Free driving instructor software: what it actually costs.
Four UK platforms charge an instructor nothing a month. Here’s where the money comes from instead, and what that works out at across a normal week of teaching.
Free driving instructor software exists, but someone still pays for it. The three models in the UK market are a booking fee charged to your learners, a free window with an end date, and lead routing from a sister brand. Each is a reasonable trade for some instructors, and each has a cost worth working out.
Model one: your learners pay the fee
PassReady charges instructors nothing. On each online card payment the learner pays 4.2% plus card processing, rounded up to the next pound. Nothing leaves your account. The cost goes onto your headline price instead, and unlike a subscription it grows every time you teach more.
| Lessons a week | Lesson price | Fee per lesson | Learners pay a month | Passdesk Instructor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | £35 | £1.47 | £96 | £19 |
| 20 | £35 | £1.47 | £127 | £19 |
| 25 | £35 | £1.47 | £159 | £19 |
| 30 | £38 | £1.60 | £207 | £19 |
| 35 | £40 | £1.68 | £255 | £19 |
4.2% of weekly takings, converted to a month at 52 weeks ÷ 12. Card processing and the round-up to the next pound sit on top of every one of these figures and are not included.
The last two columns are about who pays. A busy instructor on the booking-fee model is putting roughly £159 a month through their learners; the same instructor on a flat £19 subscription is paying £19 themselves and charging their learners nothing extra. If your learners are happy with the total, the first model costs you nothing. If you compete on price with the instructor in the next town, it is on your price list either way.
Orbit runs the same model with a different formula: the learner pays the greater of £2.99 or 4% on each lesson booked or paid online, so on a £35 lesson the fee is £2.99. Lessons taken from a block that is already paid for carry no second fee, so a learner who buys a block pays it once on the block instead. The table above uses PassReady’s rate only.
Model two: free until a date
DriveSchoolPro is free until 31 March 2027, with no card asked for, and takes 3% of the card payments you collect through it, with Stripe’s own fee on top. What it costs on 1 April 2027 has not been announced. Early access at £0 is a normal way to launch, and a free run is worth having. But the later price is the one thing you can’t compare yet, and by the time it’s announced your diary, your learners and your payment history are already inside it. Ask for the post-window price in writing before you migrate.
Software in this market does sometimes stop: one well-known instructor app has shipped no update in over a year, and another is still being recommended by roundups and AI assistants despite its site being archived since 2018. Check that a free product is still being updated before you move onto it.
Model three: funded by lead routing
ADI Network is free to instructors and funded by routing learner jobs from its sister brand. If you want the leads, that is a straightforward exchange and the software costs you nothing. Read the terms on the job routing itself, because that is where the commercial relationship sits.
How to price it for yourself
- Take your weekly takings — lessons a week times your lesson price — and put the fee percentage through it, then multiply by the weeks you teach in a year. That is your annual number, not the headline £0.
- Ask what happens at the end of a free window, in writing, before you move anything.
- Check the export before you sign up, not when you leave. If you cannot get your learners and lessons back out in a normal file, leaving means retyping everything.
- Price the model at the size you expect to be, not the size you are. Percentages and per-instructor rates both grow with you; a flat workspace fee does not.
Common questions
Is there free driving instructor software in the UK?
There is software with no monthly fee, which is not quite the same thing. Two UK platforms charge nothing to the instructor and add a booking fee to what the learner pays: 4.2% plus card processing on one, and the greater of £2.99 or 4% on the other. Another is free until 31 March 2027, takes 3% of the card payments you collect, and has not announced what it costs after that. A fourth is free to instructors because it routes learner jobs from a sister brand. All four are real products, but none of them is free of cost.
How much does a 4.2% booking fee add up to?
On a £35 lesson it is about £1.47 a time. An instructor teaching 25 lessons a week is putting roughly £159 a month of booking fees through their learners — more than eight times a £19 subscription, but paid by them rather than by you.
Is a booking fee worse than a subscription?
Not necessarily. Nothing leaves your account, and if your learners are happy with the total they pay, the model works. Two things to know about it: the cost grows with how much you teach, where a subscription does not, and it lands on your headline price, which is what a learner compares against the instructor down the road.
What happens when a free trial period ends?
That depends on whether a price has been published. A time-limited free window with an announced price afterwards is a discount you can budget for. Without one, you find out the price after your diary, your learners and your payment history are already inside it. Ask before you migrate.
Is Passdesk free?
No. Passdesk is £19 a month for a single instructor, with a 30-day trial that needs no card. The price stays the same when you get busier, and nothing is added to what your learners pay.
See the whole market side by side
Twelve UK platforms with published prices, billing models and trial terms, read from each vendor’s own page on 29 September 2026.