A family registers once, and everything else is already right.
Registration, tuition, attendance, room bookings, the parent portal and your marketing, all working together instead of a stack of separate systems that don't talk to each other. The evening admin (the re-typing, the chasing, the same list rebuilt twice) stops being yours.
What you're paying for now
My wife owns a studio here in Winnipeg, and I've watched this happen behind the scenes: studios end up running a handful of separate tools that were never built to work together. The studio software doesn't know about your marketing. The website doesn't know about your classes. And every gap between them gets filled by you, at ten o'clock at night.
Each subscription looks reasonable on its own. Nobody adds them up, and every one of them is a password, a renewal and a support email you have to keep track of.
A family registers in one place, gets billed in another, and hears from you through a third. The same information typed three times, wrong once.
Enrolment lives in one place, money in another, conversations in a third. No single screen tells you how the studio is actually doing.
We're not asking you to spend more. We're asking you to spend it once, in one place, on something that actually works together.
| What studios pay for separately | Typical /mo | In Complete |
|---|---|---|
| Studio management software | $250+ | ✓ |
| Phone service: your phone system and answering | $175+ | ✓ |
| Review and social media tools | $150+ | ✓ |
| Online booking and appointments | $75+ | ✓ |
| Email and text campaigns | $75+ | ✓ |
| Forms, waivers and e-signatures | $40+ | ✓ |
| Website builder + hosting† | $50+ | ✓ |
| What that adds up to | $815+ | |
| Studio OS Complete — all eight, one system | $397 |
Every one of those for $397, at least $400 a month less than paying for them apart, and one system instead of eight that don't talk to each other.
Core pays for itself on one family, Essentials on two. Complete pays for itself before a single new family signs up.
† What a studio pays each month to keep its website online, with a website builder or a web company. Complete hosts your site once we’ve built it; the build is its own project, quoted on the call. These are our estimates of what each tool costs at the level a studio actually needs — the cheapest plan of each rarely covers a real studio. Bring your invoices to the chat and we'll do it with your real numbers.
Most studio websites are a brochure. A parent likes what they see, then has to phone or email to actually sign up, so the family that was ready tonight waits until somebody’s free tomorrow.
Once we’ve built your website, Complete hosts it on the same system, and the hosting is part of the plan. Every class on it links straight into registration on the same system, so a parent can pick a class and sign up at nine at night without waiting for you. The sign-up page always shows what’s really running, because it comes from the same class list you use.
The build itself is a separate project with its own price, and we build websites for studios on any plan. We quote it on the call. On Complete, once the site is live, the hosting bill goes away.
Not generic business software with dance words pasted on it. The things you do every single week.
Three kids, five classes, one checkout. Levels and prerequisites respected, capacity enforced, sibling discounts applied without you doing arithmetic. Families get signed up in one go instead of giving up halfway.
Recurring payments that follow what each dancer is actually enrolled in, with tax handled properly and invoices you'd be happy to hand your accountant. You stop chasing what somebody actually owes.
One login for schedules, balances, and payments. Every question a parent can answer themselves is a question that never reaches your front desk.
Tap a screen to see it full size.
This is the whole idea. Not a stack of tools with your studio's information copied between them, but one place where registering for a class, paying for it, and hearing from you are the same system.
A family enrols and the class list, the schedule, the balance and the parent portal are all already right. Nothing to re-enter, nothing to keep in sync — that's an evening of admin that simply stops existing.
Tuition comes from what they're actually enrolled in. Add a class mid-season and the invoice knows; drop one and it knows that too. Nobody gets billed for a class they left, and you don't find out about it in June.
When a parent calls or messages, whoever’s at the desk sees that family’s dancers, classes, balance and messages on one screen. They get the right answer the first time they ask.
A trial is the closest a family gets to signing up with you, and the easiest one to lose. The class goes well, everyone’s busy afterwards, and nobody follows up. Studio OS keeps every trial in one list for you, from the booking to the decision.
Example with a made-up studio.
Everything in Core and Essentials, plus everything it takes to run the studio itself.
Everything in Core and Essentials comes with it: missed calls get a text back, one inbox, the phone answered, trials booked, and reviews asked for and replied to.
Studio OS runs The Dance Method in Winnipeg: the front desk, the teachers and the owner all work in it. These are the parts they use every week, the same ones you'd be using.
The front desk opens one recap: what came in, what got handled without them, and the few things that need a person. Missed calls sit in their own list until someone has answered.
Teachers take attendance on the studio iPad, and missed classes land on the front desk's list to follow up. On the first day of classes this September, 63 dancers were marked in, and six of seven classes did it with no training.
Each trial class is tracked from the booking to the decision, with the next follow-up on every family, so a good trial doesn't quietly go nowhere.
Registration and tuition are the next part to move onto Studio OS there, and founding studios move with us.
Studio OS is being built alongside the studios running it, starting with The Dance Method. That means founding studios get our full attention on the migration and a direct line into what gets built next — and it means we take them on a few at a time, properly, rather than all at once. That's why Complete is by invitation for now.
Not sure you need all of it yet? Start with Core or Essentials. It's the same Studio OS either way, so moving up later is a quick switch, not a migration.
No family goes cold, and you stop carrying a list of people to ring back tonight.
Phone calls, texts, website chat, Instagram and Facebook messages all get answered without anyone stopping what they’re doing, and the studio earns more 5-star reviews. The step up from Core costs one family.
Your studio software, phone service, website hosting, social media, reviews, booking, email and texts, and forms and waivers, all in one place, so the evening admin stops being yours.
How each plan pays for itself: a family brings in about $125 a month on average at the Winnipeg studio this was built in, so one family covers Core and two cover Essentials. Complete replaces the separate tools you pay for now, so it pays for itself before a new family signs up.
“Since we started using DSGE, we have seen a steady increase in student registrations! Communicating with potential new students has never been so easy and efficient — we don't miss calls, texts, social media messages or emails.”
“It answers the same six questions I answered forty times a week. It doesn't get them wrong, and it doesn't get tired at 8 PM.”
Both work at The Dance Method in Winnipeg, the studio Studio OS was built in. Orielle owns it, and she's my wife.
Complete is Studio OS for the whole studio: class registration, recurring tuition, a parent portal, attendance, room bookings, staff sign-ins, email and text campaigns, social posts and a blog, and reports on what’s working. Once we’ve built your website, it’s hosted here too. It includes everything in Core and Essentials, and we set it up and train your whole team.
Yes, on any plan. A website build is its own project with its own price, which we quote on the call once we’ve seen what you need. On Complete, hosting is included once we’ve built it, so the separate hosting bill goes away.
Yes. Your families sign up several dancers for several classes in one checkout, tuition is billed automatically from what each dancer is enrolled in, and parents check schedules and balances and pay in their own portal.
Complete is by invitation while we move founding studios over a few at a time. Book a call with Justin: we’ll look at what you’re running now, and if Complete is the right fit for your studio, we’ll talk about a spot.
Against a real stack of separate tools, often yes. If you're running on a free tool today it will be more, and we'll tell you that rather than pretend otherwise. Bring your invoices to the call; we'd rather put you on the right plan than the expensive one.
Then start with a smaller plan; that's what they're for. Essentials at $197 gets calls and messages answered without changing how you run the studio, and you can move up whenever it makes sense.
No. It's month to month and you can cancel any time, and the monthly starts after a 14-day free trial, counted from the day we hand it over. We migrate you in either way — you're not signing up to a year to find out whether it works. If you'd rather pay for the year, you get two months free. Yearly plans aren't refunded, but you keep everything until your year is up, and we'll remind you a month before it renews.
* Plus a one-time setup fee, discussed on the call. A website build is its own project, quoted separately.
A short chat about what you're running now, what it costs, and whether one system beats what you're paying for now. If it doesn't, we'll tell you.