Compare

Spreadsheets, but your team can actually follow up.

Most churches start with a Google Sheet to track guests through their next-steps pathway. It works — until it stops. Here's the honest comparison.

From our 2026 survey

8 of 23 churches we surveyed migrated to OnArk directly from spreadsheet-based tracking. Most named the same breaking point: it didn't scale past one person manually entering data.

Side by side

What you get with each option.

What you needSpreadsheetsOnArk
Free to start
Google Sheets
Free until you publish
Guest fills it out themselves
Staff transcribes by hand
Self-serve via shareable link
Automatic Planning Center sync
Copy-paste, often weekly
Native PCO integration
DISC / Spiritual Gifts assessments
Manual scoring
Auto-calculated results
Hand-off to the right pastor
Email chain
Automations route to PCO Workflows
Resumable for guests across visits
30-day session reuse
Custom branding
On all paid plans
Works for a one-person operation
Easy at small scale
Free tier handles it
Scales past 50 weekly guests
Manual entry breaks
All check-ins automatic

We were growing but seeing people fall through the cracks. We moved Growth Track online — our serve team doubled in a few months.

BobbyDiscipleship/Next Steps · MyLife Church
Honest take

When each one's actually right.

Stick with spreadsheets if

You're a single pastor at a small church plant with under 20 weekly guests, you've never used PCO, and the spreadsheet still feels manageable on a Sunday afternoon. There's nothing wrong with that — most growth tracks start there.

Switch to OnArk if

More than one person needs to follow up. You already use Planning Center. You've started losing track of who's where on the pathway. You want guests to actually finish assessments instead of you transcribing answers from a paper form.

Try it free

See what changes in 30 minutes.

Free until you publish to your church. No credit card. Same playbook your sister churches used.