Total Drive alternatives.
What else UK instructors and schools run instead of Total Drive, with published prices read from each vendor's own page on 29 September 2026.
Why people look elsewhere
Total Drive’s strengths are set out in full further down this page alongside everyone else’s. These are the reasons instructors give for looking at something else:
- The company changed hands in March 2025 — Software Circle plc, a listed software group, acquired it for up to £7.5m — and an ownership change is the moment many instructors choose to review what they run.
- Online booking sits at the £23 tier rather than being included from the entry price.
- The tooling is instructor-first, so a school adding its third or fourth instructor can outgrow the shape of it.
- There is no published API or webhooks.
The alternatives
Passdeskthat’s us
£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.
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.
Moving your data across
Export your learners, lessons and payment history before you cancel anything — that access usually goes with the subscription. Send Passdesk the export and it gets imported for you; there is no charge for it. If the file looks nothing like a normal export, send it anyway. The importers handle a fair range of formats.
For Total Drive there is also a step-by-step migration guide covering what to export, what lands where, and how to run both diaries side by side first.
Common questions
What are the best alternatives to Total Drive?
The realistic UK shortlist is Waypilot, ADI Book, MyDriveTime, DrivoPilot and Passdesk. Which one fits depends on whether you want per-instructor or flat-rate billing, and whether you need multi-instructor tooling. Prices for all of them are on this page.
Is there a free alternative to Total Drive?
Four UK platforms charge instructors nothing a month, but none is free of cost: the money comes from a booking fee added to what your learners pay online, a free window that ends, or lead routing from a sister brand. All four are covered in the free-software breakdown linked from this page.
How do I move my data off Total Drive?
Export your learners, lessons and payment history first — do that before you cancel anything, while you still have access. Passdesk will take that export and import it for you.
Try Passdesk alongside it
Thirty days to try it, with your own diary imported before you decide.