The story behind Passdesk.

Why this exists

Driving schools are run by people who'd rather be in a car than in a spreadsheet. Much of the software in this space comes with a franchise contract, so an instructor who leaves the franchise loses their diary too. Independent instructors are left with a mix of paper, group chats and a calendar export from a booking site.

Passdesk gives a school one workspace for its calendar, payments, test-aligned rubric, theory, routes and student portal, however the school is run. Passdesk isn't a franchise itself: an independent instructor pays a flat subscription, keeps their own brand and owns their data. A school that franchises its instructors can set each one's fees on the Team and Scale plans, as a weekly or monthly fee, a share of takings or a rate per hour, and Passdesk drafts their statements for the school to check and send.

Solo learners

The other audience is the learner who can't or won't sign up to a school yet — between paid lessons, with family supervision, or saving up for the test. They get the same toolkit as a Passdesk school's students, on a £9.99/mo subscription they can stop once they pass.

Solo and school accounts run independently today. Carrying a solo logbook — rubric, theory results, route library — into a Passdesk school is in active development.

The principles

• The school owns the relationship. Passdesk is the tool the school and its learners share.
• Day-to-day work comes first. Features are judged by whether they help when you're running lessons on a wet Tuesday morning.
• Your data stays yours. Export anything any time. If you cancel, you take your students, payments, rubric, and routes with you.
• Hosted in the UK, GDPR-compliant. London region, encrypted at rest, ICO-registered, and GDPR-compliant for customers in the UK and the EU.
• Priced per school. Each plan covers a set number of instructors, office staff are free, and Pro and Team schools add instructors at £10 a month each. Solo learners pay monthly and stop when they pass.