The Best Dance Studio Software [2025]: A Guide to Choosing

It’s just too much. 

You’re constantly working to attract and retain new students. You’ve got to cover the growing expenses (e.g., rent, utilities, salaries, etc.). Then there’s facility upkeep and maintenance—you’re responsible for all of the work that needs to be done at your studio. 

Let’s not forget about customer service. 

All of the student, parent, vendor, and partner complaints come to you. 

It’s a lot. 

It’s too much for most dance studio owners to manage on their own, over the long term. As your business grows, you’ll need to rely on the Four Ps to help your business grow. 

What your Dance Studio Needs to Grow

If you’re like most dance studio owners, you opened your studio doors because of your love for dance. Maybe you’re a dancer or former performer who desires to teach and inspire others. 

What’s standing in your way? 

Your gym operations. If you want to continue to teach, lead, and guide your dancers, you’ll need to manage the day-to-day tasks on your own. At first, this isn’t so difficult; most of the work can be done manually. As your gym grows, this becomes much more difficult. 

At some point, you’re going to need help. 

If you want stable growth for your dance studio, you’ll need to lean on the Four Ps for help. 

1. People: You need to bring the right team in to support your vision—competent, highly skilled instructors who will help to grow your studio. 
2. Product: Software acts as a guardrail for your business. The right software tool will handle the day-to-day operations. Your website, booking, marketing, attendance, billing, memberships, point-of-sale, and facility access. Systematize your operations, and suddenly you find you have more free time and you’re making more. 
3. Process: What happens when a customer’s credit card expires or their payments are consistently  declined? Who’s responsible for reaching out to prospects and booking appointments? You’ll need a series of workflows outlining who does what, when, why, and how. 
4. Performance: Which metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) are most important for the success and long-term growth of your gym? It’s easier to find success if you know what it looks like. If you have a clear idea of the metrics and KPIs you want to improve (e.g., conversion rate), you have a clear plan of action. 

Today, we’ll look at how software can help you manage the day-to-day operations at your dance studio. We’ll focus on answering a simple question. Which dance studio software is best for your business? We’ll take a closer look at: 

1. Gymdesk
2. JackRabbit Dance
3. Wellness Living
4. Studio Lab
5. Studio Director
6. Spark 

Are you ready? Let’s dive in. 

#1. Gymdesk: The Best Dance Studio Software for Growing Revenue 

Founded in 2016, Gymdesk is built and maintained by former training studio owners and technology professionals just like you. They understand the unique challenges of running a studio, and they know how hard it is to keep the lights on and your business afloat.

As a platform, Gymdesk is focused on helping your business do a few things well. 

1. Keep your students happy
2. Keep your employees happy 
3. Increase the number of students and revenue your dance studio brings in
4. Help you retain your members

Gymdesk isn’t focused on building the largest platform; they’re focused on creating a platform that increases revenue and helps your dance studio grow. Look at the team behind Gymdesk—they’re professionals skilled at driving revenue, demand generation, and growth. 

Gymdesk: Features at a Glance

• Automatically track and manage students, leads, and payments at your gym
• Students can pre-book classes, giving dance instructors an idea of who will attend classes that day
• Email marketing tools handle broadcast, autoresponder, and automation sequences
• Gymdesk integrates with facility access tools, giving you complete control over who has access to your dance studio and when
• Integrated attendance tracker confirms and manages student headcounts. Students can check in instantly using a 4-digit code, name search, barcode, or QR code
• Check in multiple students/members at once with mass check-in. Use attendance tracker to track member check-ins, staff attendance logging, and recording classes and services members use
• Students can use their mobile devices as digital keys. Give your students remote access and run your gym 24/7 without needing additional support staff. 
• With facility access tools, you can monitor the activity at the gym via closed-circuit video cameras

Gymdesk: Pros and Cons

• Gymdesk is designed to help dance studios generate more revenue via direct marketing and sales tools 
• Their platform is intuitive and works with the tools and apps you’re already using to run your school
• Gymdesk has a really simple interface; their platform is easy to learn and easy to use
• Customer service teams are incredibly helpful and supportive
• Provides true A to Z operations support: control your website, marketing, bookings, payment processing, and even facility access from a single platform
• Has all of the features you need to manage your dance studio and none of the bloat
• Their website builder is limited and somewhat restrictive
• Performance reporting is limited 
• Settings can be hard to find

Gymdesk Reviews 

• 4.8/5 star rating on Capterra (143 reviews total) 
• 4.8/5 star rating on G2 (21 reviews total)
• 6.7/10 score via Google Reviews 
• 4.2/5 star rating via Secret (42 reviews total)

Gymdesk Pricing 

• Micro $75 per mo. 
• Small Gym $100 per mo.
• Medium Gym $150 per mo.
• Large Gym $200 per mo. 

#2. Jackrabbit Dance: Best for Dance Studios in Specific Niches

JackRabbit is an award-winning company; it has been featured in the Inc. 5000 and is listed as the best employer in North Carolina. They’ve been listed as a featured business on Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice. They’re a well-run business that’s focused on specific membership segments. 

Dance, Gymnastics, Swimming, Cheerleading, Music, and Childcare. 

Their products are simple, easy to use, and focused on a bare-bones set of features. If you’re looking for an A-to-Z solution to manage your day-to-day operations, JackRabbit is probably not a fit. If you’re looking for something specifically to manage key portions of your dance studio, they’re perfect. 

JackRabbit Dance: Features at a Glance

• Surcharges allow you to pass on fees to parents of students by adding a percentage to credit card payments via Jackrabbit Pay
• Optimize dance studio class schedules with dynamic calendars to manage your classes efficiently
• With costume and recital management, you can simplify planning, production, and recitals. Smart auto-size logic ensures that all costume measurements are accurate 
• JackRabbit Pay includes built-in discounting and prorating
• Add a surcharge as a percentage to credit card payments to cover the cost of payment processing fees

JackRabbit Dance: Pros and Cons

• Receive payments within one business day if you switch to Jackrabbit’s payment processing platform
• Zippy AI, JackRabbit’s AI-powered assistant, helps you craft emails and content
• Both instructors and families can schedule solo, duet, or trio practice lessons, all based on room or staff availability
• All features are included, regardless of the plan selected
• Lots of popular integrations, including Zapier
• JackRabbit’s feature set is barebones and focused on a narrow part of daily operations management
• JackRabbit has less than half of the features offered by their competitors
• No CRM is included in JackRabbit’s platform
• An upgrade is required if you’d like your dance studio to have its own mobile app
• JackRabbit Pay is the only payment processor available

JackRabbit Dance Reviews 

• 4.2/5 star rating on G2(13 reviews total) 
• 4.6/5 star rating on Capterra (745 reviews total)
• 4.7/5 star rating via Serchen (11 reviews total)

JackRabbit Dance Pricing 

• JackRabbit Dance $49 per mo. 
• JackRabbit Plus $89 per mo.
• Jack Rabbit Enterprise $245 per mo.

#3. Wellness Living: Best Customer-Centric Dance Studio App

Wellness Living is a customer-centric company. They describe themselves as “The Software Company With a Heart.” Their platform offers a large feature set that’s uniquely suited for small dance studios and multi-location schools. Their platform enables studio owners to send marketing emails, SMS, and push notifications. Send reminders, promotions, and updates to parents—their platform supports family scheduling so parents can manage classes for multiple children. 

Their platform supports clients and staff members as well. Their app “Achieve” enables students and parents to book classes, manage memberships, and track rewards. Elevate empowers staff to book events, handle scheduling payments, and manage client interactions on the go. 

If you’re looking for an established option for your dance studio and you have the budget, Wellness Living is a great option that’s capable of growing with you. 

Wellness Living: Features at a Glance

• Enables dance studios to set up and manage a student rewards program
• Manage staff profiles, roles, and user rights—create unique settings, manage payroll, and customize permissions
• Includes two mobile apps—Elevate for staff members to book student appointments, schedule payments, and manage interactions. Achieve for students, allowing them to book sessions, manage memberships, and track rewards
• Isaac, their AI-driven churn detector, identifies students who are preparing to cancel their memberships
• Manages direct mail marketing campaigns

Wellness Living: Pros and Cons

• Wellness Living offers extensive onboarding and training to help customers get acquainted with their software
• According to customers, Wellness Living is helpful, very customer-friendly, and highly responsive
• Their platform seamlessly manages student memberships, ecommerce product sales, and class bookings
• White label app to help your dance studio promote your classes and retain students
• Performance reports are limited and lack detail
• Credit card processing via mobile devices fails to perform as expected
• Software and compatibility issues have been a problem for their platform
• Customer support teams lack the authority needed to address software performance issues

Wellness Living Reviews 

• 4.4/5 star rating on Capterra (570 reviews total) 
• 4.6/5 star rating on G2 (177 reviews total)
• 1.9/5 star rating via BBB (22 reviews total)

Wellness Living Pricing 

• Starter: $69 per mo. 
• Business: $199 per mo. 
• Business Pro: $349 per mo. 
• Enterprise: Call for quote

#4. Studio Director: Best for Event-Driven Dance Studios

Studio Director is a mature platform that’s perfect for dance studios looking to manage specific aspects of their day-to-day operations. Their feature set is responsive, and their customer support teams are helpful and supportive. They’ve made changes to their product (e.g., interface, mobile, and integrations) that their users aren’t happy about, but they have a pretty good track record of taking care of their customers.

If your dance studio is events-driven or ticket sales and events are an essential part of your business, Studio Director may be a great fit for your dance studio.  

Studio Director: Features at a Glance

• Offer flexible month-to-month plans to students
• Buy Now, Pay Later allows customers to finance their balance and pay it back in fixed installments over time
• Take advantage of cash advances through Studio Director Business Financing
• Schedule, host, and share virtual classes with students, using the video streaming platform you choose
• Organize student performances, manage ticket sales, and charge for student recitals  
• Automatically order performances and prevent any back-to-back conflicts with sophisticated event planning tools 

Studio Director: Pros and Cons

• Studio Director organizes recitals and events, creating conflict-free event management
• Their platform makes tasks like class scheduling, billing, and communication simple and easy. You don’t need a significant amount of technical expertise to get things done
• Their customer support is helpful, prompt, and very responsive. Customers frequently bring this up
• Third-party integrations are limited. The software you use may not integrate with Studio Director
• Aspects of their platform (e.g., email templates and report generation) don’t allow advanced customization
• The platform is not consistent on mobile; parents and students don’t have the same experience in-app as they do on mobile

Studio Director Reviews 

• 4.6/5 star rating on Capterra (98 reviews total) 
• 4.4/5 star rating on G2 (4 reviews total)
• 4.0/5 star rating via Facebook Reviews (23 reviews total)

Studio Director Pricing 

• 0-100 students: $65 per mo. (software only), $39 per mo. (software + payments)
• 101-250 students: $119 per mo.​​ (software only) $79 per mo. (software + payments)
• 251-500 students: $169 per mo​​. (software only) $119 per mo. (software + payments)
• 501-1000 students: $199 per mo.​​ (software only) $149 per mo. (software + payments)
• 1001-2000 students: $209 per mo. (software only) $199 per mo. (software + payments)
• 2001-3000 students: $249 per mo. (software only) $239 per mo. (software + payments)
• 3001-4000 students: $289 per mo. (software only) $279 per mo. (software + payments)
• 4001-5000 students: $329 per mo. (software only) $319 per mo. (software + payments)

#5. Spark Membership: Best for Startups and New Dance Studios 

Spark Membership claims that their platform will “turn 80+ hour weeks into 20-hour weeks.” Their membership software is built for dance schools, gyms, and martial arts studios. It’s designed to provide dance studios with the features they need to manage most of their business.

Spark is a helpful tool, but it works best for new dance studios. If you already have a website, payment processor, and set way of doing things in your studio, switching to Spark may include some transitional pain. If you’re okay with that, Spark can work very, very well. If you’re not okay with that, Spark may not be a fit for your dance studio. 

Spark Membership: Features at a Glance

• SMS (requires an upgrade) and email marketing are integrated
• Spark includes an embeddable Class Booking & Appointments
• An integrated point of sale system enables you to sell both physical and digital products 
• Multi-location dashboards

Spark Membership: Pros and Cons

• Spark membership enables you to manage multiple dance studio locations
• Integrated marketing automations and project management tools
• Daily task tracking keeps your instructors and support teams on track
• Website and marketing tools cost extra
• If you’d like a free trial, your only option is to book a demo with a sales rep
• No third-party payment processing allowed. You’ll have to use Spark Membership
• No phone support available

Spark Membership Reviews 

• 5.0/5 star rating on Capterra (8 reviews total) 
• –/5 star rating on G2 
• 4.9/5 star rating via Google Reviews 
• 3.5/5 star rating via Apple Ratings (19 reviews total)

Spark Membership Pricing 

• $199 per mo. 
• $239 per mo.

The Right Software Helps Your Dance Studio to Grow

If you want to continue to teach, lead, and guide your dancers, you’ll need to manage the day-to-day tasks in your dance studio. As your business grows, this becomes more difficult; While most of the work can be done manually in the beginning, this changes as you achieve success.

It’s all about the Four Ps. 

People, Product, Process, and Performance. The right software helps you to manage all four. With the right software, you can manage your students and employees. You can create workflows and enforce performance standards.

You can create and enforce systems that generate revenue. 

It’s too much for studio owners to tackle on their own, over the long term. As your business grows, you’ll need to rely on the Four Ps to help your business grow. With the right software, you’ll find your dance studio’s growth is stable, predictable, and profitable.