Change plans in slow seasons
To help your church's budget make the biggest impact possible throughout the year, tailor your subscription to pay for only the products you need, when you need them.
Planning Center's pricing is flexible, which means you get full control over your account's subscriptions and are never locked into a contract. You can upgrade and downgrade subscription plans as often as necessary - no limits, no fees, no catch!
Some products may remain steady all year, but a few tend to see less action during the slower months. Review each section below to find tips on when to choose lower subscription plans.
Important
Only organization administrators can make changes to subscription plans, which can make budgeting less predictable for your bookkeeper if they don't have that level of access. Consider making them a billing manager so they can keep track of the amount due each month.
Project your anticipated Check-ins volume
Churches most commonly see weekly attendance dwindle during the summer months when regular attenders are away on vacation, and mid-week ministries take a break. You can plan ahead for these months by using the Events page in Check-Ins to see previous attendance trends.
Select the Events page in the top navigation in Check-Ins.
Set the date range at the top of the page for the months you want to review from the previous year and select week.
Check the boxes on the left next to the events that took place during the summer. If an event from last year is not happening again this summer, leave the box unchecked.
Review the numbers to identify the week with the largest attendance.
Use that number to set your Check-Ins subscription for the summer.
Archive seasonal groups and members in Groups
At the beginning of each season, archive any seasonal groups or one-time classes that have recently ended. If you'd like to use the same group for every session, make sure to remove the current members before adding the new ones. Once you have only active members and groups remaining, check whether you can downgrade to a lower subscription plan.
Tip
Use group types to organize your groups by season. Then filter the group list to the season that just ended and archive each group individually.
Evaluate plans after large signups in Registrations
The pricing of Registrations is based on the number of attendees registered for your biggest signup. If you only have large events a couple of times a year, go ahead and downgrade to a lower plan that fits your regularly scheduled activities after the events.
Archiving your bigger-than-normal signups as soon as they're over can help you keep tabs on what plan best suits your current needs.
Archive seasonal volunteers in Services
You may need fewer volunteers in your rotation during the summer when people are on vacation or at a time when you're holding fewer services each week. You can archive those extra profiles until it's time to ramp things back up.
Archived profiles don't count toward your subscription limits, but their team assignments and scheduling history remain intact, so there's no need to re-create them when they're ready to be scheduled again.
In Services, you can filter people based on specific service types, the last time they were scheduled, or the last time they logged in to find profiles that can be archived.
Select the People page from the top navigation in Services.
Select Filter in the top left to expand the filter menu.
Apply filters to narrow down your list.
Tip
Select the Dates tab and use the Last Scheduled Plan dropdowns to filter people based on the last time they were scheduled.
Check the box in the top left to select all profiles that fit your filters.
Select the ✏️ edit icon at the top of the list to bulk edit the selected profiles.
Select People and Plans from the Set Permissions or Archive dropdown.
Select Archived from the second dropdown that appears in the Set Permissions or Archive section.
Select Update [number] people in the bottom right.
When you're ready to schedule them again, you can restore their profile.
Delete large files from Services
There's a limited amount of file storage included with your Services subscription. To avoid going over the limit and paying extra fees, it's a good idea to go through your files page regularly and delete any files that are unused or non-essential for regular services.
The files must be deleted, not archived, in order to not count towards your storage limits. It is recommended to back up your files on a computer, external drive, or in a free cloud account before deleting them from Services so you can still access them for future use.
You can go to the Files page to manage all files stored in Services.
Select the Songs or Media page from the top navigation in Services.
Select the Actions dropdown and choose Manage files.
Select the Size column header to sort files by size. Files taking up the most space will appear at the top.
Hover over a file name and select the ✏️ edit icon that appears.
Select Delete in the Edit File details popup.
Tip
You can hover over a file and type x to delete files faster!