Thinking about leaving Class Manager? Here's an honest comparison.
I'm James, half-owner of a dance studio. My wife runs the floor; I built Presently. Class Manager has earned a strong reputation in the UK and Australia, and a lot of academies run on it just fine. The studios most likely to leave are the ones whose enrollment structure has outgrown a uniform per-student billing model. Academies with full-time, part-time, after-school, and associate programs running side by side.
If "we have a lot of unique enrolment setups" sounds familiar, this page is for you.
What Class Manager gets right
Class Manager isn't a bad product. Here's what they do well.
Strong UK and Australia footprint.
Class Manager is widely used across UK and AU dance studios. Industry recognition matters, especially when you're picking software for a business that depends on it. Other academy owners have probably heard of it.
Solid for a single-track studio.
If your studio runs one main enrollment pattern (for example, term-based tuition across recreational classes), Class Manager handles that cleanly. The billing engine is mature.
Established support team.
Class Manager has a real support operation with hours that cover the UK and AU markets. We're a small team without that depth, and we'll be upfront about it.
Where Presently is genuinely different
Where Presently is built differently, especially for academies with multiple program tracks:
1. Billing overrides at three levels.
Class Manager's billing engine assumes all enrollments at a class follow the same rule. For an academy with Full-Time Pro students paying a flat program fee, Part-Time students on a different cadence, and after-school children on per-week tuition, this becomes a manual workaround every billing cycle.
Presently has overrides at three levels: per-class tuition for specific students, per-billing-session adjustments, and family-wide tuition caps. A Full-Time Pro student and an after-school sibling can share a family ledger with completely different enrollment rules, with no manual reconciliation each month.
2. Payment plans attached to enrollments, not families.
Most studio software (Class Manager included) treats a payment plan as a family-level setting. Useful when everyone in a household is on the same payment cadence; awkward when the Full-Time Pro 14-year-old needs an 11-month annual plan and the recreational little sibling is on monthly term billing.
Presently attaches payment plans to specific enrollments. Different programs in the same family can use entirely different payment cadences without fighting the system.
3. No payment processing markup.
Class Manager processes payments through their integrated partner and adds a margin on top of the underlying processor's rate. Over a busy month at an academy with full-time tuition fees, this difference adds up to hundreds of pounds or dollars.
Presently uses Stripe Connect directly. You connect your own Stripe account and pay Stripe's standard rate (around 1.75% + AUD$0.30 for AU domestic, 1.5% + 20p for UK domestic, 2.9% + 30¢ for US domestic) plus a small Presently platform fee that drops as you grow (1.5% up to 100 students, 1.25% up to 500, 1.0% beyond that) — itemized on every receipt. Two published numbers, not one opaque margin.
4. Recital and showcase lineup tools built in.
Class Manager handles classes and billing well; events and showcases are a secondary concern. If your academy runs end-of-year showcases, associate performances, or graduation events, Class Manager's lineup tools won't catch back-to-back conflicts automatically.
Presently's lineup editor: drag-to-reorder, automatic conflict warnings when a student appears in two adjacent pieces without enough costume-change time, multi-show events with separate matinee and evening lineups, PDF and Excel exports including per-number student rosters. The kind of tool that saves you the night-before-recital panic phone call.
5. Month-to-month, not annual lock-in.
Class Manager typically requires an annual contract. Presently is month-to-month. If we stop earning your business, you stop paying us. We bet on retention through a quality product rather than contract terms.
Side-by-side
Not a checkmark table. Real differences, in prose.
Best fit
Single-track community dance studios with uniform enrollment patterns and term-based tuition. Strong UK/AU footprint.
Multi-track studios and academies (full-time, part-time, recreational, associates) where different students need different billing rules in the same family.
Pricing
Tiered subscription, typically £30–80/month or AUD equivalent, with payment processing fees added on top. Annual contracts standard.
$49 USD/month, flat, for every studio. Tiered Presently platform fee on Stripe transactions — 1.5% up to 100 students, 1.25% up to 500, 1.0% beyond that — itemized on every receipt. No setup fees. Month-to-month. Multi-currency billing supported.
Billing flexibility
Class-level tuition and family-level payment plans. Different rules per enrollment require manual workarounds.
Three layers of override: per-class for specific students, per-billing-session adjustments, family-wide caps. Payment plans attached to individual enrollments.
Recital and event tools
Basic event tracking. Not built around recital season as a primary use case.
Drag-to-reorder lineup editor with automatic back-to-back conflict warnings, multi-show events, intermissions, PDF and Excel exports. (Event Management add-on, $9/mo.)
Support model
Phone, email, and help-center support. UK/AU business hours coverage.
Email and chat. I read every message personally. Not 24/7, but you're talking to a working studio owner.
What switching actually looks like
Migrating studio software is real work. Here's how we'd handle it:
A 30-minute call.
Not a sales demo. What's working in Class Manager, what's broken, what scares you about switching.
Migration during a quiet stretch.
Not during recital, not during enrollment. Usually late summer or mid-winter. I run the data import personally.
Parallel run before cutover.
Keep Class Manager available read-only for 30 days while Presently is primary. We fix anything missing before the full switch.
Extended trial if you need it.
Standard trial is 30 days. I'll extend it on a case-by-case basis. Nobody should be racing a clock.
Questions worth asking
Should I stay on Class Manager?
If you're a single-track studio with uniform recreational enrollment and your team is comfortable with Class Manager, probably yes. The case to switch gets stronger when you're running multiple program tracks (full-time, part-time, recreational, associates) where the billing rules diverge per enrollment, or when payment processing fees on top of Stripe have started to feel meaningful.
Do you support Australian and UK studios?
Yes. Multi-currency billing (AUD, GBP, USD, EUR), local Stripe Connect accounts, and timezone configuration are all supported. GST and VAT handling work on Stripe's standard rails. Before committing, we'd verify your specific tax setup on a call.
Can you import my Class Manager data?
Yes. We don't have an auto-import for Class Manager today; our data import tool is built to be straightforward, and if you'd prefer hands-on help I'm happy to personally assist with the migration. Most academies use CSV exports from Class Manager and we map them into Presently together.
How small is your company?
Small. My wife and I run a dance studio in the US; I'm the developer behind Presently. The product is real, mature, and serves multiple studios, but you're not buying from a 100-person company. The advantage: I ship features fast and respond directly. The trade-off: not 24/7 phone support. Eyes-open decision.
What if it doesn't work out?
Month-to-month, cancel anytime. We export your data cleanly. The only loss is the migration effort. I'd rather earn your business than trap you in a contract.
Want to talk it through?
The best next step isn't signing up — it's a 30-minute call with me to see if Presently actually fits. Two studio owners comparing notes.