The Planning Center Alternative Built for Modern Churches
GLAD gives your church one platform for people, scheduling, giving, worship, and administration, instead of stitching together Planning Center modules, add-ons, and per-seat pricing.
Why churches are switching from Planning Center
Planning Center splits your church into separate products: People, Services, Giving, Check-Ins, Groups, Publishing, each with its own pricing tier. Add them up and most mid-sized churches pay for four or five modules just to get the full picture of their ministry.
GLAD takes the opposite approach: one subscription, one login, and every tool, people & families, service scheduling, volunteer management, online giving with accounting, sermons, Stage Deck for worship teams, check-in, and AI-powered admin tools, built to work together from day one.
To their credit: People is free, and Giving charges per transaction instead of monthly. Everything above is à la carte, and the bill grows with your church.
People, worship, giving with accounting, check-in, your website, communications, AI: every module on every tier, working from the same data.
Plans from $59/mo billed annually: see pricingThe four reasons churches actually switch
Not a feature-count contest: the concrete jobs GLAD does that a stack of modules can't.
AI in the workflow, not on a roadmap
The Setlist Architect builds Sunday's set from your own library. Burnout prediction flags over-scheduled volunteers before they quietly disappear. The Communication Co-Pilot drafts announcements, and the bulletin writes itself from the service plan.
AI credits are included in every tier, even the free one.
Your website is included, and it's alive
A drag-and-drop page builder with professional templates, your own branding and domain, events and sermons that publish themselves, and seasonal touches, snowfall in December, harvest in October, so your site moves with the church year.
No WordPress plugin stack, no separate website bill.
Stage Deck: rehearsal to stage on one tablet
ChordPro charts that transpose to any key, multi-device sync that keeps every musician's tablet on the same page mid-service, a visual metronome, cue buttons, and Bluetooth pedal page turns: hands never leave the strings.
Included with every plan: not a per-seat add-on.
Giving plus real bookkeeping: payroll included
Stripe-powered giving with donor statements is table stakes. GLAD keeps going: journal entries, bank reconciliation, budget vs. actual, expense approvals, staff payroll, and a one-click PDF the board can actually read.
Planning Center doesn't offer accounting or payroll at all.
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.
Depicting GLAD's real permission catalog — 43 permissions across 15 areas, Safety & Screening included.
GLAD vs. Planning Center, feature by feature
Every row GLAD offers today: no waitlist, no "coming soon."
Why churches switch from Planning Center
PCO charges per-module. GLAD ships everything, together, at one price.
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.
An honest word about Planning Center
Planning Center is a mature, well-built product with a big ecosystem, and its free People database is genuinely generous. If à-la-carte modules match how your church budgets, and you don't mind separate products for the rest, it's a reasonable choice.
GLAD's bet is different: every module included on every tier, AI built into the daily workflow, and your public website living in the same place as your data. One login, one bill, nothing to bolt together.
Switching from Planning Center is easier than you think
Most churches are fully migrated and live on GLAD in under a day.
From Planning Center
- → Three-click import: download from Planning Center, drag the file into GLAD, done
- → People, families, groups, and giving history: all preserved
- → Stage Deck replaces Planning Center Music for free
Questions about migrating? [email protected]; we respond within 24 hours.
Frequently asked questions
Ready to leave Planning Center behind?
Start free, no credit card required. Most churches are live in under a day.
