StewaraA Planning Center alternative built around the message, the set and your whole church.
Compare complete worship sets, key transitions and the tools your team needs for Sunday. Stewara includes service planning, member care, giving, check-in and fund accounting for $99/month per church. Planning Center offers separately priced products with free and usage-based tiers; the right choice depends on your team and the workflows you need.
No credit card to start · 30-day trial of the full suite · Flock is free forever. · See pricing
What would change for your worship team?
Stewara is worth evaluating if you want to build whole sets by purpose, theme and length, see the reasons behind the suggestions, and keep worship in the same subscription as member care and fund accounting.
Try the set-building decision
Start with your message and choose a theme. Stewara proposes complete sets from your library, balancing familiarity, energy, time and key relationships. Compare the candidates, apply one and adjust its keys. The leader keeps the final choice.
Read the worked Sunday example →Check your rehearsal requirements
Planning Center Services already has song tags, arrangements, transposition and volunteer scheduling. Its SongSelect and PraiseCharts integrations may be important to your team. Stewara does not import those licensed charts or automatically submit CCLI reports.
See Planning Center’s Services features →Evaluate one service before migrating
Try the sample church, then add or import your own songs and add your people before planning and scheduling a real service during the trial. Stewara has no automatic Planning Center Services migration or live sync. Review your people export, households, giving history and chart rights before changing systems.
See exactly what can move →Need only a services planner? Compare Planning Center’s plan for your team size with Stewara’s full-suite price. Stewara is not automatically the cheaper choice. Need worship, people care and the books together? Compare the whole workflow and total cost.
Share with your church team →The sample uses prepared sermon themes. The trial’s set builder uses a theme you choose; automatic Scripture interpretation is not included.
What would your church keep?
Type what Planning Center costs you each month. Add what you pay for accounting software on top, if anything. We only do the subtraction; nothing you type leaves this page.
Stewara is $99/mo for the whole church, accounting included, or $990 a year.
Type your bill on the left and the difference shows here.
Stewara vs. Planning Center
Planning Center pricing and listed features checked September 12, 2026 from Planning Center Services, Planning Center integrations, planningcenter.com/pricing, Planning Center chord-chart help, Planning Center CCLI help. Prices change; if you spot something out of date, tell us and we'll correct it.
Check these requirements before switching. Your existing rehearsal workflow and integrations may matter more than a different way to build a set.
Chord charts and SongSelect
Services has a mature chart editor with number and numeral charts and licensed SongSelect and PraiseCharts imports. Stewara transposes live with capo shapes, but it does not import licensed charts.
Automatic CCLI reporting
Services reports to CCLI for you. Stewara closes out what you actually sang and hands you an auditable worksheet; automatic submission waits on CCLI's partner program.
A bigger integration ecosystem
Planning Center has an established third-party integration directory. If your church depends on a particular connection, check it with us before switching; Stewara does not promise compatibility with those integrations.
Sunday's giving, posted to real double-entry books with the fund and the gift it came from. Planning Center has no accounting product.
What you actually get for $99/mo
Build and compare complete sets
Choose purpose, theme and length. Review song-history and transition reasons, then adjust the keys on the plan.
See the actual planning exampleAccounting's already in the room
A real double-entry ledger — funds, budgets, bank reconciliation — included in Stewara, or $30/mo on its own. Planning Center has no accounting product at all.
See the ledgerOne price, not a stack of apps
Their bill grows with every app you add and every tier you cross. Ours has no per-module line and no tiers: $99/mo, flat, for the whole church, accounting included.
See flat pricingTwo-way texting, built in
Text your people and let them reply, in the same system. No separate texting product to buy or bolt on.
See CommsWhat moves, and what we'll tell you about first.
Send me your Planning Center export. I'll tell you what moves.
I'm David. I pastor Abounding Fellowship in Abilene, Texas, run its sound board on Sundays, and built Stewara after years of counting the offering and retyping it into accounting software that didn't know what a fund was. If you send your export, or just your questions, I'll go through it with you and tell you plainly whether Stewara fits your church, and what it would take to move.
Bring your Planning Center export with you.
Export your people as a CSV, upload it, and look at the mapping and duplicate review before a single record is written. Your 30-day trial is every module in the suite except Stewara Assistant, no card required. And Flock stays free whatever you decide.