UK driving instructor software, compared.
Twelve platforms UK instructors and schools shortlist, side by side on what they charge, how they charge it, and what you get. Prices read from each vendor’s own page on 29 September 2026.
As of 29 September 2026, UK driving instructor software mostly runs between £8 and £26 a month. The bigger difference is the billing model: per instructor (ADI Book, MyDriveTime) gets cheaper per head as you grow, per workspace (Passdesk, DrivoPilot) is one fee for a band of headcount (up to 25 instructors on Passdesk, whose Pro and Team plans add instructors at £10 a month each), and £0 a month means the money is coming from somewhere else — usually a percentage added to what your learners pay.
The table
| Software | Price | Best for | Trial | Learner app | UK test tracking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passdesk that’s us | £19/mo, plus 2.5% + 20p per card payment | Instructors and schools who want one platform that covers both | 30 days (schools), 7 days (solo learners), no card needed | Installable web app on any phone; native iOS and Android apps are in preparation | Yes — DVSA-aligned rubric, theory practice, test-centre routes |
| Total Drive | From £18/mo | Independent instructors who want the most-used UK toolkit | 30 days, no card required | Free instructor, learner and parent apps | Yes — progress syllabus and reflective logs |
| Waypilot | From £24/mo | Instructors who want the software and a marketing site from one supplier | 14 days, no card required | Not stated | Yes — DVSA syllabus mapping with a test-readiness score |
| ADI Book | From £8/instructor/mo | Larger multi-car schools where per-instructor pricing works out cheapest | 30 days, no card required | Free Apple and Android apps for learners and parents | Yes — progress syllabus and reflective logs |
| MyDriveTime | £19/mo | Schools with a dozen or more instructors watching the per-head cost | 30 days, no card required | A learner app with a feed-style progress view | Yes — syllabus tracking, reflective logs, test outcomes |
| DrivoPilot | From £9.99/mo | Schools that want one flat price however many instructors they add | 30 days, no card required | Not stated | Yes — DVSA pupil progress tracking |
| Passly | £14.99/mo | Small schools adding instructors a car at a time | 14 days, no card required | None — a learner dashboard in the phone browser, nothing to download | Yes — skills graded against the DVSA syllabus after each lesson |
| DriveInstruct | Free, or £10/mo | Instructors who want the software to bring them enquiries | 30 days, no card required | None — a learner and parent portal in the phone browser, no app to download | Yes — a DVSA competency matrix |
| DriveSchoolPro | £0/mo until 31 March 2027 | Instructors happy to trade pricing certainty for a free run | Free until 31 March 2027, no card required | Not stated | Yes — DVSA Ready to Pass, 27 skills across 8 categories |
| PassReady | £0/mo | Instructors who would rather their learners carried the cost than pay a subscription | Not applicable — no subscription | A pupil app, free for every pupil | Yes — DVSA-aligned progress tracking and lesson notes |
| Orbit | £0/mo | Instructors who want Making Tax Digital in a free app, and whose learners accept a booking fee | Not applicable — free to instructors, no card needed | Not stated | Yes — a DVSA competency tracker |
| Driving School Office | First instructor free | Franchises and schools that want white-label options | First instructor free, but new school sign-ups are closed | Not stated | Not stated |
Prices as published on 29 September 2026 and shown as each vendor states them. Where a vendor says whether VAT is included, its entry below says so. Check the vendor’s page before you buy — this table is re-checked quarterly, and they move in between. The same figures are published as open data (JSON) under CC BY 4.0, with the verification date attached.
Each one in detail
Passdesk
£19/mo, plus 2.5% + 20p per card paymentPer workspace, each plan covering a set number of instructors: Instructor £19 for just you with 60 learners, Pro £49 for you + 3, Team £99 for you + 10, Scale £199 for you + 24. Pro and Team add instructors at £10 a month each, office staff are free on every plan, and Network pricing is per instructor above 25. Solo learners £9.99. Two months free on annual. Free for PDIs until they qualify, for up to 12 months. Card payments taken through Passdesk cost the school 2.5% + 20p each (2.5% + €0.25 in Ireland), with Stripe’s processing included and nothing added to what learners pay.
Strengths
- Learners find you through the free Passdesk school directory, and Passdesk takes no commission on the lessons they book
- One platform from a single instructor to a multi-instructor group
- Recorded practice routes tied to real test centres, with manoeuvre tagging
- A waitlist that refills a cancelled slot on its own
- Card payments and Direct Debit instalment plans, including fixed-total plans on a reusable mandate
- A separate app for learners teaching themselves
- Expenses, mileage and a quarterly Making Tax Digital export
- Lessons sync to Google, Outlook or Apple calendars, and busy times in a connected Google or Outlook calendar block double-bookings
- Works with Claude and ChatGPT on every school plan, with webhooks from Team and a public API on the top tier
What it does not do
- Newer to the market than Total Drive or Driving School Office, with a smaller installed base
Read from passdesk.co.uk/pricing on 29 September 2026.
Total Drive
From £18/moBasic £18, Ultimate £23, Pro £24 and Elite £26 a month for one instructor. Online booking arrives with Ultimate. A school picks its size and every instructor pays that band’s rate: £12 (Basic) to £20 (Elite) each for 2 to 9 instructors, and £11 to £19 for 10 to 15, where the size picker stops. The pricing page says “Incl. VAT”, but its subscriber terms say fees exclude VAT. Card payments run on Adyen with a platform fee, and the account holder chooses whether they or their learners pay it. Free for PDIs until they pass Part 3, for up to 12 months.
Says 8,600 instructors and 211,000+ learners use it weekly.
Strengths
- The largest installed base in the UK market by their own published figures
- Official Driving Instructors Association partner
- 3D and 2D teaching scenarios bundled into the higher tiers
- Making Tax Digital material and a theory suite alongside the diary
What it does not do
- Online booking is held back to the £23 tier
- Built instructor-first — the multi-instructor school tooling is thinner than the solo diary
- The card payment platform fee is not published
- No published API or webhooks
Read from totaldrive.co.uk/instructor-software-pricing on 29 September 2026.
Waypilot
From £24/moSolo £24, solo with a website £49, schools £99, fully managed £199. Around 16% off annually. The £99 school tier does not say how many instructors it covers, and its schools page quotes enterprise pricing from £8 a seat a month for three or more instructors. No pupil cap. Free for PDIs until they qualify or for 12 months, whichever comes first.
Strengths
- A branded website with online booking bundled into the £49 tier
- ICO registration and Cyber Essentials certification stated on the site
- Stripe and GoCardless payments, Google Calendar and Xero integrations
- A £199 managed tier that includes content updates and Google Ads management
What it does not do
- The entry tier is £24, the highest starting price in this table
- The £99 school tier’s instructor limit is not published
- No native learner app stated — the pricing page lists a pupil portal
- The managed tier is a service retainer, so the software comparison stops at £99
Read from waypilot.co.uk/pricing on 29 September 2026.
ADI Book
From £8/instructor/moPriced per instructor and banded by headcount: £12 for one, £11 up to ten, £10 up to a hundred, £8 above that. Every band gets every feature.
Its home page gives two figures: “trusted by over 6,500 driving instructors every week” and “Trusted by 1,600+ instructors & 19,000 pupils weekly”.
Strengths
- The per-instructor rate drops to £8 for schools above a hundred instructors
- Every feature in every band
- Learner and parent apps, live chat, and an enquiry manager included
- Check-in and check-out with actual lesson duration recorded
What it does not do
- Per-instructor pricing means a growing school’s bill grows with it
- A single instructor pays £12 against £8 to £10 further up the bands
- No published API or webhooks
Read from adibook.co.uk/pricing on 29 September 2026.
MyDriveTime
£19/moInstructors £19 a month. Schools taper: £15 each for instructors 2 and 3, £10 each for 4 to 10, and £5 each for 11 and above. The page does not say whether a band’s rate covers only the instructors in it or the whole school. Admin accounts are free. Prices include VAT. Free for PDIs until they qualify.
Strengths
- The school rate tapers to £5 an instructor at 11 and above
- Free admin accounts on school plans
- A six-month money-back guarantee
- Diary clash detection, gap-filling and a privacy mode
- Expense tracking with receipt upload built in
What it does not do
- No published API or webhooks
- Nothing published for learners teaching themselves outside a school
Read from www.mydrivetime.co.uk/pricing on 29 September 2026.
DrivoPilot
From £9.99/moSolo £9.99 a month for one instructor and one login. School £39 a month per active school, not per instructor, with unlimited instructors, pupils and logins, and each extra school billed at the same £39. Its terms say prices exclude VAT. Card payments run through Stripe, with no platform fee stated.
Strengths
- One £39 school price covers unlimited instructors, pupils and logins
- A branded website and online booking on every plan
- Two-way Google Calendar sync, expenses and profit and loss reporting on the School plan
- Marketplace enquiries included in the subscription, with no per-lead fee
What it does not do
- Solo covers one instructor and one login, so a second login means the £39 School plan
- Keeps Making Tax Digital records but does not file them — its payments page sends you to separate MTD software
- No learner app stated — the plans list pupil portal access
Read from drivopilot.com/pricing on 29 September 2026.
Passly
£14.99/mo£14.99 a month for the first instructor, then £8.99 for each instructor after that, so a five-car school is £50.95. Only teaching instructors count as seats. Its terms add a 1.5% fee on card payments, taken from the instructor’s payout, on top of Stripe’s own fees. There is also a free marketplace listing without the software, paid per accepted lead.
Strengths
- Each instructor after the first is £8.99, and only teaching instructors count as seats
- Every feature on one plan, with no tiers to move through
- Marketplace leads included on the paid plan
- Pupils, lessons and payments export as CSV at any time, including after you leave
What it does not do
- A 1.5% fee on card payments comes out of your payout, on top of Stripe’s fees
- Its own pages disagree on school pricing: £8.99 for each extra instructor on the pricing page, “£14.99 per teaching instructor” on its instructor page
Read from passly.co.uk/instructor/pricing on 29 September 2026.
DriveInstruct
Free, or £10/moFree marketplace profile. Pro £10 a month. School £49 for up to ten instructors. A 2% fee on online payments, only when you get paid. Free for PDIs for 12 months, up to five pupils.
Says “325 enquiries sent through DriveInstruct so far”.
Strengths
- A public marketplace listed across 423 cities in England and Wales that routes learner enquiries to your profile
- The £49 school tier covers ten instructors
- Message credits — 100 SMS and 200 emails monthly — included on Pro
- Making Tax Digital handling and a route planner included
What it does not do
- Online payments carry a 2% fee on top of the subscription
- Message credits are capped, so a busy diary can run out
Read from www.driveinstruct.co.uk on 29 September 2026.
DriveSchoolPro
£0/mo until 31 March 2027Early access, no card required. A 3% fee on card payments you collect, with Stripe’s own processing fee separate. Pricing after March 2027 has not been announced.
Cites early-user feedback of 10+ hours saved a week.
Strengths
- No subscription to pay before April 2027
- AI-written lesson briefings
- Three-way conflict detection on the drag-and-drop diary
- An online booking widget learners can use around the clock, and a learner self-service portal
What it does not do
- No price published for the day the free window closes
- A 3% fee on card payments collected, with Stripe’s fee on top
- Test bookings, test results and pass-rate reporting are listed as coming soon
- New to the market, so there is no long track record to check
Read from driveschoolpro.com/pricing on 29 September 2026.
PassReady
£0/moNo subscription. On online card payments the learner pays a booking fee of 4.2% plus card processing, rounded up to the next whole pound. Cash lessons are logged free.
Strengths
- Nothing leaves the instructor’s account
- The full toolkit is available at £0
- Card payments are optional, and cash lessons carry no fee
- The vendor publishes its own competitor pricing with the conflict disclosed
What it does not do
- The cost moves to your learners — a £40 lesson costs them £43, by its own table
- The fee scales with how much you teach, where a subscription does not
Read from passready.co.uk/pricing on 29 September 2026.
Orbit
£0/moFree to instructors. The learner pays a booking fee of £2.99 or 4%, whichever is greater, on lessons booked or paid online. An optional £30 finder’s fee comes out of the instructor’s payout for a new pupil’s first booking through its marketplace. School accounts from £8 a seat a month, with a quote for more than three instructors.
Strengths
- Every feature included with no subscription or contract
- Quarterly Making Tax Digital updates built in, with tax estimates
- AI lesson debriefs, CPD and Standards Check tools
- The booking fee is shown to the learner before they pay and never comes out of the payout
What it does not do
- The cost moves to your learners — at least £2.99 on each lesson booked or paid online
- Making Tax Digital filing is marked “HMRC production approval in progress”
- Existing lesson history is not imported — its own FAQ says pupil records are added by hand
Read from orbitdriving.com/pricing on 29 September 2026.
Driving School Office
First instructor freePay-as-you-grow, tiered by instructor count. Full rates are not published on the site.
States 1,000+ instructors, 40,000+ learners and 1m+ lessons booked.
Strengths
- The first instructor costs nothing
- White-label and franchise management options
- A long trading history behind it
What it does not do
- Not taking new schools: its sign-up page says “We are not currently accepting new school sign ups.”
- Rates above the first instructor are not published — you have to ask
- No published API or webhooks
Read from www.drivingschooloffice.co.uk on 29 September 2026.
Also trading
These are in the market too, but their pricing could not be read off their own site on 29 September 2026, so they are named without a figure.
- GoRoadie — Instructor software with a separate per-learner referral service.
- ADI Network — Free to instructors, funded by routing learner jobs from PassMeFast.
- Varium — A single-developer app. No update shipped in over a year.
One caution: several roundups still recommend ADI Diary, whose site has been archived since 2018. Check that a product is still shipping before you move your diary onto it.
Head to head
Common questions
What is the best driving instructor software in the UK?
There is no single winner — the right pick depends on how you work. ADI Book’s per-instructor rate falls to £8 above a hundred instructors, DrivoPilot charges a school one £39 fee however many instructors it has, Total Drive has the biggest installed base, MyDriveTime tapers to £5 an instructor at 11 and above, and Passdesk covers a solo instructor and a multi-instructor school on one platform. The table on this page sets out the published price and terms for each.
How much does driving instructor software cost in the UK?
Most UK platforms sit between £8 and £26 per month as of 29 September 2026. Per-instructor pricing (ADI Book, MyDriveTime) gets cheaper per head as a school grows; per-workspace pricing (Passdesk, DrivoPilot) holds one price across a band of headcount. Passdesk's plans cover up to 25 instructors, and its Pro and Team plans add instructors at £10 a month each between bands. Three products charge nothing monthly and earn elsewhere — two add a booking fee to what your learners pay, and one is in a free early-access window.
Is free driving instructor software actually free?
It depends where the money comes from instead. A booking-fee model costs you nothing but adds a percentage to what your learners pay, and that grows as you teach more. A free early-access window costs nothing until it ends, and the price after it has not always been announced. Both are worth doing the arithmetic on before you switch.
Should a solo instructor pay per instructor or per workspace?
Per instructor is cheaper while you are one person and gets more expensive with every hire. Per workspace costs more on day one and then holds steady as you hire, moving only when you outgrow a plan. If you expect to add instructors, price both models at the headcount you expect in two years rather than the one you have now.
Who publishes this comparison?
Passdesk does, and Passdesk is in the table. Every price was read from the vendor's own public pricing page on 29 September 2026 and links back to it, and each product carries its real strengths alongside what it does not do — Passdesk included.
Where Passdesk fits
One platform from a single instructor to a multi-instructor group, built in the UK around the UK driving test. £19 a month, or 30 days to try it.