Buyer's guide
The best driving instructor management software in the UK
Diary apps organise your week. Management software runs the business: pupil records, DVSA progress, payments, accounts and, once you add a second car, several instructors at once. Here is what each one costs at one, five and ten instructors, and where each is genuinely stronger.
The short answer
For an independent ADI or a small school, Passly is the strongest all-round choice at £14.99 for your first instructor and £8.99 for every one after: pupil records, syllabus progress, online booking, card payments, income and expense tracking, CSV export and multi-instructor school management are all on one plan, with a published flat 1.5% fee on lesson payments and no tiers to upgrade through.
Two honest exceptions. If your accountant wants a direct feed rather than a CSV, Total Drive syncs straight into QuickBooks and Xero and Passly does not. And MyDriveTime is cheaper in two places: marginally at four and five instructors (£40 and £50 against £41.96 and £50.95), and decisively from eleven, where its price drops to £5 a head. Everywhere else on this table Passly is cheaper, and at three cars it is £32.97 against their £45.
Driving instructor management software compared
Prices are per instructor per month from each vendor's published pricing. Where a vendor does not publish its fee on lesson payments, we say so rather than estimating.
| App | Best for | Price a month | Free trial | Fee on lesson money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passly | Solo ADIs and schools on one flat rate | £14.99, then £8.99 | 14 days | 1.5% flat, published |
| Total Drive | Feature depth and accounting sync | £18 to £26 | 30 days | Set at sign-up, not published |
| MyDriveTime | Larger schools, where per-head cost drops | £19, less per head at scale | 30 days | Not published |
| DriveSchoolPro | DVSA competency tracking | £22, plus £12 per extra car | 14 days | Not published |
| GoRoadie Pro | Solo instructors wanting a long trial | £15 | 60 days | 1.9% on instructor-raised payments |
| ADI Network | Basic record keeping at no cost | Free | n/a | 2% + 30p, in the terms |
Passly publishes this table and sells one of the products in it. Figures checked 26 July 2026 against the sources at the foot of this page.
What it costs as you add cars
Single-seat prices hide the important difference. Passly charges the same £14.99 per instructor whatever your size. MyDriveTime discounts heavily per head as you grow. Total Drive's tiers rise with school size. Below is the monthly software bill at each headcount, using each vendor's published rates.
| School size | Passly | Total Drive | MyDriveTime | DriveSchoolPro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 instructor | £14.99 | £18 to £26 | £19 | £22 |
| 3 instructors | £32.97 | £54 to £78 | £45 | £46 |
| 5 instructors | £50.95 | £90 to £130 | £50 | £70 |
| 10 instructors | £95.90 | £180 to £260 | £100 | Custom |
| 11 instructors | £104.89 | £198 to £286 | £55 | Custom |
| 20 instructors | £185.80 | £360 to £520 | £100 | Custom |
Calculated from each vendor's published per-instructor rates, checked 26 July 2026. MyDriveTime figures use its stated per-head bands of £15 for two to three instructors, £10 for four to ten and £5 for eleven or more. DriveSchoolPro's School plan covers up to five instructors, above which it quotes custom Enterprise pricing. Total Drive is shown as a range because its price depends on tier as well as headcount.
Passly: one flat rate, everything included
Passly is management software rather than a diary with extras bolted on. Pupil records carry full lesson history, notes, per-pupil pricing and a leads inbox. Progress tracking marks every syllabus skill lesson by lesson, logs mock and real driving tests, and shares a live Driver's Record with each pupil. Money is handled end to end: card payments through Stripe, prepaid credits, discounts, refunds in-app, income and expense tracking with mileage, and CSV export for your accountant.
For schools, the same plan covers multi-instructor diaries, school-wide takings, pupil allocation across instructors and role-based access that keeps each instructor's finances private. There is no separate school tier and no per-car uplift: it is £14.99 per instructor whether you run one car or twenty. Read the detail on the driving school management software page.
What Passly does not do: no direct QuickBooks or Xero sync (CSV export only), no offline mode, no built-in theory suite, and no SMS text reminders, though reminders do go by email, in-app and push.
Total Drive: the deepest feature set, at a tiered price
If your bottleneck is bookkeeping, Total Drive's direct sync into QuickBooks and Xero is the single best accounting integration in this market and a real reason to choose it. It also works offline, has the most developed cancellation-filling tool, and brings teaching aids nothing else here matches.
The cost is complexity. Four tiers from £18 to £26, with online booking held back to the upper plans, and a card payment platform fee set at sign-up rather than published, so the true monthly cost is not knowable before you commit. See the full Passly vs Total Drive comparison.
MyDriveTime: the cheapest option once a school gets big
MyDriveTime is the most expensive product here for a single qualified instructor at £19 a month, and the cheapest for a large school. Its per-head price falls to £15 for two to three instructors, £10 for four to ten, and £5 for eleven or more. A twelve-car school pays £60 a month against Passly's £179.88, which is a decisive gap at that size.
It also runs free for PDIs until they qualify, and has been operating continuously since 2014 with two Intelligent Instructor Professional Support Provider of the Year awards. What it does not include is a marketplace, so pupil supply remains entirely your problem. See the Passly vs MyDriveTime comparison.
DriveSchoolPro: strongest on DVSA competency detail
DriveSchoolPro is a UK company built specifically around the DVSA syllabus, tracking all 27 competencies across eight categories, with drag-and-drop scheduling, three-way conflict detection, a pupil self-service portal and test-day pass-rate monitoring. It is £22 for the first instructor and £12 for each additional one up to five, with a 14-day trial and no contract.
It is the newest product in this list and the least established, so weigh the competency depth against how long you need the vendor to be around. It does not publish a fee on lesson payments.
Driving instructor management software: common questions
What is driving instructor management software?
It is the business system an ADI or driving school runs on: the diary, pupil records and lesson history, progress against the DVSA syllabus, lesson payments and balances, income and expense tracking for your tax return, and the messaging and reminders that keep pupils turning up. A diary app covers the first part. Management software covers the whole business, including the accounts and, for schools, several instructors at once.
What is the best driving instructor management software in the UK?
For most independent ADIs and small schools, Passly at £14.99 per instructor per month, because pupil records, accounts, online booking, card payments, progress tracking and multi-instructor management are all on the single plan with no tiers. Total Drive is the better choice if you need direct QuickBooks or Xero sync and offline working. MyDriveTime is marginally cheaper at four and five instructors, and clearly cheaper from eleven, where its per-head price falls to £5. Passly is cheaper at every other size.
How much does driving school management software cost per instructor?
Between free and about £26 per instructor per month. Passly is £14.99 for the first instructor and £8.99 for each one after, so a five-car school is £50.95 and a ten-car school £95.90. GoRoadie Pro is £15 and Total Drive £18 to £26. DriveSchoolPro charges £22 for the first instructor then £12 for each additional one up to five. MyDriveTime starts at £19 but drops to £15 each for two to three instructors, £10 for four to ten and £5 for eleven or more, which makes it the cheapest per head once a school passes ten cars, and marginally cheaper at four and five.
Does driving instructor software handle Making Tax Digital?
None of these products files your return for you. What differs is how the data leaves. Total Drive syncs income directly into QuickBooks, Xero and other MTD-compatible software. Passly exports pupils, lessons, payments and expenses as CSV whenever you want, free, which your accountant or bookkeeping software imports. If you want a direct accounting integration rather than an export, that is a genuine point for Total Drive.
Can driving school software keep each instructor's finances private?
It should. In Passly, school owners see school-wide takings and can allocate pupils across instructors, while role-based access keeps individual instructors' finances private from each other. Check this specifically if you run a franchise or a mixed employed and self-employed team, because the access model varies between products and is rarely covered in marketing copy.
Do I need separate software if I grow from one car to five?
Not with any of the products here, but the cost curve differs sharply. Passly charges £14.99 for the first instructor then £8.99 for each one after, so five cars is £50.95 and ten is £95.90. MyDriveTime's per-head price falls in bands as you grow, which makes it marginally cheaper at four and five instructors and clearly cheaper from eleven, where it charges £5 a head. Total Drive's tiers rise with school size. Model your own headcount before committing rather than comparing single-seat prices.
Sources and how we checked
We looked at software a UK instructor or school can buy and run their whole business on, not just a diary: pupil records, DVSA syllabus progress, lesson payments, income and expense tracking, and multi-instructor management. Every price is taken from the vendor's own published pricing on the date shown. Two products that appear on third-party listicles, DI Manager and DIARS, are left out because we could not reach a live vendor site to verify their pricing, and we will not repeat figures we cannot check.
- Total Drive pricing and features checked
- MyDriveTime pricing, including school per-head tiers checked
- DriveSchoolPro pricing and DVSA competency tracking checked
- GoRoadie Pro pricing and payment fees checked
- ADI Network free app terms checked
- Passly pricing checked
Passly publishes this comparison and sells one of the products in it. Prices and features change: if you spot something out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Try it yourself
Run the whole business on one plan
Pupil records, progress, payments, accounts and multi-instructor school management. £14.99 per instructor, 14 days free, no card required.