A private music teacher in the UK pays between £0 and about £16 a month for software, and the difference that matters is not the price — it is who holds your parents’ money and what comes out at the end of the tax year. Six products are compared below, every price read from the vendor’s own page on 4 September 2026. Three publish in pounds, three in US dollars. One takes a cut of every payment you receive.
The criteria, before any product is named
At solo scale the bill is small and the friction is everything. These are the seven things this page measures:
- The price, and whether it stays still when you take on your twentieth pupil.
- Who holds the money. Your own payment account, or theirs — and whether anything is taken on top of the card rate.
- Termly and per-pupil fees. Whether you can invoice a term in one go, and whether a parent can pay in instalments.
- The register on a phone. Marking standing up between lessons, not retyping it at 10pm.
- What comes out for Self Assessment. Income, expenses and mileage against the UK tax year.
- UK-shaped by default. GBP, UK term dates, VAT-aware invoicing, UK GDPR and a full export.
- Trial terms. Days, and whether a card is required to start.
The price table
| Product | List price | What the meter counts | Currency | Cut of your payments | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LessonLoop Solo | £15/mo (£150 a year) | Nothing | GBP | Nothing on top of standard Stripe rates | 30 days, no card |
| MusicNotes PMI | £0 until Jan 2027, then £12/mo | Nothing stated | GBP | Not stated | Free period, no card |
| My Music Lessons | £9.95/mo | Teachers, plus each hired facility | GBP | Not stated on their pricing panel | 1 month |
| MyMusicStaff | $16.95/mo | Teachers and staff | USD | Not stated | 30 days, no card |
| MakeMusic Studio | $19.95/mo | Staff, and every payment | USD | 2.9% + 30¢ per card charge, 1.8% ACH, 0.4% of subscription volume | 14 days |
| Teachworks | $16.49/mo + $0.320 per student lesson | Student lessons taught | USD | Not stated | 21 days, card at conversion |
Two of those columns are the whole decision.
The meter. Teachworks charges per student lesson taught. A teacher doing 100 lessons a month pays $16.49 + $32 = about $48, roughly £38, and a group of four counts as four. Teaching more costs more, every month, forever.
The cut. MakeMusic Studio’s 2.9% + 30¢ per card charge sits on top of the subscription. On £1,200 of fees a month that is roughly £40 on top of the £16 or so of subscription. LessonLoop adds nothing on top of standard Stripe rates — you keep the Stripe relationship and the money lands in your own account.
Where the money goes
This is the question worth answering before any feature list, because it decides whether you are paid or waiting to be paid.
LessonLoop connects your own Stripe account. Card payments and Bacs Direct Debit go into it directly, LessonLoop adds nothing on top of standard Stripe rates, and payouts run on Stripe’s schedule to your bank. Parents set their own Direct Debit mandate up in the portal — a Direct Debit is the payer’s authority and no teacher should be able to create one on a parent’s behalf. Bank debits take up to four working days to confirm, and while a collection is in flight the reminder ladder leaves that family alone.
MakeMusic Studio publishes its processing rates on its own pricing page: 2.9% + 30¢ per card charge, an additional 1% on international cards, 1.8% per ACH bank transfer and 0.4% of subscription volume.
My Music Lessons describes an “automated booking and payment process” with commission splits and teacher payouts. MyMusicStaff, Teachworks and MusicNotes PMI do not state a processing cut on the pages read on 4 September 2026. If you are choosing on this basis, ask each of them directly what they take and how quickly you are paid, and get the answer in writing.
What each one says it does
LessonLoop Solo — £15 a month, unlimited pupils
The diary, registers, lesson notes, automatic invoicing, payment plans and instalments, automatic late fees, and a parent portal on your own domain. Card and Bacs Direct Debit into your own Stripe account with nothing added on top of standard Stripe rates. Registers mark one tap per pupil on a native iPhone app, each tap saving on its own, and the same record feeds the invoice and the make-up credit. Make-up credits are earned, valued from your rate card, capped and expired by your own policy. Expenses and mileage are kept against the UK tax year and reported alongside revenue. LoopAssist drafts the invoice, moves the lesson and writes the chase, and executes nothing until you confirm it; the MCP connector answers questions about your own teaching from ChatGPT and Claude, read-only today. Invoices and payments sync one-way into Xero. £150 a year if paid annually. 30-day trial, no card, and a live demo with no signup. UK-based support replies within one UK working day. There is no SMS channel; WhatsApp is an optional prepaid pack in early access. Music teacher software →
MusicNotes PMI — £0 until January 2027
Their site describes one-click term, half-term or per-lesson invoicing, automatic payment reminders, drag-and-drop rescheduling with automatic parent notification, UK school term dates built in, a Self Assessment income summary for HMRC, unlimited students and data export with no lock-in. £0 until January 2027 with no card, then £12 a month or £120 a year; a founding-member rate of £6 a month is offered to the first ten teachers. Built for independent UK music teachers. (musicnotespmi.co.uk and /pricing, read 4 September 2026.) Full comparison
My Music Lessons — £9.95 a month
Scheduling built for private music teachers and music schools, with an automated booking and payment process, unlimited free student accounts, homework and practice scheduling, packages, subscriptions and memberships, bulk messaging and push alerts, digital signage and self check-in, gift vouchers, commission splits and teacher payouts, and a public profile page with a free directory listing. One month free trial, no fixed contract. Prices in GBP with other currencies selectable. (mymusiclessons.org.uk, read 4 September 2026.) Full comparison
MyMusicStaff — $16.95 a month
$16.95 a month plus $4.95 for each additional teacher or staff member, which does not apply if you teach alone. 30-day free trial with no credit card and a 90-day money-back guarantee. Priced in US dollars. Their own support documentation states the mobile app was retired and directs users to bookmark the mobile website. (mymusicstaff.com/pricing, read 4 September 2026.) Full comparison
MakeMusic Studio (formerly Fons) — $19.95 a month
$19.95 a month, with a summer sale price of $9.95 showing on 4 September 2026, plus $4.95 for each additional staff member. On top: 2.9% + 30¢ per card charge, 1% more on international cards, 1.8% per ACH transfer and 0.4% of subscription volume. 14-day free trial. Priced in US dollars. (studio.makemusic.com/pricing, read 4 September 2026.) Full comparison
Teachworks — from $16.49 a month plus per-lesson
Starter $16.49 a month + $0.320 per student lesson; Growth $47.99 + $0.189; Premium $187.99 + $0.065. 21-day free trial with card details entered to convert. No setup or cancellation fees and no contract. Priced in US dollars. The meter counts student lessons taught, so it scales with how much you teach. (teachworks.com/pricing, read 4 September 2026.) Full comparison
What to check before you commit
- Take a register on your phone during the trial, standing up, in the room you actually teach in. It is the thing you will do a thousand times a year.
- Send yourself an invoice and pay it. Watch where the money goes and how long it takes to arrive.
- Export your data on day one of the trial, not on the day you leave. If the export is awkward now, it will be worse later.
- Price it at the size you will be in two years, not the size you are today. A per-lesson or per-teacher meter is invisible until it isn’t.
- Work out what your admin is costing you now. Our admin cost calculator does it from your own hours and rate, free and with no email gate, and our hourly rate calculator works backwards from the income you actually want.
Reading that goes with this
- Music lesson prices in the UK — what to charge, by instrument
- Self Assessment for music teachers — expenses, deadlines and Making Tax Digital
- How many teaching weeks are in a UK school year? — the number your termly fee depends on
- Music school software, compared on the facts — the same treatment at school scale, with nine products
Sources, and how to correct this page
Every price was read from the vendor’s own live pricing page on 4 September 2026: mymusicstaff.com/pricing, teachworks.com/pricing, studio.makemusic.com/pricing, mymusiclessons.org.uk, musicnotespmi.co.uk and /pricing, lessonloop.net/pricing. Nothing here comes from a directory or a third-party summary, and no vendor paid to appear.
Prices move. If a figure here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will correct it and re-date the page.
