An Honest Switching Guide

Switching from Planning Center?
We’ll carry your boxes.

Planning Center is genuinely good software — that’s not why churches leave. They leave because the stack of separate products gets heavy. TimelyChurch is one simple system that does the whole job — and moving in is easier than you think.

Song Importer
built in
Bring your whole Planning Center song library — keys, arrangements, and chord charts
White-Glove Migration
free with every plan
We move your people, groups, and giving history for you
Why Churches Switch

It’s Not About the Software. It’s About the Stack.

Let’s say it plainly: Planning Center earned its reputation. But for many small and growing churches, three things quietly pile up.

The modules add up

Services, Giving, Check-Ins, Groups, Registrations — each is its own product with its own subscription. As your church grows, so does the list of line items on the invoice.

You still need other tools

Even with the full suite, most churches still run their bookkeeping in one place and their website in another. TimelyChurch builds fund accounting and a website builder right in.

You use a fraction of it

Planning Center runs deep — it was shaped by the needs of large teams. If your church is small or growing, you may be paying for a depth of workflow you never open.

The Map

Where Everything Lives in TimelyChurch

Every Planning Center product you use has a home here — in one system, one login, one plan.

If you use… In TimelyChurch it’s…
PC Services Serving + the Schedule Grid + Service Plans
PC People People & Families
PC Giving Giving + built-in Bookkeeping
PC Check-Ins Check-In + kiosk mode
PC Groups Groups
PC Registrations Events + Forms

Everything on the right is one product — nothing sold separately. And you also get a website builder, Telegram messaging, a member portal, and sermons & podcasting in the same plan. See plans & pricing →

If You Live in Services, You’ll Feel at Home in the Schedule Grid

Every team, every week, one screen. Open slots are flagged so nothing slips to Saturday night, auto-fill builds a fair rotation, and volunteers confirm from an email link or right inside Telegram — no separate app for them to install.

  • See all teams across upcoming weeks in one grid
  • Auto-fill rotates fairly so the same faithful few don’t burn out
  • Volunteers accept or decline with one tap — declines re-ask the next person
app.timelychurch.com/schedule
Schedule Grid in TimelyChurch showing volunteer teams and weeks in one view with assignments and open slots
The Move

Moving In Is the Easy Part

The biggest fear about switching is losing years of data. Here’s exactly how we handle it.

app.timelychurch.com/songs
Song library in TimelyChurch showing imported worship songs with keys, artists, and tags
Built-In Importer

Your Song Library Comes With You

TimelyChurch has a built-in Planning Center song importer. It brings over your whole song library — keys, arrangements, and chord charts — so your worship team doesn’t start from a blank page. Years of Sunday-by-Sunday work, preserved.

  • Imports songs with their keys and arrangements
  • Chord charts come along too
  • Ready to drop straight into service plans
Free With Every Plan

We Move Your People, Groups & Giving For You

Free white-glove data migration is included with every plan. Export your data from Planning Center, hand it to us, and we’ll bring over your people and families, your groups, and your giving history. You don’t retype anything — you just log in and it’s home.

And once giving lives here, honest math applies: online gifts run on Stripe, which charges standard card processing — TimelyChurch adds no platform fee on top. Donor statements and fund bookkeeping are built into the same system, not sold as another module.

Start your free migration
app.timelychurch.com/giving
Giving dashboard in TimelyChurch showing donations, funds, and giving history

What to Know Before You Switch

We’d rather you switch once, happily, than twice. So here’s the honest version:

  • – Planning Center has a large third-party integration marketplace. If your workflow depends on specific integrations — presentation software, streaming tools, external databases — map those dependencies first and make sure you have a path for each one before you move.
  • – Deeply customized Services workflows take time to rebuild. The Schedule Grid and Service Plans cover the core beautifully, but if your team has years of intricate custom setup, plan a transition season rather than a weekend flip.
  • – Our lane is small and growing churches. If you’re a large multi-campus church with dedicated ops staff who love the depth you have, staying put may genuinely be the right call. No hard feelings — we mean that.

But if you want one simple system that covers people, serving, giving, check-in, groups, events, bookkeeping, and your website — without a stack of separate subscriptions — TimelyChurch was built for exactly this move. And the free plan means you can try the fit before you commit to anything.

Switched from Planning Center? Tell us how it went — real stories only, and we’ll share yours.

[email protected]

Ready When You Are

Start free, poke around, import a few songs, and see if it feels like home. When you’re ready, we’ll carry the rest of the boxes — no credit card required to look around.

Start Free Forever See plans & pricing →