You have decided the spreadsheet is not working any more. Good. The hard part is not the decision, it is the fortnight afterwards, when half your data is in the new system and half is still in Google Sheets and nobody is sure which one is right.
This is the order that causes the least damage, based on what actually goes wrong.
Quick takeaway: Write down three numbers first: active students, sessions per week with average class size, and annual fees collected. Then price your shortlist on those numbers, clean the data while it is still in the spreadsheet, switch between terms, import students, classes, schedule and billing in that order, and stop running both systems after two weeks.
Before you pick anything: get your numbers out
Three figures decide which software makes sense, and most people choose before working them out.
Active students. Not everyone who ever attended. Everyone billed in the last month. Most pricing is banded on this.
Sessions per week, and average class size. This matters more than it sounds. If you teach one to one, per lesson pricing is reasonable. If you run group classes, it is not, and we will come back to why.
Annual fees collected. Some platforms take a percentage of this on top of the subscription.
Write those three numbers down. You will need them twice.
Step 1: Work out what the software will actually cost you
Headline prices in this market are close to meaningless because the pricing models differ in shape, not just amount.
| Platform | Pricing model | What it means at scale |
|---|---|---|
| Teach 'n Go | Flat, banded by student count | Predictable. Steps when you cross a band |
| TutorBird | Flat, plus per staff member | Predictable. Grows with your team, not your volume |
| DreamClass | Flat, banded by student count | Predictable. Steps at 100, 300, 500 students |
| Teachworks | Subscription plus a fee per student lesson | Grows with attendance |
| TutorCruncher | Subscription plus 2.3 to 3.85 percent of card payments | Grows with revenue |
| Classter | Per student per year, quote only | No published entry price |
The Teachworks model is the one people misjudge most often, so here is their own wording. Their pricing FAQ says a lesson with one student is one student lesson, and a lesson with two students is two student lessons. That is fine for one to one. For a group class of twelve, one hour of one tutor's time bills as twelve units. Teachworks does discount part of the fee when your classes average more than three students, but the charge still scales with every seat. This is what per student lesson pricing means in practice.
TutorCruncher's percentage works the other way round. The better your year, the larger the bill, and there is a further 1.5 percent on international cards.
Run your three numbers through a calculator before you shortlist, not after. Ours prices six platforms side by side, each at its cheapest tier for your numbers: school software cost calculator. No signup.
Step 2: Clean the data while it is still in the spreadsheet
This is the step everyone skips and everyone regrets. It is much easier to fix a duplicate in a spreadsheet than in a database.
Work through, in this order:
- Remove students who left.
- Merge duplicates.
- Standardise phone numbers to one format.
- Make sure every student has a guardian or billing contact attached.
- Reconcile outstanding balances so you know exactly who owes what on the day you switch.
That last one is the one that bites. If you import balances that were already wrong, you will spend your first month arguing with parents about invoices generated by a system you have just started trusting.
Step 3: Pick a switch date that is not mid-term
The best moment is the gap between terms. The second best is the start of a billing month. The worst is the middle of both, which is when most people do it because that is when the frustration peaks.
If you run rolling enrolment and there is no natural gap, pick the first of a month and accept one messy fortnight.
Step 4: Import in this order
Students first, then classes, then the schedule, then billing. Each layer depends on the one before it, and importing them out of order is the most common cause of a migration that has to be redone.
Ask any vendor these three questions before you commit:
- Is there a bulk import from CSV, or is this manual?
- Is onboarding help included, or charged?
- Can you export everything back out if you leave? The answer tells you a lot about how confident they are.
Step 5: Run both systems for two weeks, then stop
Two weeks of parallel running is enough to catch the errors. Longer than that and staff quietly keep using the spreadsheet because it is familiar, and you end up maintaining two systems permanently.
Set a date. Tell everyone. On that date, make the spreadsheet read only rather than deleting it. Nobody trusts a migration where the old data disappears.
What to check that most comparisons do not mention
If you are moving because your tutoring business has grown into something more like a school, four things separate the products and rarely appear in reviews.
Group class capacity. Does the system stop the thirteenth student joining a class of twelve, or just record that it happened?
Conflict detection. Does it refuse to double book a tutor or a room while you are building the timetable, or do you find out when two classes arrive at once?
Mid-term joins. Can a student start in week six and be billed pro rata automatically, or does someone calculate that by hand every time?
Waitlists. When a popular class fills, what happens to the next enquiry? We checked all six major platforms in this market and none of them has a real class waitlist. Teachworks is the only vendor with a public position on it, a feature request that has been open since 2022. If a vendor tells you they have one, ask to see it demonstrated.
The honest version
If you have fewer than twenty students and spend under three hours a week on admin, none of this is urgent and a tidy spreadsheet is still the right answer. We wrote about where that line sits in can you run a school on spreadsheets.
Above that, the question is not whether to move but how much of a mess the move makes. Clean data first, switch between terms, import in dependency order, and stop parallel running on a fixed date. That is most of it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best way to move a tutoring business from spreadsheets to software?
Get three numbers first: active students, sessions per week with average class size, and annual fees collected. Price your shortlist on those numbers, clean the data while it is still in the spreadsheet, switch between terms, import students, classes, schedule and billing in that order, and run both systems in parallel for two weeks before stopping.
In what order should I import my data?
Students first, then classes, then the schedule, then billing. Each layer depends on the one before it, and importing out of order is the most common reason a migration has to be redone.
How long should I run the spreadsheet and the new software side by side?
Two weeks. That is long enough to catch import errors. Any longer and staff keep using the spreadsheet out of habit. On the cut-off date, make the spreadsheet read only rather than deleting it.
When is the best time to switch tutoring software?
The gap between terms is best, and the start of a billing month is second best. Avoid switching mid-term and mid-billing-cycle. With rolling enrolment and no natural gap, pick the first of a month.
Does a small tutoring business need to switch at all?
Not always. With fewer than twenty students and under three hours of admin a week, a tidy spreadsheet is still the right answer. Above either number, the admin time software removes is usually worth more than the subscription.
Compare Teach 'n Go against other platforms
Honest, platform-by-platform breakdowns — and a calculator to run your own school's numbers.
- Teach 'n Go vs DreamClass
- Teach 'n Go vs Classter
- Best Tutoring Business Software in the US
- Mobile-friendly school management apps compared
- Online fee payment processing compared
- Class scheduling & student enrolment compared
- School finance & student billing compared
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- Spreadsheets vs school management software
- Glossary — every term in school software, explained
- Free cost calculator — plug in your own numbers
Try Teach 'n Go free
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