom-link-on-Facebook-comment chains.
- One-time Zoom connect (also Google Meet, Teams)
- Auto-generated meeting room per group
- Members get the link in their event reminder
- Hybrid groups: in-person + remote at the same time
Prayer Requests
A real prayer system, not a glorified email inbox. Members submit requests from your website or the member app. The pastor and prayer team review, route to specific groups, and reply privately or publicly.
- Public, private, or anonymous requests
- Route to pastor, prayer team, or specific life groups
- Public Prayer Wall widget for your homepage
- Threaded replies: pastor speaks, team listens
Sermon Library
A searchable archive of every message: audio, video, notes, and scripture references. Publishes straight to your public site and into the member app. No separate Subsplash subscription.
- Series, speakers, scripture, and tag search
- Audio + video + sermon notes in one record
- Auto-publishes to website + member portal
- Scripture passages embed live from the Bible API
Floor Plans New
A real map of your church on your website. Visitors see where to park, where the entrance is, and what your sanctuary looks like, before they ever step inside. Setup crews print it for Saturday morning.
- Pick a starter layout, drag corners to fit
- Upload photos of every room
- Visitors click a room to see it
- Each room gets its own searchable page
Facility Bookings
A real room-reservation system, not a shared Google Calendar. Internal teams book rooms, outside renters submit inquiries through your website, and an AI chatbot answers "is the fellowship hall free Tuesday at 7?" without staff lifting a finger.
- Public rental inquiry form on your website
- Internal room booking with conflict checks
- Conversational AI for "is Room B free?" questions
- Integrates with Floor Plans + Events
Mobile Member Portal
A church app for your members: no App Store needed. Your congregation just opens your website on their phone and saves it to the home screen. They check their serve schedule, RSVP to events, give online, and chat with their life group.
- Volunteer schedule + one-tap confirm
- Event RSVP + personal calendar
- Group chat, sermons, giving, secure docs, prayer
- Saves to phone like a real app: for free
Forms & Registration Builder
A drag-and-drop custom form builder: 18 field types, conditional logic, multi-page steps. Camp registrations, volunteer applications, visitor cards, and medical answers file straight into the right member's record instead of a spreadsheet.
- Conditional logic: questions appear only when they matter
- Multi-page forms with progress and validation
- Medical answers sync to member records, permission-gated
- Starter templates; every response in a built-in inbox
The differentiator nobody else ships
Stage Deck: built for musicians, not just administrators
Worship Tools charges extra for a basic chord chart app. GLAD includes a full live performance system: built for tablets, multi-device sync, ChordPro editor, cue buttons (Vamp / Chorus / Start), chord diagrams for every instrument, and a Bluetooth foot pedal so guitarists flip pages with both hands on the strings.
Your musicians open their tablet and everything is already there: the setlist, the keys, the charts, the tempo. No WhatsApp PDFs. No "which version are we doing?" texts at 8am Sunday.
20
Metronome styles
Sync
Multi-device
Auto
Chord transpose
BT
Bluetooth pedal
Presentation software: included
One tap on "next" moves every screen in the building
GLAD includes full presentation software: song lyrics, scripture, custom slides, image and video backgrounds, countdowns, a sanctuary projector display and a private confidence monitor for the speaker, all auto-built from the service plan you already created.
The projector, the prompter, the stage tablets and the congregation's phones advance together, live. No second platform, no re-typing: the plan you made is the presentation.
5
screens in sync, live
0
re-typing from plan to screen
Live
AI scripture detection
OBS
livestream lyrics overlay
Drag & Drop
Heroes, CTAs, forms, testimonials, giving widgets: no code needed
Auto-Populated
Events, ministries, and sermons feed into your public site automatically
Per-Tenant Branding
Custom colors, fonts, logos, and domain: every campus looks like itself
SEO Built-In
Dynamic sitemaps, OG tags, per-page meta: Google indexes your events automatically
Church website included
Your church website is already built
GLAD includes a drag-and-drop page builder with professionally designed templates. Events you create in the admin automatically show up on your public site. No double entry, no separate WordPress subscription, no plugins to update.
Giving & Generosity
Watch generosity build something real.
Every gift — online or in the service — lands on one ledger the moment it's given, so your whole church can watch momentum build toward the goals you're rallying around.
- Online and in-service giving reconciled automatically
- Recurring gifts forecasted, not just recorded
- Fund and campaign goals your whole congregation can watch grow
62%
$12,500
of $20,000 goal
$12,500 raised toward a $20,000 building-fund goalPhase Two, 214 gifts and counting
AI that writes with you
Type your notes. Get a finished bulletin.
Jot down this week’s flow in plain language and GLAD’s AI turns it into a clean, print-ready order of service in seconds — headers, times, and formatting done for you.
No templates to fight with. No retyping on Saturday night — just tell GLAD what’s happening, and it writes the bulletin.
Congregation texting
Texting add-on
One text. Every phone. Seconds.
Snow closure, schedule change, urgent prayer need — type it once, tap send, and it lands on every opted-in phone in your congregation.
Not a video. This is your church's own number reaching everyone in seconds.
Your church texts from a real toll-free number — no shared shortcodes, no per-text fees.
Why churches switch from Planning Center
PCO charges per-module. GLAD ships everything, together, at one price.
32/32
included with GLAD: every feature, every tier
8
not available on Planning Center at any price
14
cost extra: paid products, add-ons, or fees
7
limited versions
3
genuinely free: credit where due
Counts are tallied from the 32 rows below: same list, both columns.
| Feature | Planning Center | GLAD |
|---|---|---|
| People & care | ||
| People & member directory | free (People) | |
| Check-in kiosk | add-on | |
| Volunteer management | add-on | |
| Life group management + applications + chat | add-on | |
| Prayer Request system + Prayer Wall | separate add-on | |
| Background-check tracking: record any provider or order via Checkr, expiry reminders + event gate | per-check fees (Checkr) | |
| Sundays & worship | ||
| Service scheduling: drag-and-drop matrix, AI auto-draft, rotation templates, burnout alerts | add-on (matrix scheduling; no AI auto-draft or burnout tools) | |
| Live Stage Deck | Music Stand (charts only) | |
| Presentation & slides: lyrics, scripture, projector, prompter (live) | 3rd-party for projection | |
| CCLI licensing report: automatic | automatic (Services) | |
| Sermon library + media | separate product (Publishing) | |
| Lectionary + live Bible API | not available | |
| Money & administration | ||
| Online giving | no monthly fee; per-transaction rates | |
| Payroll, journal accounting, bank reconciliation | not available | |
| Reporting + PDF board reports | separate reports per product | |
| Website & communication | ||
| Church website | separate product | |
| Mobile app for members | separate app | |
| Email campaigns | basic sends; Mailchimp for campaigns | |
| SMS notifications | paid add-on ($5/mo + 2¢/text) | |
| Bulletin generator (AI) + kids puzzles | not available | |
| Group chat for staff and members | not available | |
| Forms / dynamic intake builder | included in free People | |
| Online life groups via Zoom / Meet / Teams | not available | |
| AI & automation | ||
| AI tools (8+ features) | 1 tool (AI list builder, beta) | |
| Conversational AI for room bookings | not available | |
| Automation workflows | People-only workflows | |
| Operations | ||
| Floor plan map of your building | per-event room setup only | |
| Facility bookings + rental inquiry form | add-on (Resources) | |
| Secure document manager + member folders | not available | |
| Personal Kanban + task templates | not available | |
| Multi-campus / multi-domain on one subscription | extra fee per campus | |
| 43 granular permissions | per-product roles, siloed |
Verified against Planning Center's published per-product pricing and feature pages, July 2026. Every GLAD tier includes every row.
+ 16 more, all included
All of this is included too
Every ministry tool in one plan. Planning Center bills you separately for Giving, Check-Ins, and Groups — we bundle it all.
Bulletin Generator
AI builds your weekly bulletin from the service plan, plus a Kids Corner with 10+ puzzle types: mazes, word searches, crosswords, ciphers, hidden messages, coloring pages.
Email Campaigns
Compose, send, and track email blasts. Open + click analytics with signed tokens. CAN-SPAM unsubscribe built in. Duplicate any campaign in one click.
Automation Workflows
Trigger-action engine: new member joins, send a welcome email, wait 3 days, create a follow-up task, notify the pastor.
SMS Notifications
Twilio-powered text messages for volunteer reminders, event updates, prayer chains, and urgent comms.
Reporting + Board PDF
10 ministry metrics at a glance. Download a multi-page PDF board report with one click: giving, attendance, engagement, growth.
Lectionary + Bible API
Automatic liturgical calendar: Sunday readings, season colors, and live scripture passages pulled from the Bible API in any translation.
Personal Kanban + Tasks
A built-in task board for staff and volunteers. Templates, collaborators, change tracking. Asana-class, included.
Secure Document Manager
Encrypted document sharing with download logs. Each member gets a personal folder for tax receipts, contracts, and ministry forms.
Form & Registration Builder
Build any form your church needs: visitor cards, retreat sign-ups, ministry interest, prayer requests. Submissions land in the admin and can trigger automations.
Volunteer Confirm/Decline
Volunteers get email with signed links. Confirm, decline, or request a sub. No login needed. Substitute Finder AI suggests replacements.
Multi-Campus / Multi-Domain
Run multiple campuses on one subscription. Each gets its own domain, branding, and people. Staff move between them with one login.
SetupQuest Onboarding
A gamified first-run experience: finish quests to unlock features, with progress tracked across staff. Onboarding that doesn't feel like a checklist.
Help Requests
Members tap "Need help?" in the portal: pastoral care, benevolence, meals, routed to the right team with a tracked response.
Recurring + Ticketed Events
Event series, paid/ticketed events, event cloning, external (non-member) participants, soft-delete + restore. The full event lifecycle.
Life Group Applications
Vetting workflow for closed groups: members apply, leaders approve. Plus wishlists, leadership rotation, and per-group chat.
Group Chat (Reverb)
Real-time staff and life-group chat with read receipts, typing indicators, and reactions. Powered by Laravel Reverb: no third-party service.
Founding churches
Built by the volunteer who ran your church's tech stack.
GLAD was built by a former church IT and website volunteer who watched too many Sunday mornings get derailed by tools that weren't built for churches. Every feature is here because someone in a real church needed it, and the existing software either didn't have it or charged extra for it. We do neither.
Founder-direct support
Your support email reaches the founder. No tier-1 ticket queues.
Lock in founding pricing
Founding churches get 50% off, locked forever, even as we add features and raise prices later.
Your data, your call
No contracts. Export everything anytime. We don't believe in lock-in: only in earning the renewal.
Go deeper on what GLAD replaces
Compare GLAD to what you use today, or explore a feature up close.
Ready to simplify your ministry?
Set up in minutes. Free forever on Starter. No credit card, no contracts, no "call for pricing."
Questions? [email protected]
