Every UK Driving Instructor App Compared (2026): All 15 Prices Checked
Fifteen apps, one table. We checked each price, trial, trainee offer and card payment charge on the vendor's own website on 19 September 2026, and where a vendor doesn't publish something we say so.
Quick answer: For a solo UK driving instructor, paid apps cost between £9.99 and £29.99 a month in September 2026, and every one of them charges something when a pupil pays by card, even if the charge isn't published. PassReady is £0 a month. Its only fee is a booking fee on online card payments, paid by the pupil: PassReady's 4.2% plus card processing, rounded up to the next whole pound. On a £40 lesson the pupil pays £43 and the instructor receives £40.23. Cash lessons are free to log, forever.
This page lists every driving instructor app we could find that a UK instructor might shortlist in 2026, fifteen in all. For each one we opened the vendor's own pricing page on 19 September 2026 and wrote down what it says. Nothing comes from directories or review sites. If you want the shorter, eight-app version, see our best driving instructor software guide.
We build PassReady, so read this knowing that. It is also why every rival fact below has a source and a date: you can check each one yourself.
All 15 apps at a glance (checked 19 September 2026)
| App | Monthly price, one instructor | Free trial | Free for trainees (PDIs)? | Charge on card payments, and who pays | Pupils book online themselves? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PassReady | £0 | None needed, no end date | Yes, and still £0 once you qualify | Booking fee of PassReady's 4.2% plus card processing, rounded up to the next whole pound, paid by the pupil | Yes, your own booking page |
| Total Drive | £18 Basic, £23 Ultimate, £24 Pro, £26 Elite (inc. VAT) | 30 days, no payment details | Free until you pass Part 3, or up to 12 months | Optional in-app payments; says you receive 100% of the lesson price; the charge is not published | On Ultimate (£23) and Elite (£26) |
| MyDriveTime | £19 | 30 days, no card | Free until you qualify | Not published on its pricing or finance pages | Not stated on the pages we checked |
| GoRoadie Pro | £17 after the trial | 60 days, no card | Yes, “unlimited” free access | 1.9% when you request payment; if the pupil pays in the app, the pupil pays the Stripe fee | No, you offer slots to pupils |
| ADI Network | £0 | n/a | Free app for everyone | 2% + 30p per payment, set to the instructor or passed to the learner | Not stated on the pages we checked |
| DriveInstruct | Pro £10 (a free tier is a listing only) | 1 month, no card | 12 months free for up to 5 pupils; payments unlock once qualified | 2% fee on payments | Yes |
| DrivePro | Starter £19.99, Pro £29.99 (£16.66 and £24.99 a month paid yearly) | 14 days, no card | Free during qualification | Your own Stripe account, so Stripe's fees apply; any DrivePro fee is not published | Yes, from Starter |
| Passdesk | Instructor £19 (up to 40 active learners) | 14 days, card required | Free until your badge lands | 2.5% per lesson payment, card processing included | Yes, on every plan |
| Waypilot | £24 diary only, £49 with website and online booking | 14 days, no card | Free until you qualify, or 12 months | Stripe or GoCardless; the charge is not published | On the £49 plan |
| ADI Book | £12 | 30 days, no payment details | Not published | Optional in-app payments; says you receive 100% of the lesson price; its terms say fees are “as stated in the app” | Listed as a feature |
| Driving Instructors Diary | Solo £19.99; payments listed from the £49.99 plan | 14 days, no card | Not published | Not published | AI website booking assistant (plan not stated) |
| Passly | £14.99 | 14 days | Not published | 1.5% on top of standard Stripe processing | Yes, booking widget |
| LessonBuddy | £9.99 (or £89.99 a year) | 60 days, no card | Up to 6 months free | Not published on its pricing page | Yes, from your live availability |
| DriveSchoolPro | “Free until 31 March 2027” early access | n/a | n/a | No commission; Stripe's fee applies | “Coming soon” |
| ADI Diary | Site is an archive (copyright 2013 to 2018) | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Prices are the monthly list price for one instructor, from each vendor's own site on 19 September 2026. DriveSchoolPro's site did not load when we re-checked on 19 September, so its row is from our 14 September check. “Not published” means we could not find it on the vendor's public pages, not that it doesn't exist.
Every app charges for card payments
This is the column most comparisons leave out. Card processors charge on every payment. Stripe's published UK rate is 1.5% + 20p for a standard UK card. Unless an app is a bank, someone pays that, and usually the app adds its own charge too. So the real monthly cost of any app is the subscription plus the charge on every card payment, and it matters who pays it.
Looking down that column: GoRoadie charges 1.9% when you request payment, DriveInstruct 2%, ADI Network 2% + 30p, Passdesk 2.5% all-in, Passly 1.5% on top of Stripe. Total Drive, ADI Book, Waypilot, MyDriveTime and Driving Instructors Diary don't publish theirs on the pages we checked.
PassReady publishes the whole calculation. There is no monthly fee. When a pupil books and pays online, PassReady's 4.2% plus card processing is added on top of your price and the pupil's total is rounded up to the next whole pound. The pupil pays it, and you receive your full price, usually a little more. Full worked examples are on our pricing page.
The honest trade-off is on the pupil's side: about £3 on a £40 lesson. That is the same kind of booking fee people already pay on concert tickets or takeaway apps, and it pays for the pupil's free app, with theory practice and their progress tracker.
The apps new to this comparison
Passdesk
Passdesk is priced per workspace, not per instructor. The Instructor plan is £19 a month (£190 a year) for one person and up to 40 active learners, with Pro at £49 for small schools. It has a 14-day trial, and a card is needed at signup. PDIs use it free until they qualify. Lesson payments taken through Passdesk cost a flat 2.5%, with Stripe's processing included. Its pricing page says it will move your data across free from your current diary app, and that the first 25 schools get 50% off for 12 months (24 of 25 slots left when we looked). SMS beyond 25 texts a month is billed at cost.
Waypilot
Waypilot has two solo plans. “DSM only”, the diary, pupils and payments, is £24 a month. “Website + DSM” is £49 a month and adds a branded website and online booking where pupils book themselves. School plans are £99 and £199. Every plan has a 14-day trial with no card, and trainees get it free until they qualify or for 12 months. Payments run through Stripe or GoCardless; the charge on a payment is not on its pricing or payments page. One thing to know: its homepage and pricing page showed different tier prices when we checked, so we have used the pricing page.
ADI Book
ADI Book is £12 per instructor per month for a sole instructor, falling to £11, £10 and £8 per instructor for bigger schools. It offers a 30-day trial with no payment details and says it is used by over 6,500 instructors every week. In-app payments are optional, and its payments page says instructors receive 100% of the lesson price the next day. We could not find the charge for those payments published: its terms say ADI Book “may deduct service fees as stated in the app”. Ask before you switch on card payments.
Driving Instructors Diary
Driving Instructors Diary (drivinginstructorsdiary.com) sells itself on AI tools: a website booking assistant, a voice assistant and a gap finder. The Solo plan is £19.99 a month for one instructor. Payments and the lesson wallet are listed from the Driving School plan at £49.99 (up to 5 instructors). There is a 14-day trial with no card. It publishes no trainee offer and no charge on card payments. It is a different product from ADI Diary, the older software whose site is now an archive.
DrivePro
DrivePro's Starter plan is £19.99 a month, or £16.66 a month paid yearly, and includes the diary, an online booking portal and card payments. Pro is £29.99 a month (£24.99 paid yearly) and adds Making Tax Digital filing, CPD and Standards Check tools. It has a 14-day trial with no card, and PDIs use it free during training. Each instructor connects their own Stripe account, so Stripe's processing fees come out of each payment; we could not find any DrivePro charge on top published. Its FAQ says it manages new bookings and payments rather than bringing across your existing lesson history.
The apps we have covered before, re-checked
Total Drive
Total Drive now lists four tiers: Basic £18, Ultimate £23, Pro £24 and Elite £26 a month, VAT included. Online booking is in Ultimate and Elite. The Pro tier adds teaching aids but its feature list does not include online booking. It has a 30-day trial and its PDI Head Start is free until you pass Part 3 or for up to 12 months. In-app card payments are optional and its payments page says you receive 100% of the lesson price the next day, but it doesn't publish what the payment costs or who pays it. It says over 8,600 instructors use it every week. If you are comparing it with other options, see our Total Drive alternatives page.
MyDriveTime
MyDriveTime is £19 a month for an individual instructor, with a 30-day trial and no card. Extra instructors in a school cost £15, then £10, then £5 each. Trainees use it free until they qualify through its PDI Best Start scheme. Its diary can be shared out to Google, Apple and Outlook calendars. We could not find its card payment charge on the pricing or finance pages we checked on 19 September.
GoRoadie Pro
GoRoadie Pro now costs £17 a month after a 60-day trial with no card (the FAQ on the same page also mentions a one-month trial). PDIs get free access. It charges 1.9% when you request a payment through the app; if the pupil pays through the app, the pupil pays the Stripe fee instead. Its FAQ says pupils can't book into your diary; you offer them slots. Its separate pupil referral service charges £25.99 per pupil, with the first one free. More on this in our GoRoadie alternatives page.
ADI Network
ADI Network's app is free to use. Its homepage offers “thousands of nationwide jobs” from its partners, and its terms list the group's companies, including Star Genie Ltd trading as PassMeFast, which sells driving courses to learners. Payments you take from your own private learners carry a non-refundable fee of 2% plus 30p per transaction (terms, section 1.5.1), which you can pay yourself or pass to the learner. The terms also say the first payment can take up to a month to reach your bank.
DriveInstruct
DriveInstruct Pro is £10 a month after a one-month trial with no card. The free tier is a marketplace listing, without the diary. The School plan is £49 a month for up to 10 instructors. Payments carry a 2% fee. Trainees get the diary, booking and progress portal free for 12 months for up to five pupils, with Stripe payments unlocking once they qualify.
Passly
Passly is £14.99 a month per instructor after a 14-day trial, with a launch code for 50% off the first three months. Card payments carry a flat 1.5% on top of standard Stripe processing, and it says so on its pricing section. It also runs a learner-facing directory.
LessonBuddy
LessonBuddy is £9.99 a month or £89.99 a year, with no feature tiers. Qualified instructors get 60 days free and trainees up to six months, with no card. Pupil and parent access is included. We could not find a card payment charge on its pricing page.
DriveSchoolPro
DriveSchoolPro was in “free until 31 March 2027” early access at our last successful check on 14 September 2026, with pricing after that to be announced. It said it takes no commission and that Stripe's standard fee applies to card payments, and its student self-booking was marked “coming soon”. Its site did not respond when we tried again on 19 September, so check it yourself before relying on any of this.
ADI Diary
ADI Diary is still suggested by some AI assistants. Its website describes itself as an archive of past development, with a copyright line running 2013 to 2018. Check whether it is maintained before you rely on it.
PassReady
PassReady is £0 a month for trainees and qualified instructors, with no trial that runs out, no card to start and no pupil limit. You get the diary, your own booking page where pupils book and pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, DVSA-aligned progress tracking, reminders, and tax and Making Tax Digital records with expenses and mileage. Cash and bank transfer lessons sit in the same diary for free. Payouts go straight to your bank through Stripe, usually within 3 working days (the first payout can take up to a week).
The one fee is the booking fee on online card payments, paid by the pupil: PassReady's 4.2% plus card processing, rounded up to the next whole pound. £40 lesson, pupil pays £43, you receive £40.23. Moving from another app? Our guide to switching covers bringing your diary and pupils across.
How to choose
- Add the card charge to the monthly price. A £10 app with a 2% payment fee costs more than £10 once pupils pay by card. Ask who pays the charge: you, or the pupil.
- Check the trial terms. Some need a card up front (Passdesk), most don't. PassReady has no trial because there is nothing to start paying.
- If you are a trainee, ask what happens when you qualify. Most free PDI offers end at Part 3 or after 6 to 12 months. See free software for trainee driving instructors.
- Check which tier has online booking. On Total Drive it starts at £23 and on Waypilot at £49. GoRoadie Pro doesn't let pupils book into your diary. On PassReady it is included at £0.
- Ask how your data leaves. Passdesk, Passly and PassReady all export to CSV. GoRoadie says it will export your data for you.
Common questions
Which driving instructor app is cheapest in the UK?
For the instructor, PassReady at £0 a month; the pupil pays a booking fee on online card payments. ADI Network is also free to use but charges 2% + 30p on payments through the app. Of the subscription apps, LessonBuddy (£9.99) and DriveInstruct Pro (£10) have the lowest monthly prices, before payment charges.
Do driving instructor apps charge for card payments?
Yes. Every app that takes card payments pays a processor, and most add a charge of their own: 1.9% on GoRoadie, 2% on DriveInstruct, 2% + 30p on ADI Network, 2.5% on Passdesk, 1.5% plus Stripe on Passly. Several don't publish theirs. On PassReady the pupil pays the booking fee, which already includes processing.
How much is Passdesk?
£19 a month for the Instructor plan (one person, up to 40 active learners), after a 14-day trial that needs a card. Lesson payments cost 2.5% each, with card processing included. Trainees use it free until they qualify.
How much is DrivePro?
Starter is £19.99 a month and Pro, with Making Tax Digital filing, is £29.99 a month, or £16.66 and £24.99 a month paid yearly. There is a 14-day trial and PDIs use it free during training.
Is Driving Instructors Diary the same as ADI Diary?
No. Driving Instructors Diary (drivinginstructorsdiary.com) is a current product from £19.99 a month. ADI Diary (adidiary.co.uk) is older software whose website is now an archive.
Sources (all checked 19 September 2026 unless stated)
- PassReady: passready.co.uk/pricing/
- Total Drive: totaldrive.co.uk/instructor-software-pricing/, /take-card-payments/, /become-driving-instructor/ and homepage
- MyDriveTime: mydrivetime.co.uk/pricing, /finance-management/, /pdi-best-start/, /diary-management/
- GoRoadie: goroadie.com/pro and goroadie.com/partner
- ADI Network: adinetwork.co.uk, /terms and /why-join-adi/adi-finance-tools
- DriveInstruct: driveinstruct.co.uk
- DrivePro: drivepro.app/pricing and homepage
- Passdesk: passdesk.co.uk/pricing/
- Waypilot: waypilot.co.uk/pricing, /features/payments and homepage
- ADI Book: adibook.co.uk, /pricing/, /payment-collection/, /terms-and-condition/
- Driving Instructors Diary: drivinginstructorsdiary.com
- Passly: passly.co.uk/instructor
- LessonBuddy: lessonbuddy.co.uk/pricing/ and homepage
- DriveSchoolPro: driveschoolpro.com (14 September 2026; did not respond on 19 September)
- ADI Diary: adidiary.co.uk
- Stripe UK card rates: stripe.com/gb/pricing
Paid more than you charge. £0 a month.
Diary, booking page, card payments, DVSA progress and tax records with no subscription. The booking fee is added on top of your price and paid by the pupil. On a £40 lesson the pupil pays £43 and you receive £40.23. Cash lessons stay free forever.
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