Thinking about leaving Studio Pro? Read this first.
I'm James, half-owner of a dance studio. My wife runs the floor; I built the software. Studio Pro (formerly DanceStudio-Pro) and Presently are both built specifically for dance, so a comparison page that says "Studio Pro is bad, switch to us" isn't honest. Here's the actual story.
If you're on Studio Pro and considering a move — or if you're an Akada studio being migrated over and deciding whether to stay — this page is for you. Let me help you decide if Presently is the right destination.
Coming from Akada?
Akada is shutting down and migrating its studios over to Studio Pro. If you're one of those studios, you're already going through the disruption of moving software. This is the moment to look around before you commit to the default destination.
We wrote a page specifically for Akada studios: The Akada Studio's Guide to Picking What's Next →
What Studio Pro gets right
DanceStudio-Pro has been around since the early 2000s and runs thousands of dance studios. The rebrand to Studio Pro doesn't change the underlying product — they've earned that customer base.
Genuinely dance-focused.
Studio Pro 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 Studio Pro (or the old DSP name). 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, Studio Pro probably has one. We have fewer — and we'll tell you which ones.
Absorbing the Akada base.
Studio Pro has infrastructure and support capacity to take on an entire vendor's customer base at once. That's a real thing — it means they have the resources to keep operating.
If those 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
Five things we deliberately built differently. Not feature parity. Actual design decisions.
1. The family portal feels like 2026.
Studio Pro'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. Transparent payment processing.
Studio Pro processes payments through a partner that takes a cut on top of Stripe's standard rate. The exact margin isn't published, which makes side-by-side math hard.
Presently uses Stripe Connect directly: Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ on cards (or 0.8% capped at $5 on ACH) 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 — every line itemized on the receipt. No hidden partners, no surprise margin.
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.
Studio Pro 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.
5. Tuition posts itself.
The workflow inherited from DSP-style products: open the Tuition & Statements screen every month, click Post Tuition to Accounts, pick "Monthly Tuition" from a dropdown, type a memo like "September 2026 Tuition," set a due date, click Post. Every studio. Every first of the month. If someone forgets, autopay silently doesn't run.
In Presently, tuition posts automatically from the billing session schedule you set once at the start of the season. Every month's charges land at midnight on the posting date and autopay picks them up the same morning. Nothing to remember on the first, nothing to click, nothing to forget.
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/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. 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.
Monthly tuition posting
Manual, every first of the month. Open Tuition & Statements, Post Tuition to Accounts, pick "Monthly Tuition," type the memo, set the due date, click Post. If nobody remembers, autopay doesn't run.
Automatic. Billing session scheduled once when the season is created. Every month's charges post at midnight on the scheduled date and autopay follows the same morning.
Support model
Phone, ticket, and help-center support. You'll typically reach a support rep first. Absorbing the Akada base will likely stretch that team in the near term.
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 Studio Pro, 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 Studio Pro 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 Studio Pro?
If your team is fluent in Studio Pro, your families don't complain about the portal, and you depend on a Studio Pro integration we don't replicate, yes. Switch only if something specific is broken or expensive.
I'm an Akada studio being migrated. Should I let Studio Pro absorb me or shop around?
Shop around. You're already going through the pain of a migration — this is the one moment where the switching cost is genuinely zero either way. Studio Pro is the default because it's convenient, not because it's the best fit. Look at 2–3 options with a 30-minute call each before committing.
Can you import my Studio Pro data?
Yes. Families, students, classes, enrollments, ledger history. Studio Pro's export isn't standardized, so I usually clean up the CSV they generate and run the import myself. Free, part of onboarding.
Can you import my Akada data too?
Yes — see the Akada migration page for the specifics on which Akada exports we handle.
What integrations do you have?
Stripe for payments. Twilio for SMS. Meilisearch for search. Standard email providers. If you depend on a specific Studio Pro 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.