Church software for giving, events, and kids check-in

A camp registration records who the child is, what the family paid, and who is allowed to pick the child up. Pushpay, Planning Center, and Tithely all collect each of those details. The difference is where the details end up: on one family record, or spread across connected products and payment accounts.

Where those details end up decides whether a check-in volunteer can see the allergy note a parent typed into a registration form, and whether a camp payment posts somewhere your finance team can reconcile.

The payment side raises a second issue. Registration money and giving are different money, even when one platform collects both. A camp fee buys a place at camp, while a tithe buys nothing in return, so your software should keep the two apart from the first transaction.

Side by side

How each platform is put together

Pushpay builds giving, registration, and check-in into one system. In ChurchStaq, attendance, giving, and check-in history sit on a single member record, and staff at a check-in station can open a family’s full profile, including the family’s giving and notes history. A church that buys Pushpay’s ChMS and Giving separately gets the same shared profile, since the ChMS integrates natively with Giving. With one record, a household’s details are entered once and read by registration, check-in, and giving alike.

Planning Center takes the opposite approach and sells giving, registrations, and check-in as separate products. People is the free database underneath, and Giving, Registrations, and Check-Ins each connect to People and carry their own monthly price. Those connections cover the handoffs kids’ ministry runs on: household contact information in People fills in automatically in Check-Ins, and Check-Ins flags attendees who haven’t completed their registration requirements.

Tithely sits between the two models, with a free giving account at the base and church management, events, and check-in added on paid plans. Tithely’s registration payments, though, follow two separate paths. Payments collected through Tithely Forms can only be processed through PayPal and are routed to a PayPal account you enter in the form settings, while Tithely Events payments run through Tithely’s own processing. A church that takes payments in both Forms and Events reconciles two payout sources, PayPal and Tithely.

Workflow by workflow

Giving and donor records

Pushpay’s giving tools center on keeping recurring gifts running. Everygift® Expiring Card Notifications prompt recurring givers before a card lapses, and an optional Recurring Suggestion recommends a giving schedule based on a giver’s past gifts. Givers can also choose to cover processing fees.

Behind those tools, Pushpay runs its payment processing end to end. The company says card deposits reach the church in two days and ACH deposits in five, and refunds reach givers in two to three days.

Planning Center Giving protects recurring gifts through a different mechanism: it coordinates with banks to update expired cards without interrupting the gift. Each donation syncs to the giver’s record in People, and Giving forecasts next month’s recurring income from past patterns. Givers see their history and download statements in the Church Center app.

Tithely competes on entry cost. Its Free Giving plan charges nothing per month and covers online, text, and app giving, along with recurring gifts. The plan also includes a QuickBooks Online integration, which Planning Center Giving doesn’t offer; Planning Center provides CSV exports instead.

Event registration and payments

Planning Center Registrations publishes the longest list of event controls of the three platforms. Churches can cap attendance, open a waitlist when an event fills, and offer discounts or scholarships. Each event’s registration can also carry an attached medical release and sell optional extras like shirts. Planning Center prices Registrations by the attendee count of your largest event, from free at 5 attendees to $239 a month at 5,000.

Tithely Events puts its emphasis on who is registering and what they pay. One person can register others, and custom fields at the event or registrant level can capture details such as allergies. Discount codes can take a percentage or a flat amount off, with start dates, end dates, and usage limits. Using Tithely Events requires a free Tithely Giving account.

Pushpay builds registration around the family and the fund. A single Pushpay registration form can sign up as many as ten people and collect payment in the same step. Each event can also be tied to a fund, so its registration payments post to that fund. Staff can cap registrations and promote the event through the church app, email, or text. After the event, Pushpay shows who RSVP’d and didn’t come, and how participation compared with earlier events.

Check-in and pickup

Pushpay families check in at a kiosk, with a barcode, or from a mobile app. Each child gets a security label, and only someone holding the matching pickup tag can collect that child. Name tags can also carry allergy information or special instructions for volunteers.

Once children reach their rooms, staff can follow a live roster of where every child is, set room capacities, and text a parent from the system.

Planning Center Check-Ins covers the same label-matching ground and adds a fallback for mismatched labels: staff can open a child’s profile to see who is a safe person to pick the child up. Check-in can also start before a family reaches the building, since families can check in ahead of time in the Church Center app. Planning Center prices Check-Ins by unique check-ins on your busiest day, from free at 10 to $239 a month for unlimited.

Tithely’s check-in covers the pickup basics. A matching code prints on the child’s tag and the parent’s tag, and the name tag can show allergy information. Churches manage rooms and capacity by setting up a separate check-in event for each service.

When church size and existing tools change the answer

Pricing structure is the first place church size shows up. Planning Center’s per-product pricing rewards a church that uses one or two products lightly. Each product’s price climbs with use, so a church running Giving, Registrations, and Check-Ins at scale pays three growing subscriptions.

Pushpay quotes each church a price and places no limit on users or administrators. For multi-campus churches, the Complete tier adds per-campus giving and multi-site management, and Pushpay counts 7 of the 10 largest U.S. churches among its customers. The commitment runs longer than Planning Center’s month-to-month terms: Pushpay contracts run one, two, or three years, and a church that cancels early pays the remaining balance.

Switching costs differ as well. Planning Center Giving can’t import recurring donations, so every recurring giver has to set up a new gift when a church moves its giving to Planning Center. Tithely’s All-Access plan includes data move-in and onboarding.

Keeping part of an existing setup is also an option. A church that wants to keep Planning Center for people and check-in can run Pushpay for giving, since Planning Center appears on Pushpay’s integrations list and Pushpay charges nothing extra for integrations.

Which platform fits?

• Choose Planning Center if: you want to start free, add products one at a time on month-to-month terms, and need waitlists, scholarships, and medical release forms built into registration.
• Choose Tithely if: you want free giving with a QuickBooks Online integration today and a single monthly bundle for church management, events, and check-in later.
• Choose Pushpay if: you want giving, registrations, and check-in on one family record, with event payments tied to funds and accounting integrations included in the price.

Questions to settle before you choose

Which registration features matter for VBS and camps?

Look for these in any demo:

• Multi-child registration: one form a parent fills out once for every child attending.
• Capacity controls: a cap per event, plus a waitlist if your camps fill.
• Health and consent details: allergy fields and medical release forms that carry through to the check-in label.
• Cost relief: discount codes or scholarships for families who need them.
• A shared roster: check-in that runs off the registration list, so volunteers aren’t retyping names.

Are event registration payments tax-deductible?

Usually not in full. The IRS treats a payment that buys goods or services as a quid pro quo contribution, and only the amount above the fair market value of what the payer received is deductible. When a payment over $75 is partly a gift, the church owes the payer a written disclosure statement.

Because of that rule, registration revenue belongs in its own fund. In Pushpay, tie each event to a dedicated fund, and ask your accountant how that fund should appear on year-end contribution statements.

How do card and ACH rates change what a church keeps?

On every $100 paid by card, Planning Center’s published rate takes $2.45 and Tithely’s takes $3.20. The gap widens on bank payments: Planning Center charges $0.30 per ACH payment at any amount, while Tithely charges $1.30 on a $100 ACH payment.

Pushpay quotes its rates individually, so get its card and ACH figures in writing. Then run your last year of giving and registration volume through all three rate sets before you compare subscription prices.

How does household registration simplify family sign-ups?

Household registration cuts the form count to one per family and attaches every child to the same household record. In Pushpay, family relationships sit on the member profile, so the parent who registers the children is the parent the check-in station recognizes. Planning Center makes the same connection through People, which fills household details into Check-Ins.

One test family

Before you open registration for your next camp or VBS, run one test family through the whole path:

1. Register two children, one with an allergy note.
2. Pay the registration by card.
3. Check both children in.
4. Print the pickup label.
5. Pull the report for the event’s fund.

Then book a Pushpay demo and ask to see that same family move through ChurchStaq from form to fund.