DSP has been climbing in price without matching improvements. Studios I've talked to who leave usually cite the price-to-value ratio and the aging interface. If you're at that point, this is the practical guide.
I'm James. My wife and I run a dance studio; I built the software you're reading about. Straight-talk version: what to export, how long it takes, what to watch for.
DSP does costume management and competition workflows well. If those are the reasons you picked it and they're working for you, don't switch. The cost of leaving isn't worth losing tools that fit.
Reasons studios I've talked to have left DSP:
If most of these ring true, keep reading.
DSP has decent CSV exports. You'll want:
Reports → Family & Student → Family List and Student List. Export both to Excel. Combined they cover primary contact, email, phone, address, DOB, and family relationships.
Reports → Classes → Class List. Filter to active classes in your current and upcoming seasons. Includes teacher, room, day/time, tuition, and capacity.
Reports → Enrollment → Enrollment List. This is the student-to-class mapping. Filter to active enrollments for what's moving over.
DSP's costume tools are one of its strongest features, so if you're mid-costume-season, export your active orders. Presently's costume management add-on ($9/mo) can pick these up as commitments and route them through your existing vendor workflow.
Only needed if you're migrating mid-season with outstanding balances. Most studios cut over at a season boundary with everyone at zero.
Fastest path — one CSV with a row per student, family fields duplicated across siblings' rows. Presently deduplicates families automatically so you don't have to link families and students manually.
Supports weekly schedules and date-specific classes (camps, workshops, intensives). Rate groups are set on class types, so classes with the same tuition structure share a group and bill identically.
Import maps students to classes by name/email. An in-app resolution wizard handles ambiguous matches — you fix a handful once, and it remembers your choices for the rest of the batch.
Costume worksheets, vendor management, per-student measurements, commitments, and invoicing all included in the costume management add-on. Similar shape to what DSP does, cleaner UI.
For a 250-student studio:
A week if you spread it. A focused weekend if you're pushing.
DSP tuition is per-class. Presently groups classes by type into rate groups. Spend an hour deciding your groups (usually 3-6 covers most studios: Regular, Company, Preschool, Camps, Adult).
If costume orders are active when you migrate, plan for a hand-off. Presently's costume add-on will pick up commitments going forward, but active orders mid-flight need a manual reconciliation.
Payment methods don't migrate. Families have to add their card to Presently's family portal. Send a heads-up email — most families add a card within a week of their first Presently invoice.
Historical recital and competition programs are one-way — they don't come with you. If you need them for archive, export as PDFs from DSP first.
Two-week heads-up before cutover: "We're switching software. Portal URL is changing. You'll get an email with a magic link to set up your account. Class schedule and family data are moving with us."
A 250-student studio on DSP is typically paying $129-$199/month once base plus add-ons stack up.
Presently Professional ($99/mo) plus event management ($9), costume management ($9), and live chat ($9) if you want all three is $126/mo. Only turn on the add-ons you actually need.
Savings are real but modest — $30-$70/month. The bigger win is the recovered admin time from a UI that doesn't fight you.
Email me directly at hello@usepresently.com. I'll walk through your specific DSP setup on a call, help plan the migration, and be on-hand during the cutover if you want. No sales team.
Or start a free 30-day trial and kick the tires yourself.