Nearly every school management platform will tell you it handles payments. The differences are in three places that rarely make it onto a feature list: which payment processors you are locked into, whether the vendor takes a cut on top of the processor's fee, and whether parents can pay without being chased.
That middle one is where the real money is. A platform advertised at $30 a month can cost several times that in transaction fees once you are collecting real tuition.
Quick takeaway: Teach 'n Go takes no cut of your payments — connect Stripe, PayPal or SEPA and pay only the processor's standard rate. TutorCruncher charges its own 2.3%–3.85% on top of card fees; Teachworks charges per student lesson. On $200,000 in annual tuition, that gap can mean thousands of dollars a year.
Payment capability compared
| Platform | Payment processors | Vendor's own transaction fee | Recurring / instalments | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teach 'n Go | Stripe, PayPal, SEPA | None — no add-on fees, all features included | Automated recurring billing, instalment plans, variable discounts | €69/mo (~$75) up to 100 students |
| DreamClass | Stripe, Google Pay, Apple Pay | None stated | Monthly recurring charges and instalment agreements | $99/mo billed annually (up to 100 students) |
| TutorBird | Stripe, PayPal | None — "no hidden fees" | Auto Pay; billing per lesson, weekly, monthly, semester or yearly | $16.95/mo + $4.95 per extra staff member |
| Teachworks | Stripe only | None from Teachworks; Stripe's own fee applies | Scheduled invoice generation and prepaid packages | $16.49/mo + $0.32 per student lesson |
| TutorCruncher | Stripe, GoCardless | Yes — 2.3%–3.85% on cards, plus surcharges | Direct Debit mandates that do not expire | From $30/mo (US) or £25/mo (UK) |
| Classter | Not published; region-specific bank gateways | Not published | Instalment payment plans across the academic year | Quote only, from €8.50 per student per year (Core module) |
The transaction fee question
Among the platforms with published pricing, TutorCruncher is the only one that charges its own percentage on top of the processor's fee, and the rates are worth reading carefully because they differ by region and by plan. On the entry tier it is 3.85% in the US and 2.65% in the UK. There is a further 1.5% on international cards and 2% on Amex, Diners Club, JCB, prepaid cards and UnionPay. Even offline payments carry 0.5%–1%. Automated payouts add 0.2% per invoice.
Run that against a real number. A school collecting $200,000 a year in tuition on US card rates at the entry tier is paying roughly $7,700 in TutorCruncher percentage fees alone, before Stripe's own processing costs. The $30 monthly subscription is not the price.
None of the others with published pricing takes a percentage of your payments — you pay your payment processor directly at their published rates. Teachworks' per-lesson fee, covered below, is the other usage-based model to watch.
Teachworks is a different shape of the same problem. There is no percentage fee, but the $16.49 entry plan carries $0.32 per student lesson. A centre running 1,000 student lessons a month pays $320 on top of the $16.49. Their higher tiers reduce the per-lesson rate — $0.189 on Growth at $47.99/mo, $0.065 on Premium at $187.99/mo — so the arithmetic flips at volume, but you need to do the arithmetic.
TutorBird and DreamClass are flat. TutorBird at $16.95 plus $4.95 per additional staff member is the cheapest entry point of the group for a small operation. DreamClass at $99 a month billed annually is banded by student count rather than usage, which makes budgeting simple but is a steep first step for a school with thirty students.
Want to see this against your own numbers instead of ours? Our free school software cost calculator runs your student count, class sizes, and tuition through each platform's published pricing.
Processor lock-in
Four of the six are Stripe-based. If you already run Stripe, that is convenient. If you need an alternative, your options narrow fast.
TutorBird is the only one with a published PayPal integration. That matters for parent populations who prefer it or who do not have a card on file.
TutorCruncher offers GoCardless alongside Stripe, which gives you real Direct Debit and ACH rather than card-on-file. For a UK or Irish school collecting monthly tuition, Direct Debit is meaningfully cheaper and has better retention than cards, which expire.
Classter does not publish its supported gateways at all. Its public knowledge base has articles for IRIS and OTTU, which suggests region-specific bank gateways rather than a universal integration. If you are evaluating Classter, get the gateway list in writing before you sign, because it is not discoverable.
Getting paid without chasing
Automation is where the day-to-day time goes. DreamClass has the clearest reporting here: invoices segmented into Paid, Outstanding, Overdue and Uninvoiced, filterable by class, student group or family, with one-click reminders. TutorBird automates invoice generation, reminders and late fees, with Auto Pay for families who opt in. Teachworks generates invoices on a customisable schedule with overdue reminders, though whether it can auto-charge a card on file is not clearly documented. TutorCruncher's non-expiring Direct Debit mandates are the strongest answer to the churn problem, since a mandate does not lapse the way a card does.
Ask every vendor: what is your fee on top of the payment processor's fee, in writing, including international cards and Amex? Which processors can I use, and can I bring my own? Can a parent set up a payment plan themselves, or does an administrator have to build it? What happens automatically when a payment fails? And can I see, on one screen, every family who currently owes money? That last one sounds basic. It is not universally available.
Where Teach 'n Go fits
Teach 'n Go is on the right side of the only question that matters here: it takes no cut of your payments. You connect Stripe, PayPal, or SEPA and pay those processors their own published rates directly — Teach 'n Go adds nothing on top, and there are no add-on fees for the payment feature, because every feature is included on every plan.
Run that against the same worked example. A school collecting $200,000 a year in tuition pays Teach 'n Go a flat subscription and its processor's standard rate — nothing more. On TutorCruncher's US entry tier, the same school pays roughly $7,700 in percentage fees on top of its subscription and Stripe's costs. That gap is the whole argument.
Beyond fees, Teach 'n Go automates the collection itself: recurring billing, instalment plans, and variable discounts are set once and run automatically, with a real-time view of who has paid, who is outstanding, and what is overdue. Invoices, reminders, and receipts go out without anyone chasing.
Pricing starts at €69/month for up to 100 active students, all features included, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card required. See the tuition payments guide and the payments feature page for detail.
Frequently asked questions
Which school management platform has the lowest payment fees?
Teach 'n Go and TutorBird publish no vendor-side transaction fee beyond the payment processor's own rate, and DreamClass states none. TutorCruncher is the one with a published percentage on top — 2.3%–3.85% on cards depending on region and plan — and Teachworks charges per student lesson rather than a percentage.
Does Teach 'n Go charge a percentage on payments?
No. Teach 'n Go takes no cut of your payments. You pay your chosen processor (Stripe, PayPal or SEPA) their own published rate, and nothing more, on every plan.
How much can transaction fees actually cost a school?
On TutorCruncher's entry tier, a school collecting $200,000 a year in US tuition pays roughly $7,700 a year in percentage fees alone, on top of the subscription and the payment processor's own costs. That is often more than the software's headline subscription price.
Which platforms support recurring billing and instalment plans?
All six platforms compared here support some form of recurring or instalment billing. Teach 'n Go automates recurring billing, instalment plans and variable discounts; DreamClass and Classter support instalment agreements; TutorBird offers Auto Pay.
Can I use my own payment processor?
It depends on the platform. Teachworks only supports Stripe. Teach 'n Go, DreamClass, TutorBird and TutorCruncher support more than one processor. Classter's supported gateways are not published and vary by region.
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