If you've spent more than ten minutes in a church tech Facebook group, you've seen this question. Someone posts "Planning Center or Breeze?" and forty people show up with strong opinions and zero numbers. I want to give you the numbers, and the honest downsides, so you can make the call and get back to ministry.
I've been doing church tech for a long time, and here's what I've learned: there's rarely a "best" tool. There's the tool that fits your church's size, budget and the volunteers you actually have. So let's look at both through that lens.
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The short answer
If you want one predictable bill and a simple database your office volunteer can learn in an afternoon, Breeze is hard to beat. If you want strong volunteer scheduling and worship planning, and you're okay paying for pieces as you need them, Planning Center usually wins.
That's it. The rest of this article is the "why."
What each one actually costs
This is where most comparisons get fuzzy, so let's be specific. These come straight from each vendor's public pricing page, checked October 22, 2026.
| Planning Center | Breeze | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Pay per module (People, Services, Giving, Check-Ins, etc.) | One flat monthly price |
| Starting price | People: free; paid modules priced by usage | $72/mo (1,000 contacts) |
| Online giving | Free up to 10 donations/mo, then $15–$239/mo by volume | Through Tithe.ly |
| Card fees | 2.15% + $0.30 | Tithe.ly: 2.9% + $0.30 |
| ACH fees | 0% + $0.30 | Tithe.ly: 1% + $0.30 |
| Texting | Varies by module | 250 free/mo, then $10 per 500 |
| Worship planning | Services module | Worship Tools add-on, $29/mo |
| Our score | 4.2/5 | 3.6/5 |
A quick note on Planning Center's side: Planning Center itself says you can get Registrations, Check-Ins, Giving and Services for $60/mo, and that for many churches the total comes in under Breeze's $72. That's their claim on their own comparison page, and it lines up with how modular pricing works. But it also means your bill moves as you grow. More on that in a minute.
Where Planning Center shines
Planning Center started as a worship planning tool, and you can tell. Services is the module people fall in love with. One church tech on Reddit called the volunteer scheduling "flawless and super simple," and another pointed out that it ties schedules to song arrangements and keys, so your band and your tech team are literally on the same page.
There's also a real money story here. One roughly 130-member church said switching to Planning Center (from Vanco) let them cut their admin role from full-time to part-time and lower their giving fees. That's not a feature. That's a budget line you get back.
And Planning Center Giving's card rate (2.15% + $0.30) is noticeably lower than Tithe.ly's 2.9% + $0.30. If you give a lot by card, that difference adds up fast. I walk through the math in our church giving fees comparison.
Where Planning Center hurts
Here's the honest part. The most common complaint is exactly what you'd expect from modular pricing: costs add up as you add modules and people. It starts free and friendly, and then one day you look at the bill and wonder how you got there.
Giving fees are also per-donation tiers, not dollar-based, so a church with lots of small gifts can climb tiers faster than a church with a few large ones. And when the whole church starts using it (not just staff), folks report a real learning curve and some pushback. Planning Center is a family of apps, and not everyone loves living in a family of apps.
Where Breeze shines
Breeze's whole pitch is simplicity, and reviewers back that up. One reviewer rated its people database a 9/10 and said it's "done very well." Another pointed out that the flat price ends up much cheaper than stacking Planning Center modules once you need a lot of them.
That flat $72/mo is the main reason people pick it. Your treasurer knows what it'll cost in January and what it'll cost in December. For a lot of small churches, that's worth more than a slightly lower bill some months.
Where Breeze hurts
Breeze was bought by Tithe.ly and is now branded Tithely Church Management. Since that change, reviewers have reported bugs in permissions and giving. People also describe automations, groups and registrations as basic or clunky, and some Capterra reviewers mention slow support.
There's also the giving fees question. Breeze runs giving through Tithe.ly, and Tithe.ly's 2.9% + $0.30 card fee costs more than Planning Center Giving's card rate.
So which one is right for you?
Here's how I'd think about it, pastor to pastor:
- Choose Breeze if you're a smaller church that mostly needs a clean member database, simple giving and a bill that never surprises you. Especially if your admin is a part-time volunteer.
- Choose Planning Center if worship planning and volunteer scheduling are where your team spends its week, or if you give a lot by card and want the lower rate.
- Look at something else if $72/mo feels like a lot. ChMeetings is free up to 50 people and ChurchTrac starts at $29/mo. I cover those in the best free and cheap ChMS for small churches.
One more practical tip: before you sign anything, ask both vendors how you export your data if you leave. A tool that's easy to get into and hard to get out of isn't cheap, no matter what the price says.
You can see the full side-by-side in our Planning Center vs Breeze comparison, plus the Planning Center and Breeze pages with every sourced pro and con.
Whatever you pick, pray over it, involve the people who'll actually use it, and don't let a sales demo make the decision for you.