Skedda is great at room booking. But you probably need more.
I'm James, half-owner of a dance studio. Skedda is a clean, focused tool that does exactly one thing: room booking with conflict prevention. We use Skedda-style tools at our own studio. The question is whether you should be paying for studio management software and Skedda separately, or one system that does both.
This page is for studios who use Skedda for instructor room bookings while running their group classes, billing, and family communication somewhere else.
What Skedda gets right
Skedda is excellent at its specific job.
Clean, simple room scheduling.
Define your spaces, let instructors book them, prevent double-bookings. Skedda's interface for this is genuinely minimal and pleasant.
Recurring bookings work well.
Weekly privates that need to claim Studio B every Tuesday at 4pm — Skedda handles that without fuss.
Affordable for what it is.
Skedda's pricing is reasonable for the scope of the product. The question isn't whether Skedda is overpriced — it's whether you should be paying it alongside other studio software.
Where Presently is genuinely different
The real question with Skedda isn't "is it good?" — it's "is it the whole picture?" Most dance and music studios discover they need more.
1. Skedda doesn't know about your class schedule.
Most dance studios run group classes in the same rooms instructors book for privates. Skedda has no idea your "Ballet Intermediate" group class meets in Studio A every Monday at 4pm — so it'll happily let an instructor book a private during class time, and you discover the conflict the day-of.
Presently knows your class schedule because it manages your classes. Room booking automatically blocks slots used by group classes. One source of truth.
2. Two systems, two logins, two bills.
Right now you're probably running Skedda for privates + Jackrabbit/DSP/etc. for group classes, billing, and families. That's two subscriptions, two interfaces for your instructors to log into, and zero data flow between them. Presently absorbs both into one platform with no double-entry.
3. Studio visibility into privates.
With Skedda, the studio admin sees that "Studio B is booked at 4pm" but not who's using it or for what. Presently lets instructors link the booking to a specific student (existing or new), so the studio admin can see at a glance: "Miss Amelia, Studio B, Tue 4pm, privates with Sarah Johnson." Reporting becomes possible: which families use the rooms most, which times are busiest, which studios sit empty.
4. The privates billing relationship stays simple.
Common pattern: instructors collect lesson fees directly from students and pay the studio for room time. Presently respects that — privates billing stays outside the system, and the room booking is purely informational. We're not trying to take a cut of a relationship that doesn't belong to us.
Side-by-side
Not a checkmark table. Real differences, in prose.
Scope
Room booking and conflict prevention. Nothing else.
Full studio management: classes, families, students, billing, recital lineup, communications, instructor portal, and room booking — one platform.
Class schedule awareness
Doesn't know about your group classes. Manual entry of recurring blocks required.
Group class schedule auto-blocks rooms. Update one place, both privates and group classes respect it.
Pricing
Roughly $50–100/month for a typical studio. Plus whatever you pay for your studio management software separately.
$49/month, flat, for every studio — includes room booking, group classes, billing, family portal, instructor portal, communications. No second subscription needed.
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 Skedda, 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 Skedda 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 keep Skedda for room booking and use Presently for the rest?
You could, but you'd lose the main advantage: a unified schedule. The Skedda-plus-something setup means your group classes and privates live in different systems, with no awareness of each other. Doubling up creates the conflicts both tools are supposed to prevent.
Does Presently really do everything Skedda does?
For studio room booking, yes: multiple rooms, conflict prevention, recurring bookings, instructor and admin access. We don't have Skedda's broader use cases (coworking spaces, meeting rooms in non-studio businesses), but for a dance or music studio, Presently covers the workflow.
Can you import my Skedda bookings?
Yes. Skedda exports CSV; I clean it up and import recurring booking patterns into Presently. Free, part of onboarding.
What if my instructors handle private-lesson billing themselves?
That's fine. Presently keeps private-lesson billing completely outside the system. The room booking is just a calendar — no invoices, no charges, no payment processing. The studio gets visibility into room usage; the instructor and student handle the financial side independently.
How small is your company?
Small. My wife and I run a dance studio; I'm the developer. The product is real and mature.
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.