Thinking about leaving DanceStudio Pro? Read this first.
I'm James, half-owner of a dance studio. My wife runs the floor; I built the software. DSP and Presently are both built specifically for dance, so a comparison page that says "DSP is bad, switch to us" isn't honest. Here's the actual story.
If you're on DSP and considering a move, you have a specific reason. Let me help you decide if Presently is the right destination.
What DSP gets right
DSP has been around since the early 2000s and runs thousands of dance studios. They've earned that.
Genuinely dance-focused.
DSP isn't a generic class-business tool with dance bolted on. It was built for dance from day one, which shows up in the costume tools, the recital features, and the way they think about competition season.
Familiar to the dance industry.
Most dance studio owners have heard of DSP. Many of your studio peers may use it. That recognition has real value when you're picking software for a business that depends on it.
Mature integrations.
QuickBooks, Mailchimp, various accounting tools. If your studio runs on a specific stack of integrations, DSP probably has one. We have fewer — and we'll tell you which ones.
If those three things are why you stay, that's a reasonable decision. The rest of this page is for studios where something else is bothering them.
Where Presently is genuinely different
Four things we deliberately built differently. Not feature parity. Actual design decisions.
1. The family portal feels like 2026.
DSP's family portal works. It also looks like a circa-2010 web app. Studio parents are now used to interacting with software that feels like Stripe, Apple Wallet, or their kid's school's portal. When the dance studio portal feels visibly older than those, families notice — and they complain to the front desk.
Presently's family portal is a first-class product, not an afterthought. Parents can browse the public schedule without an account and click "Enroll" directly from a class card — we email them a one-click sign-in link, no password to remember or reset. Shopping-cart enrollment, optional live chat with the studio, clean payment flow. Parents don't email about how confusing it is.
2. No payment markup. Real Stripe rates.
DSP processes payments through a partner that takes a cut on top of Stripe's standard rate. The exact margin isn't published, but the math is "Stripe charges 2.9% + 30¢, DSP and their partner take their slice, you get the remainder."
Presently doesn't take any markup. You connect your own Stripe account. The 2.9% + 30¢ goes to Stripe; the rest goes to you. Over a $15K/month family-payments studio, the difference is real money — usually hundreds per month.
3. Recital lineup is the headline feature, not a side panel.
Both products have event tools. Presently's recital lineup editor is genuinely different: drag-to-reorder with live back-to-back conflict warnings (a student appears in two adjacent classes? You see a red badge immediately). Multi-show events with separate lineups for matinee and evening. Intermissions inline in the lineup. PDF and Excel exports with student lists per number.
We built this because every recital season at our studio used to start with a panic phone call: "the dressing-room assistant says Sarah has 90 seconds between numbers." Now we know weeks in advance.
4. Month-to-month, no annual lock-in.
DSP typically requires an annual commitment. Presently is month-to-month. If we stop earning your business, you stop paying us. We bet on retention through a quality product, not contract terms.
Side-by-side
Not a checkmark table. Real differences, in prose.
Pricing
Roughly $39–99/month tiered by student count. Payment processing fees on top, charged per transaction. Annual contracts typical.
$49, $99, or $149/month based on student count, auto-upgraded. No payment markup. No setup fees. Month-to-month.
User experience
Functional but visibly dated. Many studios train new front-desk staff with a printed manual.
Modern web app. New admins are productive in an hour. No printed manual needed.
Recital and event tools
Solid event management, costume tracking. Lineup management is workable but not the standout feature.
Drag-to-reorder lineup, automatic back-to-back warnings, multi-show events with intermissions, PDF and Excel exports including per-number rosters, missing-classes audit.
Support model
Phone, ticket, and help-center support. You'll typically reach a support rep first.
Email and chat support. I read every message personally. Trade-off: not 24/7, but you're talking to a studio owner, not a script.
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 DSP, 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 DSP 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 just stay on DSP?
If your team is fluent in DSP, your families don't complain about the portal, and you depend on a DSP integration we don't replicate, yes. Switch only if something specific is broken or expensive.
Can you import my DSP data?
Yes. Families, students, classes, enrollments, ledger history. DSP's export isn't standardized, so I usually clean up the CSV they generate and run the import myself. Free, part of onboarding.
What integrations do you have?
Stripe for payments. Twilio for SMS. Meilisearch for search. Standard email providers. If you depend on a specific DSP integration (QuickBooks, Mailchimp, etc.), tell me on a call — some we can build, some we can work around with exports, some are genuine blockers.
How small is your company?
Small. My wife and I run a dance studio; I'm the developer. 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. The trade-off: if I'm on vacation, response time slips. Eyes-open decision.
What if it doesn't work out?
Month-to-month, so you can cancel. We export your data cleanly. The only loss is the migration effort. I'd rather earn your business than trap you.
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.