LEAD. vs Planning Center
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
LEAD.
This app helps ministry and lay leaders connect with their people by tracking attendance, managing schedules, and facilitating communication. It provides tools to understand individual involvement, organize events, and ensure timely follow-up for discipleship.
- Group member communication and connection
- Attendance tracking and special days reminders
- Needs assignment and event calendars
- Detailed people profiles and involvement history
- Schedule management and volunteer communication
- Service plan creation and event oversight
- Process queue management for discipleship
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The LEAD app equips you as a ministry or lay leader with the tools and information you need to know the story of your people so you can better disciple them — from wherever you are. GROUPS • Stay in touch with your Group members and facilitate communication and connection between them • Keep track of who’s staying connected and who’s slipping through the cracks by easily taking attendance from your phone • Never miss a birthday or anniversary with your group Special Days list • Create, view, and assign Needs to give your group members opportunities to support each other and their community • Use Calendars to see the events in your group and peruse the guest list to keep track of who is staying connected PEOPLE • See and edit information about your people and their family, and contact them easily with the built-in tools • Quickly understand a person's history and involvement in the church with the Timeline • Get a sense of the consistency of their connection with an overview of their Serving, Attending, and Giving patterns** • Add new people to your system with the Create Profile feature, and make sure their data is correct by importing information from your phone's Contacts and using google's address validation** SCHEDULES • See where there are holes in your schedule and easily fill them on the go • Update your volunteers' statuses for real-time schedule management • Send messages to your volunteers to keep them informed about their serving opportunities • Add more Schedule Weeks SERVICE PLANS • Create, Edit, or Add a Service Plan • Add more Schedule Weeks CALENDARS • Use Admin Calendars to see the details of all the events happening in your church across your various campuses • Hone in on your Group's events and see where things are happening and who is coming PROCESS QUEUES • Provide quick, intentional follow-up for your people, and keep them moving along the path of discipleship • Leave notes for people as you move them through a process so all leaders can stay informed about a person's journey NOTES • Use Notes to share and view vital information among ministry leaders, keeping all of that important context in one place to tell a person's story *You must have a current Church Community Builder software account in order to use this app. ** All functionality is based on your current Church Community Builder software permissions
Planning Center
Manage ministry activities from check-ins to follow-ups with a unified dashboard. Receive notifications, create tasks, and collaborate with your team seamlessly. Access all ministry products from one central hub.
- Ministry-wide notifications
- Access all ministry products
- Home dashboard with action items
- Task creation and assignment
- Team collaboration
- Mobile gestures for quick actions
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Ministry work doesn’t just happen at your desk. With the Planning Center app, church admins get mobile access to every product they use, their task lists, and notifications all in one place. The Planning Center you know and love, now easily accessible from the church lobby, the youth building, or wherever your ministry work takes you. Key Features Access any product — Use People, Giving, Services, Check-Ins, or any other product, all from within the app All admin notifications — Facilities requests, workflow updates, form submissions, and more Your Home dashboard — A clear overview of stats, information, and items that need your attention Tasks — Keep collaborating with your team whether you're in a coffee shop or hustling on a Sunday morning Requirements Login requires an existing Planning Center account. Any action you take on web or mobile will be synced. Support Questions, issues, or want to request new features? Go to your profile page by tapping your avatar and use the "Contact Support" link to let us know. Typical reply time is ~1 business hour.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Planning Center at 4.7 against LEAD.'s 3.1. Planning Center also leads on update cadence (every 11 days vs every 4 months) and review sentiment (47% vs 26%). LEAD.'s advantage is ratings volume (160 vs 35). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Planning Center holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 160 and 35 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 26% of LEAD.'s written reviews are positive against 47% of Planning Center's.
LEAD. ships an update every 4 months, Planning Center every 11 days. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | LEAD. | Planning Center |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.1 (160 ratings) | 4.7 (35 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 26.0% of reviews | 47.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 160 — better | 35 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 11 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 67 MB | 59 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Church Community Builder, Inc. | Ministry Centered Technologies |
Customer experience
LEAD.
Planning Center
Bugs and requests
LEAD.
Reported bugs
22 issues- Logged out every time app is closed
- Have to sign in every time
- New version logs out and doesn't save settings
- App forgets church association
- Face ID no longer enabled
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- App won't find churches when searching
- App stopped working after update
- App won't find church after reinstalling
- App won't allow locating church or domain
- App won't bring up church
- Newest update took out schedules
- App tells user they don't have permission
- App crashes frequently
- Face ID login removed/having issues
- App doesn't rotate on iPad with keyboard
- Buttons tangled with status bar on iPhone
- App won't load (spinning wheel)
- Latest update keeps crashing and losing attendance
- App is really slow
- Login screen freezes
- White screen after splash page
- Loading screen for minutes on end
Requested features
17 requests- Access notes on resources
- Update database on the fly
- Ability to upload new songs to song library
- Ability to attach documents in group email messages
- Add push notifications
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- Ability to share contact info quickly via text/email
- Support for landscape mode on iPad
- View serving options from phone
- iOS notifications instead of email
- Subscribe to iCal/webcal feed for calendars
- Full calendar options (church calendar, add events, add photos)
- Ability to view schedule within each group
- Second app for volunteers or modify for all members
- Mail merge feature via app
- Group schedules functionality
- Assign roles and tasks to members
- Full calendar options including adding events and photos
Planning Center
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
LEAD.
No in-app purchases
Planning Center
No in-app purchases







