Most dance studios in India do not begin with a hundred students and a front desk. They begin with twelve kids in a rented hall on Saturday mornings, fees collected in cash and UPI, and a notebook that lives in the teacher's bag. For a studio at that stage, Rs 999 a month is not expensive - it is simply the wrong question. Nobody should have to justify a software subscription before they have justified the business. So we stopped asking them to. StudioPartner is now free studio management software: start free, run a real studio properly, pay nothing.
- StudioPartner is now free to start - a full studio management system for Rs 0, with no card and no expiry date.
- It is not a trial. There is no countdown, no feature that switches off in fourteen days, and nothing taken from the fees you collect.
- Students, batches, scheduling, fee tracking, reminders, attendance and leads are all included, free.
- Free covers a studio comfortably through its early years; the limits are stated plainly up front rather than sprung on you later.
- Paid plans start at Rs 999/month with a 14-day free trial - and if it does not earn its keep, you drop back to free rather than losing your studio.
What is free studio management software?
Free studio management software runs the daily admin of a class-based studio - students, batches, scheduling, fees, attendance and enquiries - at no cost. StudioPartner's free plan does exactly that, permanently, with no card and no trial clock, and without taking a percentage of the fees you collect.
It is not a stripped demo built to frustrate you into upgrading. A small studio can run its entire admin on the free plan indefinitely and never pay us a rupee. That is the point. The plan you see on pricing is the plan you get.
What changed is only the entry point. Everything on features that made StudioPartner worth Rs 999 is still there for studios that need the scale - unlimited students, full history, complete reporting. Free simply removes the cost of finding out whether any of it helps you.
Why did we make it free?
Because the studios who need systems most are the ones least able to gamble Rs 999 on finding out. India's economy runs on micro-enterprises, and a dance studio in its first two years is exactly that - informal, cash-first, and one bad month away from rethinking everything.
The Ministry of MSME counts more than 6.30 crore enterprises in India's MSME sector, overwhelmingly micro-scale. Dance studios sit squarely inside that number. They are not underserved by software because they are small - they are underserved because nearly every tool aimed at them was priced for a 200-student Western studio with a credit card already on file.
We watched this play out repeatedly. An owner with 18 students would open the pricing page, weigh it against one student's monthly fee, and decide to stay with the notebook for another six months. Then admission season arrived, three enquiries went unfollowed, two students quietly stopped coming before anyone noticed, and the cost of having no system was several times the subscription they had declined. Nobody was being careless. The first step was priced wrong.
Free fixes the order of operations. Get organised first. Pay only once being organised is visibly making you money.
What is included when you start free?
Everything a studio actually does daily: enrol students, run batches, collect and chase fees, mark attendance, and follow up enquiries. The core modules are not gated - the limits sit on scale and history, not on capability.
Students
Full student profiles, contact details and complete fee history in one record.
Batches & scheduling
Build the weekly timetable, assign students, watch batch capacity fill.
Fees & reminders
Log cash, UPI and bank payments. See exactly who owes what, and send a reminder.
Leads & follow-ups
Every walk-in, call and Instagram DM tracked from enquiry to admission.
You also get the Network - a studio profile and one open gig listing - so you can hire a teacher or advertise a slot without paying for the privilege. The free studio templates and fee calculator stay open to everyone, signup or not.
What is capped, honestly?
Four things: active students are capped at 30, attendance history goes back 90 days, reports cover the current month only, and you can create 4 membership plans. Nothing else is restricted, and nothing is taken from the fees you collect.
We would rather state the caps plainly than bury them. A cap you can see is a business decision you can plan around. A cap you discover in month seven, once your student list already lives inside someone's database, is a trap - and it is the main reason "free" software carries a bad name among studio owners, which we unpack in what free dance studio software really costs.
A cap you can read before you sign up is a price. A cap you discover after your student list is inside the system is a trap.
What does it cost when you outgrow Free?
Rs 999 a month for Basic, which removes every cap - unlimited students, unlimited attendance history, full reports and analytics. Rs 1,499 for Pro once you have staff to manage and pay. Both start with a 14-day free trial, and neither asks for a card up front.
| Free | Basic | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Rs 0 forever | Rs 999/month + GST | Rs 1,499/month + GST |
| Yearly | - | Rs 9,999 + GST (save Rs 1,989) | Rs 15,996 + GST (save Rs 1,992) |
| Active students | Up to 30 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Batches, fees, attendance, leads | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Attendance history | 90 days | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Reports | Current month | Full reports & analytics | Full reports & analytics |
| Membership plans | 4 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| - | Click-to-send | Automated reminders | |
| Staff, payroll & GST invoices | - | - | Yes |
| Card required | Never | No - 14-day trial | No - 14-day trial |
Upgrading is one click inside the dashboard and your data carries over untouched - no re-signup, no export and re-import. If the trial ends and you decide against it, you fall back to Free. You do not lose your studio because you tried something.
Online fee collection through Razorpay is not part of Basic or Pro. It is coming in the upcoming Premium plan, and we would rather say that here than let anyone sign up expecting it. The wider pricing picture - per-student versus flat-fee models, and what Western tools actually cost in rupees - is in dance studio software pricing in India.
FAQs
Is the StudioPartner Free plan really free forever?
Yes. It has no expiry date, no card requirement, and no percentage taken from the fees you collect. It stays free as long as your studio has 30 or fewer active students. If you cross 30, you choose whether to upgrade - nothing is deleted or locked while you decide.
What happens when I cross 30 students?
You are prompted to move to Basic at Rs 999 a month, which lifts the student cap entirely. Your existing students, batches, fee records and attendance stay exactly as they are. The upgrade takes one click inside the dashboard and needs no new account or data export.
Is Free just a 14-day trial with a different name?
No. The 14-day trial is a separate thing - it applies to the paid Basic and Pro plans and lets you test the uncapped version. The Free plan has no clock on it at all. You can trial Basic, let it lapse, and carry on using Free indefinitely.
Can I use the Free plan for a music, art or fitness studio?
Yes. The batch, fee and attendance logic works for any class-based Indian studio - music schools, art classes, martial arts, fitness. The vocabulary leans towards dance because that is where we run our own classes, but nothing in the Free plan is dance-specific.
What to do first
Start free today and spend twenty minutes moving your student list and current batches in. Not a year of history - just who is enrolled now and who owes what. That single step is what turns a notebook into a system, and it is the same first move we recommend in the full guide to running a dance studio in India. If you are already running at scale on spreadsheets, the honest comparison is in software vs spreadsheets and the break-even math in is studio software worth it. For the fee side specifically, start with tracking studio fees without spreadsheets.
Run your whole studio from one place.
StudioPartner handles students, fees, attendance, batches and leads, built for Indian dance studios. Free forever for up to 30 students, no card required.
Start free