WhatsAppMarket guide
Best booking platforms for driving instructors in 2026: ADI diary apps, booking tools and your own website, priced
A UK comparison of five ways a driving instructor or driving school can take lesson bookings online: Total Drive, MyDriveTime, Passly, Acuity Scheduling and Believe Websites. Every price read from the companies' own pages on 5 November 2026, for one instructor and for a three-car school.
·9 min read
The short answer
- A driving instructor choosing a booking platform is usually choosing between an ADI diary app that also tracks pupil progress and money, and a simpler booking tool or website.
- On 5 November 2026 Total Drive charged one instructor £18 a month for Basic, £23 for Ultimate with online booking, £24 for Pro and £26 for Elite, all including VAT, with a 30-day free trial and cancel any time.
- Total Drive's price for a three-instructor school was £36, £51, £54 or £60 a month depending on the plan, with online booking on Ultimate and Elite only.
- MyDriveTime charged an individual instructor £19 a month with SMS text messages included, and a school £19 for the first instructor plus £15 each for the second and third, £10 each for the 4th to 10th and £5 each from the 11th.
- Passly charged £14.99 a month for the first instructor and £8.99 for each additional one, plus a flat 1.5% fee on lesson payments taken through it on top of Stripe's processing fees.
- Acuity Scheduling, a general booking tool, was £11 a month billed annually for one calendar and £20 for up to six on Squarespace's UK page, with text reminders from the £20 plan.
- Believe Websites builds a bespoke driving school website with booking inside it on your own domain for £0 upfront, from £49 a month, with 0% commission and unlimited instructors.
- Believe Websites is not ADI software: it has no pupil progress tracking, pupil app or tax records, its text reminders and card payments are built but not switched on, it has no marketplace, and it has a 12-month minimum term.
Driving lessons book differently from most appointments. Lessons are long and usually recurring, the pupil is often picked up from home, college or work, the instructor needs travel time between postcodes, and progress towards the test matters as much as the diary. That is why most UK instructors use an ADI diary app built for exactly this, rather than a general booking tool.
This guide compares five options on what decides it for a driving instructor: what you pay on your own and as a three-car school, whether pupils can book themselves, reminders and payments, and whether you get a website of your own. Every figure was read from each company's own pricing page on 5 November 2026.
We make Believe Websites, one of the five below, and we are not ADI software. We build websites with booking inside them. If you need pupil progress, a syllabus or tax records, you need one of the diary apps, and we say where we fit around one further down. Every source is listed at the bottom.
The quick answer
- The cheapest ADI app with pupil payments built in: Passly, £14.99 a month for one instructor plus a 1.5% fee on payments taken through it.
- An ADI app with SMS reminders included at one flat price: MyDriveTime, £19 a month, with cheaper extra seats for schools.
- The fullest feature set, including teaching aids and online booking: Total Drive Elite, £26 a month for one instructor.
- A general booking page for a website you already have: Acuity Scheduling, from £11 a month billed annually.
- A proper driving school website with booking inside it, built and changed for you: Believe Websites from £49 a month, on its own or alongside your diary app.
The price, side by side
Total Drive states its prices include VAT. MyDriveTime states VAT is included on its schools plan; its individual plan does not say. Passly's pricing page does not mention VAT. Acuity's UK page does not say. None of the four publishes an annual price for instructors except Acuity.
| Platform | What it is | One instructor | Pupils book online | A website |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Believe Websites | Website with booking built in | From £49 a month£0 to build, any number of instructors, 0% commission | Yes, inside your site | Bespoke, on your own domain, built for you |
| Total Drive | ADI diary app | £18 / £23 / £24 / £26 a monthBasic / Ultimate / Pro / Elite, incl. VAT | Ultimate and Elite only | Not on the pricing pagea free directory listing is included |
| MyDriveTime | ADI diary app | £19 a monthfree for trainee instructors until they qualify | Not described on the pricing page | Not on the pricing page |
| Passly | ADI diary app | £14.99 a month+1.5% on payments taken through it | Yes, and pay by card | Booking widget for your own site |
| Acuity Scheduling | General booking tool | £11 a month billed annually£12 billed monthly; 1 calendar | Yes | No, embeds in a site you already have |
What a three-car school pays
up to 6 calendars, text reminders; no ADI features
£14.99 + 2 × £8.99, plus 1.5% of card payments
£19 + 2 × £15; online booking not described on its pricing page
any number of instructors; includes building the website
school size set to 3 on its pricing page
Figures read from each company's pricing page on 5 November 2026. Total Drive's page showed £36 for Basic, £54 for Pro and £60 for Elite at three instructors. Passly's own page gives £32.97 for a three-car school and £50.95 for five. Passly's 1.5% applies only to lesson payments taken through it, not to cash or bank transfers you record yourself.
Every other price on that chart is software, and you build the website yourself, or do without one. Ours includes designing and building the site, hosting it, the domain, and changing it whenever you ask. It is also why we are the wrong choice if what you actually need is a diary app.
On your own, Passly is the cheapest of the ADI apps at £14.99 a month. Total Drive Basic is £18 but has no online booking; its cheapest plan with online booking, Ultimate, is £23. MyDriveTime is £19, and both MyDriveTime and Total Drive offer free use to trainee instructors (PDIs).
Driving instructor features
| Pupil progress | Reminders | Pupil payments | Pupil app | Finding new pupils | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Believe Websites | No | Email; texts built, not switched on | Built, not switched on | No | Your own website and a monthly local article |
| Total Drive | Progress syllabus, reflective logs | Free lesson reminders | Not stated | Free pupil and parent app | Free directory listing |
| MyDriveTime | Not detailed on the pricing page | SMS included (individual plan) | Not described | Not detailed on the pricing page | Not on the pricing page |
| Passly | Tracks students' progress | Lesson and payment reminders | Card via Stripe, 1.5% fee | Pupils book and pay online | Free listing, pay per accepted lead |
| Acuity Scheduling | No | Email; texts from Standard | Stripe, Square or PayPal | No | No |
Each option in a paragraph
Total Drive
A Devon-based ADI app with the longest feature list here: a diary that tracks lesson gaps, free instructor and pupil-and-parent apps, a progress syllabus, reflective logs, Making Tax Digital, a fuel card and a free directory listing. Online booking is on Ultimate (£23) and Elite (£26); 3D teaching aids are on Pro (£24) and Elite. Prices include VAT, there is a 30-day free trial with no card, and you can cancel any time. Its pricing page shows a separate price for each school size from 1 to 15 instructors.
MyDriveTime
An ADI diary app at £19 a month for an individual with SMS text messages included, a 30-day free trial and no commitment. For schools the extra seats get cheaper as you grow: £15 each for the second and third instructor, £10 each up to ten, and £5 each after that, with free admin accounts and VAT included. Trainee instructors use it free until they qualify. Its pricing page does not describe online booking for pupils, so check that with them if it matters.
Passly
The cheapest of the ADI apps and the one most focused on pupils booking and paying online: £14.99 a month for the first instructor and £8.99 for each extra, with card payments through Stripe at a flat 1.5% on top of Stripe's own fees. It includes booking widgets you can put on your own website, a 14-day free trial and no contract. On 5 November 2026 its page also offered 50% off the first three months to new accounts with a launch code. It runs a free business listing that charges per accepted lead; the page we read did not give that fee.
Acuity Scheduling
A general booking tool, not built for driving lessons: no pupil progress, no postcodes or travel time. It is a reasonable choice if you already have a website and want a tidy booking page with card deposits, from £11 a month billed annually. We compared it with ourselves in detail in Believe Websites vs Acuity Scheduling.
Believe Websites
We design and build a bespoke website for your driving school, with booking inside it, on your own domain, for £0 upfront and from £49 a month, however many instructors you have. We take 0% commission. When your prices, areas or test-centre information change, you message us and we change it. Every site gets email confirmations and reminders, analytics, a monthly report, an AI Search Readiness score and a new article each month about your town and the lessons you offer. The whole offer is on our home page.
If you already run Total Drive, MyDriveTime or Passly for your diary and pupils, you can keep it for that and use us for the website, so a learner searching for lessons in your town lands on a proper site rather than a directory profile.
Left out
We looked for Learnr, the company behind the Instructr app, but on 5 November 2026 the learnr.co.uk domain showed a page saying it was for sale, so we have left it out rather than guess at its prices.
Where we lose
- We are not ADI software. No pupil progress or syllabus, no pupil app, no lesson-gap finder, no Making Tax Digital records. Total Drive, MyDriveTime and Passly do some or all of that.
- Text reminders and card payments are built but not switched on. Today we send email confirmations and reminders only, and cannot take payment for a block of lessons. MyDriveTime includes SMS and Passly takes card payments now.
- We cost more than an app on its own. A single instructor pays £14.99 to £26 a month for any of the ADI apps.
- There is a 12-month minimum term, then month to month. Total Drive, MyDriveTime and Passly all say you can cancel at any time.
- No marketplace. We do not send you learners who are browsing. Total Drive includes a directory listing and Passly runs a lead listing.
So which one should you pick?
- You want pupils to book and pay by card, as cheaply as possible: Passly.
- You want text reminders included at one flat price: MyDriveTime.
- You want teaching aids, a pupil app and online booking in one place: Total Drive Elite.
- You want learners searching in your town to find a proper website, built and kept up to date for you, with booking in it: Believe Websites, on its own or alongside your diary app.
Teach in a classroom rather than a car? We priced the options for tutors the same way.
Common questions
- What is the best booking app for a driving instructor in the UK?
- It depends on what you need. On 5 November 2026 Passly was the cheapest ADI app with pupil card payments at £14.99 a month, MyDriveTime included SMS reminders at £19 a month, and Total Drive offered online booking from £23 a month. Believe Websites builds a full driving school website with booking inside it for £0 upfront and from £49 a month.
- How much does Total Drive cost?
- On 5 November 2026 Total Drive was £18 a month for Basic, £23 for Ultimate, £24 for Pro and £26 for Elite for one instructor, including VAT. At three instructors its page showed £36, £51, £54 and £60. Online booking is on Ultimate and Elite.
- How much does MyDriveTime cost for a driving school?
- MyDriveTime's page showed £19 a month for the first instructor, £15 each for the second and third, £10 each for the 4th to 10th, and £5 each from the 11th, including VAT. A three-instructor school pays £49 a month.
- Does Passly take a cut of lesson payments?
- Yes, when pupils pay through it. Passly's page states a flat 1.5% fee on lesson payments taken through the platform, on top of Stripe's processing fees. It does not apply to cash or bank transfers you record yourself.
- Is there free software for trainee driving instructors?
- Yes. On 5 November 2026 MyDriveTime was free for trainee instructors (PDIs) until they qualify, and Total Drive's pricing page offered a free PDI Head Start.
- Will a website help me get more driving pupils?
- A complete website gives search engines and AI assistants something clear to read about the lessons you offer and the areas you cover. Believe Websites sets up a page for each type of lesson, structured data and a monthly article. No company can guarantee a Google ranking or that an AI assistant will recommend an instructor.
Sources
- Total Drive membership pricing — checked 5 November 2026
- MyDriveTime pricing — checked 5 November 2026
- Passly instructor pricing — checked 5 November 2026
- Acuity Scheduling by Squarespace, UK prices — checked 5 November 2026
- learnr.co.uk (domain for sale) — checked 5 November 2026
- Believe Websites pricing and terms — checked 5 November 2026
Competitors' prices change. Every figure here was read from the company's own public pricing page on the date shown. If something is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.