THE SHORT ANSWER
There are four ways. Planning Center People can email a list itself, which suits short, plain messages. For a designed newsletter, connect an email tool that reads your People lists: Planning Center’s Mailchimp integration, or one built for Planning Center churches, like Flowforth or Butter. Which fits depends on whether you need automations, events in the email, or ready-made church sections.
The four ways, side by side
| Planning Center People | Mailchimp integration | Flowforth | Butter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who it’s for | Short, plain emails to a list | Churches already on Mailchimp | Churches that want automations | Churches that want a designed weekly newsletter |
| Your lists | Sends to People lists directly | One audience; each list you sync becomes a tag | Sends to People lists, read at send time | Every People list becomes an audience, checked about hourly |
| Events | No | No | Registrations, Groups, and Calendar | Registrations and Calendar |
| Design | Plain templates | Mailchimp’s general editor | Drag-and-drop blocks and templates | Ready-made church sections |
| Automations | Emails on form or serving actions | Mailchimp’s own | Multi-step, triggered by lists and forms | No |
| Priced by | Included in People | Mailchimp contacts | Emails sent, from $19 a month for 5,000 | Contacts, from $20 a month for 500 |
Checked October 2026 against each product’s own pages. Plans and features change, so confirm before you switch.
1. Email from Planning Center People
People can send an email to a list straight from Planning Center, with saved templates for the messages you send often. It can also send an email automatically when someone takes an action, like filling out a form. Every email is logged on the person’s profile.
Good for: a quick note to a small team or a list that needs to hear something today.
Where it stops: Planning Center’s own help center points you to Mailchimp when you’re emailing more than 500 people or need more formatting than its templates offer (Planning Center help).
2. Planning Center’s Mailchimp integration
Connect one Mailchimp account and one audience, then sync People lists one at a time. Each list becomes a tag inside that audience and can refresh once a night. You build and send the email in Mailchimp.
Good for: churches that already use Mailchimp and want its marketing features.
Where it stops: it carries first name, last name, and email only, and your Calendar and Registrations events stay behind in Planning Center. The full details are in how the Planning Center Mailchimp integration works.
3. Flowforth (formerly Church Space)
An email platform built for churches on Planning Center. It sends to your People lists, reading the latest membership when you hit send, and pulls Registrations, Groups, and Calendar events into emails. It has multi-step automations triggered by Planning Center lists and forms, merge tags for custom fields, and can post an email to Church Center as an announcement. It is priced by emails sent, from $19 a month for 5,000, with unlimited contacts, and it requires Planning Center (Flowforth pricing).
Good for: churches that want automations, like a visitor welcome sequence, alongside their newsletter.
4. Butter
A newsletter tool with Planning Center as its only integration. Every People list shows up as an audience, Butter checks for changes about every hour, and you can sync on demand before you send. Events come in from Registrations and Calendar with the date, place, image, and sign-up button. The email is built from ready-made church sections: featured events, sermons, a map, ways to give, a campaign progress bar, and more. It reads from Planning Center and never writes back. Pricing is by contacts, from $20 a month for 500, with unlimited sends.
Good for: the person who sends the weekly newsletter and wants it to look designed without designing it each week.
Where it stops: no automations, and no Groups. If you need a welcome sequence, Planning Center People can send those, and there are templates for them here.
See five real Butter emails, or how the Planning Center sync works.
Which one to pick
- A few plain emails a month: Planning Center People. It’s already paid for.
- Already on Mailchimp, using its automations or ads: keep the Mailchimp integration.
- Automations and follow-up sequences matter most: Flowforth.
- A designed weekly newsletter with events and sermons, in little time: Butter.
Whichever you choose, the basics of a newsletter people read are the same. Our guide to writing a church newsletter covers them.
