Display Church vs Planning Center
In the age of digitalization, having an easy-to-use, customized, and professional embedded church calendar is crucial to engaging your congregation, organizing events, and facilitating management.
Two widely used options available for churches are Planning Center and Display.Church. While many things are similar, there are some important differences.
Before we begin: ‘Thank you!’ Planning Center for giving us the opportunity to integrate with you. It’s because of your provision of a calendar option that we’re able to collect all the necessary details to display our partners' church events.
Thank you, Planning Center, for being such an amazing partner!
Comparison
The main difference is that Planning Center offers a wide range of church-centric services while Display.Church specializes in calendar or group views and event alerts.
 Display.Church |
 PCO |
|
| Calendar templates | 7 different views | Basically 3 views |
| Embed options | Calendar views, group widgets, event alerts | Calendar only |
| Filtering | Show/hide hidden events, Include group-specific events, Show events with images only, Merge recurring events, by tag / tag group / group / approval status *NEW* Powerful Advanced Filtering: Mix and match all options to create virtually any filtering combination you need. |
By campus, tag |
| Customize colors & fonts | Over 100 customizable options | Font - no; Each tag can have a different color |
| Removing the calendar | Remove the calendar without modifying the website | Must remove the code from the website |
Pros and Cons
Display.Church
Pros
- Versatile with multiple calendar views
- Automated event alerts
- Can embed calendar views, groups widgets, and events alerts
- Advanced filtering options for events
- Full customization with colors and fonts, ideal for branding
- Simple process to remove or unpublish calendar
Cons
- May require more time to get familiar with the interface and features
- Need to buy a plan
Planning Center
Pros
- Easy-to-use and simplified user interface
- Adequate customization with tag colors
- Popular and widely recognized in the industry
- Included in plan
Cons
- Limited to three calendar views
- No event alerts
- Cannot embed group widgets
- No advanced filtering
- No font customization
Choice of Calendar Views
Planning Center offers three main embeddable calendar views: Monthly, Small Month + List, and Table. Each view can be customized depending on your unique needs and audience.
Display.Church provides multiple embeddable views for different needs (7 templates at the moment), making it a more versatile option.
In addition, we offer 4 templates to display your small groups, and 1 template that creates an event alert banner.
Group Widgets
Chances are, you already have some kind of small groups display or page. Chances are, it could be much better: more exciting, eye-catching, engaging…not to mention kept up-to-date automatically.
Our new, easy-to-use, cloud-based groups widget is the solution. The big advantage with Display.Church is that you can embed your groups widgets on your church website.
Event Alerts
Event ALERTS is an automated, 'set it and forget it' statement which gives information about an upcoming (or happening now) event. This innovative tool drives conversion and saves you time. You can customize when and where to the event highlight display based on different settings, and you won't have to manually update – the highlight will disappear once the event is over!
Note: Beta testing phase
Filtering Options
The Planning Center platform allows filtering events based on campus and tag.
Display.Church offers more advanced filtering options, such as showing hidden events, displaying events with images only, merging recurring events, and filtering by tag, group, and approval status.
We are also ready to handle Groups via Feed and Groups via Connection.
In addition, our *NEW* Powerful Advanced Filtering lets you mix and match your filtering options (according to your integration) in an infinite number of combinations using the connectors:
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Customizing Colors and Fonts
While Planning Center doesn't offer font customization, it does let you assign unique colors for each tag, making events easily distinguishable.
Display.Church allows complete color and font customization to suit your church's branding. You can play around with over 100 customizable options.
Removing the Calendar
To remove a Planning Center embedded calendar from your website, you need to go to your website and remove it from the website code.
Removing the Display.Church calendar is much easier and more convenient. You just unpublish it without modifying the website. Your calendar waits for you in case you wish to use it again. For example, for special events calendars such as Christmas, Easter, VBS, etc.
Testimonial
We had a clunky website hosted by a platform that required us to manage a calendar, in addition to Planning Center. This was ineffective & repetitive. This is prior to signing up for Display Church.
Display.Church enabled us sync with our Planning Center calendar and manage one calendar internally and on our website. The tiled option on Display.Church is appealing and exactly what I wanted.
The Display Church interface and auto-sync feature have made it very easy and time efficient for our admin and communication department.
Andrew Barris, Creative Arts Director, Calvary Chapel WestGrove
Awesome Features For Today’s Ministries
Typography
Choose the font type, weight, and size for each
major element to ensure it matches your
website!
Colors & Layout
Choose the colors and calendar or group widget's layout type to
match your specific needs.
No Coding
Set up a calendar view or group widet in 5 minutes or less. No
coding required. A one-time add of one line of
script to your website enables the views to
work.
Automatic Syncing
We’ll ensure your calendar or group widget is always
updated. We update the widgets views once or
twice per day (according to your plan). You can also
push unlimited changes from within the app.
Responsive Design and Mobile App Ready
Your calendar and group widget views meet your congregation on whichever device they are using. Our widgets work on the most modern websites and respond nicely on all devices. Your people can see your widgets via their desktop and mobile browsers. Even more exciting is that you can meet your ministry on their phones via our mobile app.
And Tons More!
• Responsive Format
Our calendar view works on the most modern websites and responds nicely on all devices.
• Multiple Views
Choose from Full Calendar, Weekly View, Events List, Cards (Grid), Cards (List), Slider, and the new Detailed List.
• Auto and manual sync
Automatic: We will ensure your calendar is always updated. Depending on your plan, updates happen once a day
(3 am UTC or 4AM UTC depending on plan) or twice a day (12 am and 12 pm UTC).
Manual: You can always push unlimited changes from within the app.
How it Works
1. Sign up & Integrate
Sign up and Integrate your Google Calendar account or Church Management Software Account.
2. Customize (No Coding)
Choose the calendar type, group widget, or event alert you want. Customize the design.
3. Publish and Embed
Publish and embed your calendar, groups widget, and/or event alert on your website.
Real Clients
I just wanted to hop on here and say thank you for all your hard work. Displaychurch.events has been an awesome resource!
Daine Bean
Young Families Pastor at Life360 Chesterfield
I can vouch for [DisplayChurch.Events] as a great resource for your website. It should work on most websites because you just copy and paste a code.
Cecillia Fountain
Centerpoint Church
Hey there - I got around to testing this and it seems to work fine for me. ...I’ve also implemented the new campus and group filtering. Very much awesome, man.
Matt D.
Calvary Church
You guys are the best. Thanks for implementing feedback so quickly!
Rick Stawarz
Lead Pastor | Restoration Anglican
The perfect solution for small to medium-sized churches that need a clean and easy way for database information to populate their website. Our staff manages their events via our database without needing to be experts on our website. Everybody wins.
Mat Hotho
Producer/Co-Host: ‘The Bible Project 2020 Podcast’
AMAZING! I love how responsive you are to requests. This app has become a HUGE life and time saver for me as I’m currently redesigning our website.
Sabrina Massa
Administrative Assistant
It has saved us time by being able to enter the data once, probably around 5 hours each week on the whole.
Katie Ballard
Assistant to Operations at Grace Fellowship Church
The old system definitely worked, but when we decided to create a new website, we wanted to do it in a way that worked seamlessly with CCB, which is where so much of our data already lives.
Nicole
Communications Director at Arbor Road Church
It’s working well for us. Have it integrated to our WordPress website and it’s already saving time and ensuring seamless data integrity with our CCB events and forms.
Bob Gluck
Finance Director, CPA
Hey Jason! I am working on making a filtered calendar of only women's events for the women's page of our church website. So far loving the product! It is exactly what I have been looking for over 2 years now!
Chad George
New Heights Bentonville
AwesomeI I love [this new Display.Church feature]. Thank you for being so responsive!!!!
Roger Walter, D.Min.
Lead Pastor
Jason,
Our church staff are throwing parties every time I mention Display.Church! HUGE help for us thus far!
Joel Jimenez
Comms. / Assoc. Worship Director at Church for the City
I love love love this product! Exactly what we've been missing on our website : )
Missy Pine
Assisting Minister, Faith Fellowship
Hey! I am actively using and enjoying your Calendars! Using PCO is a breeze! It hooked up easily and has lots of customization options to tweak. I also love that your team seems to be continually making it better all the time.
Aaron Schappell
Lead Pastor, Crossroad Assembly
We love the way [our events are] now being displayed on our website and mobile apps. We just update the events in CCB calendars, and DCE updates the events everywhere.
Brother Suresh Rajadurai
Bread of Life Church
The calendar product works great! We use it for our events as well as for our Bible readings. The best feature for me is to be able to make the changes in Planning Center and then quickly sync them to see them in our website.
John Ross
Messianic Rabbi, Congregation Beth Messiah
I'm a big fan of what you're doing and your customer service is amazing! I experience the same with PastorsLine!
Samuel Breu
Head of Communications and Management Support, PfimiBern
We are a happy client due to your response to bugs. Most companies don’t have that turn around. Giving us support like this earns you maybe an extra year of membership, loyalty, etc.
Doug Christoffel
Web and Data Manager, Harvest City Church, Canada
[Display.Church] appears to be working great for our needs.
Colleen Price
Administrative Director, Dungeness Community Church
Pricing
FAQ
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