PLANNING CENTER + MAILCHIMP

How the Planning Center Mailchimp integration works.

Planning Center sends churches to Mailchimp when an email goes past 500 people or needs more design. Here is what that connection does, where it stops, and when something built on Planning Center is simpler.

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Details from Planning Center’s help center, checked October 2026.

How it works

Four steps, set up once by an organization administrator.

Connect one account. In People, under Organization, Integrations, Add-ons. You need a Mailchimp login with manager permissions or higher, and you pick one Mailchimp audience for the whole church.

Sync a People list. Open a list, go to its settings, and choose Sync now. In Mailchimp it becomes a tag named after the list, inside that one audience.

Turn on the nightly re-sync. Otherwise the tag stays as it was the day you synced. With it on, people who left the list are taken off the tag overnight.

Build the email in Mailchimp. Planning Center hands over the names. The design, the content, and the send all happen in Mailchimp’s campaign editor.

Where it stops

None of these are bugs. It was built to hand names to Mailchimp, and it does that well.

One audience, a tag per list. One Mailchimp account and one audience per Planning Center organization. You sync lists one at a time, and each becomes a tag inside that audience.

Nightly at best. A synced list refreshes once a night if you turn on its re-sync switch. Otherwise it stays as it was the day you synced it.

People, not events. It syncs lists from People. Your Calendar and Registrations events stay in Planning Center, so the date, room, and sign-up link get typed into the email by hand.

A general-purpose editor. The email is built in Mailchimp’s campaign editor, which is made for every kind of business. An event block or a sermon card is something you design yourself.

Two tools. Planning Center for your people, Mailchimp for your email, each with its own login and its own plan.

When Mailchimp is the right call

Plenty of churches should keep the setup they have. Stay with it if you rely on automated welcome series, run A/B tests, sell things through Mailchimp, or send to a list that mostly lives outside Planning Center.

The same job, built on Planning Center

Butter is a church newsletter tool with Planning Center as its only integration. Here is how the same pieces work there.

Every list comes across. Turn on People sync and all of your People lists show up in Butter as audiences. Nothing to tag. Pick one or several when you send.

About every hour. Butter checks Planning Center for changes about once an hour, and Sync now is there for the minute before you send.

Events come across. Pick an event from Registrations or Calendar in the builder and it drops in with the date, time, place, image, and sign-up button. It is a copy, so you choose when to bring it in.

Read-only. Butter only reads from Planning Center. Nothing is ever written back, and the sync never resubscribes someone who has opted out.

The same names and email. Like Mailchimp’s integration, Butter brings across first name, last name, and email, plus a profile photo. Phone numbers and other fields stay in Planning Center.

Sections made for church. Announcements, events, sermons, ways to give. See all 21 sections, or read how the Planning Center sync works.

FAQs

If yours is not here, email us at support@butterhq.com.

Can I connect more than one Mailchimp audience to Planning Center?

No. Planning Center connects one Mailchimp account and one audience. Each list you sync becomes a tag inside that audience, and you can change which audience it points to from the same Add-ons page.

How often does Planning Center sync with Mailchimp?

When you choose Sync now, and then once a night if you turn on the re-sync switch for that list.

Does the integration sync phone numbers?

No. It carries first name, last name, and primary email address only.

What happens when someone unsubscribes in Mailchimp?

They stop getting email from every People list synced to Mailchimp, and a sync will not add them back. If an administrator unsubscribed them instead, the next sync resubscribes them.

Can I use Butter and Mailchimp at the same time?

Yes. Both read from Planning Center, so nothing has to be turned off first. Most churches overlap for a month. See switching from Mailchimp.

Does Butter write anything back to Planning Center?

No. Butter only reads from Planning Center. Unsubscribes are kept in Butter, and the hourly sync never adds back someone who has opted out.

Where does this information come from?

Planning Center’s own help articles, Enable the Mailchimp integration and Send an email with Mailchimp, read in October 2026. If something has changed, tell us and we will fix this page.

Try it on this week’s newsletter.

Free for 14 days. If your list is already in Planning Center, there is nothing to set up.

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