VBS registration without paying summer prices all year

Bump the Planning Center Registrations tier before VBS signups open, run registration through Church Center, then drop the tier back down in August. Planning Center's own help docs endorse the seasonal flex. Expect duplicate family profiles and merge them in an August cleanup.

By Caleb Brooks · Published September 2026· Editorial standards · Conflict of interest

Field guide page: steps and costs from hands-on church-tech work, written under a pen name. Church names stay private. See how we write and verify.

What are the exact steps?

Bump the Registrations tier before signups open
Planning Center Registrations is priced in tiers by registration count, and their own help docs tell you to flex the tier seasonally. The tier goes up before VBS signup opens, not after the first family gets turned away. Put the upgrade on the administrator calendar the same week curriculum deposits are due.
Open registration in Church Center with clear household instructions
Families register in the Church Center app. Ask one household adult to register all kids under one email when possible. You will still get duplicates. Saying it out loud reduces some of them and sets expectations for the August cleanup.
Watch capacity and volunteer needs weekly while signup runs
Pull a simple count each Monday: registrations vs. room caps vs. screened volunteers. VBS week fails from adults short as often as from forms. Tie Check-Ins headcount planning to the same Monday glance.
Drop the tier back down in August; calendar it
The whole trick is remembering to come back down. One year this church paid the June price through October. The downgrade date goes on the calendar when the upgrade does, not when someone notices the bill. Confirm the new tier on the invoice the next month.
Merge the duplicate families in August
A proper duplicate cleanup in Planning Center People every August merges the grandma-email and mom-email households while the summer's registrations are still fresh. Budget an afternoon. It is a data problem, not a discipline problem.
Archive the event and note what to change next spring
Archive the registration event so old links stop collecting stragglers. Write three notes for next year: tier dates, volunteer cliff weeks, and any form fields that confused families. Keep the notes where the administrator will find them in March.

Which tools does this church use?

Planning Center Registrations Forms
Runs VBS signup through Church Center. Priced in tiers by registration count; the tier goes up for June and back down in August.
tiered; the one Planning Center product whose price swings
Church Center Communication
Where families actually register.
$0 (included)
Planning Center People Church database (ChMS)
Where August duplicate family merges happen after grandma-email and mom-email signups.
$0 (free tier)

Common questions

Can you change Planning Center pricing tiers seasonally?

Yes. Planning Center's own help docs endorse flexing tiers seasonally. This church bumps Registrations for VBS in June and drops it back down in August. The year they forgot, they paid the June price through October.

Why does VBS registration create duplicate family profiles?

Because more than one family member registers the same kids: grandma under her email, then mom under hers. Expect it, and schedule a merge cleanup in August.

What else should you calendar with the tier upgrade?

The downgrade date. Schedule both on the same day you raise the tier. This church learned that the upgrade is exciting and the downgrade is forgettable until the invoice reminds you.

Before you start

You need Planning Center Registrations admin rights, Church Center publishing access, and calendar permission that the treasurer or administrator will actually see. Read Planning Center’s current tier table the week you plan signup dates. Write upgrade and downgrade events as a pair. Brief campus kids directors that duplicate profiles are expected, not a moral failure of grandparents who register early.

Why they built it

VBS in June is the biggest week of this church’s year, and Registrations is the one Planning Center product whose price swings. It is tiered by registration count. Paying the summer tier year-round is the default failure mode, and they have lived it: one year the June price ran through October.

The fix is a calendar entry, not a contract. The tier goes up before signups open and comes back down in August, with the downgrade scheduled at the same time as the upgrade. The duplicate family profiles get the same treatment: expected, scheduled, cleaned up every August instead of discovered in December when membership reports look inflated.

What they’d do differently

Nothing structural. The rhythm works. The adjacent lesson from the same administrator: read your contracts before they auto-renew, and do not give every ministry leader admin rights in People. The August duplicate cleanup is the piece they would tell another church not to skip. They would also publish one “who should register the kids” line on the Church Center event earlier; it reduces some doubles without pretending they vanish.

Monday checklist

During signup season: Monday count of registrations vs. caps vs. volunteers.
Confirm the Registrations tier still matches expected volume.
After VBS: confirm the August downgrade calendar event still exists.
August: drop the tier and verify the next invoice.
August: merge duplicate households in People (grandma email vs. mom email).
Archive the event and file three notes for next March.

Common mistakes

Raising the tier after families already hit a cap error.
Forgetting to schedule the downgrade when you schedule the upgrade.
Treating duplicate profiles as parental failure instead of expected data work.
Leaving the registration event open into fall.
Skipping People cleanup until year-end ACP season.

Field note after four months of June pricing

One year nobody dropped the Registrations tier after VBS. October’s invoice still looked like June. The administrator put recurring calendar events labeled “Registrations DOWN” on the same day she created “Registrations UP.” The second event is the one that saves money.

Field note after grandma and mom both registered

The same three kids appeared twice under two emails. Check-In volunteers sorted it with grace during VBS week, then August cleanup merged the households properly. Expecting duplicates kept the hallway calm. Pretending it would not happen would have made volunteers blame families.

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