Your Ministry Plans Events Every Week. Your Tools Should Keep Up.
Ripluo gives you one place for every event detail: timelines, checklists, and tasks, easy to find and ready to use. Plan VBS, the Christmas production, and the men's retreat once, then save each one so next year's team starts from what worked.
No credit card required.
Sound Familiar?
Pulling off a great ministry event means tracking a hundred moving details. Without a system built for it, they scatter across notes, spreadsheets, and a dozen apps.
Starting from scratch every single time
VBS, retreats, conferences, volunteer appreciation dinners, holiday productions, missions trips. Each one needs a timeline, a checklist, a budget, and a volunteer roster. Nothing carries over from last year, so every team rebuilds what the last team already figured out.
The plan lives with one person, and then that person is out
Details sit in email threads, a shared doc, a group text, and somebody's notebook. When the coordinator is out sick or steps down, nobody can find the run of show, the vendor contacts, or the volunteer assignments.
Your church software runs Sunday, not the production
Planning Center is excellent at the weekly rhythm: people, giving, check-ins, worship services, room booking, and registrations. A Christmas production or a 300-person retreat is a different animal. Load-in, caterers, AV rentals, a real budget, and a minute-by-minute run of show with a dozen teams all need somewhere to live.
The Free Tools Are Not Free
A shared doc and a group text cost nothing in dollars and everything in re-work. Nothing carries forward, volunteers cannot see their part without scrolling a thread, and the plan walks out the door with whoever built it. Ripluo holds the run of show, the volunteers, the vendors, and the budget in one place, then saves the whole event as a template so next year's team starts from what worked. It sits alongside the church software you already run rather than replacing it.
See How Much You Could Save
Enter your current tool costs and see your potential savings with Ripluo.
Why Ripluo Works for Churches
Last Year's VBS Becomes This Year's Starting Point
Save any event as a template and the schedule, checklist, budget categories, and task list come with it. Ministry teams turn over constantly. The template is how what your church learned stays with your church instead of leaving with a volunteer.
Vendors and Budget in One Place, Per Event
Caterers, AV and lighting rentals, printers, bus companies. Track who is booked and what they cost on the event itself, with estimated against actual so you can hand leadership a real number instead of a guess assembled the week after.
Every Volunteer Team Sees Their Part, Not Everyone Else's
Attach instructions to the exact moment they belong to. Setup crew, hospitality, check-in, tech, and parking each see what they own and when. Share a read-only link or a printed PDF, so nobody needs an account to know where to be.
Tools That Match How Ministry Events Actually Run
Built for a calendar that repeats every year, run by staff and volunteers who are already stretched.
Event Templates
Save VBS, the Christmas production, and the annual retreat. Next year's team edits a proven plan instead of starting from a blank page.
Dynamic Run of Show
Worship runs eight minutes long. Change one duration and every block after it shifts on its own, from the message to the dismissal to teardown.
Volunteer Coordination
Public signup pages, role assignments, and per-moment instructions so setup, hospitality, tech, and parking all know their part.
Vendor Management
Track caterers, AV and lighting rentals, printers, and buses with quotes and confirmations in one place so nobody double books.
Budget Tracking
Estimated against actual by category, so leadership sees where the ministry budget went without you rebuilding a spreadsheet.
Task & Checklist Management
Assign the supply runs, the printing, and the permission forms with owners and due dates, so nothing lands on one person the night before.
Ripluo vs a Shared Doc and a Group Text
| Feature | Docs + group text | Ripluo |
|---|---|---|
| Costs nothing to start | Free | Free plan, no card |
| Everyone sees the same run of show | If someone remembers to update it | One live plan |
| Times update when one thing moves | Retype every row | Recalculates automatically |
| Each volunteer team sees only their part | Instructions per moment | |
| Vendor tracking in one place | Scattered across inboxes | On the event itself |
| Volunteer signup and roles | Public signup pages | |
| Budget leadership can review | A separate spreadsheet | Estimated vs actual |
| Reuse it next year | If you can find the file | Save as a template |
| Survives the coordinator stepping down | The plan stays with the church |
Frequently Asked Questions
Stop Rebuilding the Same Event Every Year.
Plan it once in Ripluo, save it as a template, and hand next year's team a real starting point. Works alongside the church software you already run. Free to start, no credit card.
No credit card required. Free plan available forever.