Running dance or music on Gymdesk? Read this first.
I'm James, half-owner of a dance studio. Gymdesk is excellent for gyms, martial arts, and fitness — its native business model. When dance or music studios adopt Gymdesk, it's usually because nothing else jumped out. Presently was built specifically for studios that put on recitals and bill term tuition.
If Gymdesk feels like it's working against the way your studio operates, here's a clear comparison.
What Gymdesk gets right
Gymdesk is genuinely great for its target market.
Membership management.
Gymdesk handles month-to-month memberships, drop-ins, and contract tracking. Strong for gym and martial-arts operations.
Belt tracking for martial arts.
Belt/rank progression, attendance-driven advancement, testing schedules — Gymdesk thinks about these natively.
Solid mobile experience.
For gym-style businesses where members check in at the door, Gymdesk's mobile flow is well-thought-out.
Where Presently is genuinely different
Where Presently is built differently because the customer is different:
1. Term tuition vs membership billing.
Gymdesk charges memberships month-to-month, indefinitely, with optional contracts. Dance and music studios charge term tuition — "$95/month for Ballet Intermediate, August through May" — and the billing structure includes sibling discounts, family caps, holiday-aware proration, and registration fees. Presently is built for this.
2. Recital lineup tools.
Gymdesk has no recital management. Why would it? Gyms don't have year-end performances. Dance and music studios do. Presently's recital lineup editor — drag-to-reorder, automatic conflict warnings, multi-show events, intermissions, PDF/Excel exports — is one of our headline features.
3. Costume management.
Costume worksheets, vendor tracking, instructor measurement collection, family commitments. Gymdesk has no native costume workflow. Presently has a full one (as a $9/mo add-on) because every dance studio's recital season hinges on costume logistics.
4. Family-level data, not individual member.
Gymdesk structures around the individual member. Families with multiple kids end up with multiple accounts and fragmented billing. Presently centers on the family: one login, all students, one ledger, automatic sibling discounts.
Side-by-side
Not a checkmark table. Real differences, in prose.
Built for
Gyms, martial arts schools, fitness studios. Membership model.
Dance studios, music academies, performing-arts schools. Term tuition model with recital/event focus.
Pricing
Tiered by member count, roughly $75–$200+/month. Payment processing fees on top.
$49, $99, or $149/month by student tier. No payment markup. Month-to-month.
Recital and event tools
None.
Full recital lineup editor, conflict warnings, multi-show events, PDF/Excel exports. (Event Management add-on, $9/mo.)
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 Gymdesk, 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 Gymdesk 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 Gymdesk?
If you also operate a gym or fitness side of the business, Gymdesk might be the right hub for that. If your studio is dance or music specifically, Presently will feel more native.
Can you import my Gymdesk data?
Yes. Members, payment history, attendance. I clean up the CSV and run the import personally.
What about martial arts ranking/belt features?
Honest answer: Presently doesn't have native belt tracking. We have a flexible Skills system that can approximate it, but if rank progression with testing windows is core to your operation, Gymdesk's native handling is probably better.
How small is your company?
Small. My wife and I run a dance studio; I'm the developer.
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.