Dance studio software
that gets the money right
A dancer in three routines needs three costumes on three order deadlines, and that is before competition entries. Cadence puts each charge where her tuition already goes, and each adult who pays gets their own bill.
Last night at your studio
A card declined at 2 a.m.
The backup covered it before anyone woke up
Costume deposits went out
Only to the dancers in that number, sized correctly
The finale formation was mapped and printed
Before dress rehearsal, not during it
A parent volunteer scanned tickets at the door
Nothing needed a laptop
You stop relaying who owes the costume fee
Collecting monthly tuition is the easy part. It is the split families, the failed cards, and costume season that eat your week. Cadence was built starting there.
One dancer, two payers, no shared login
Most systems attach the money to one household account. Cadence attaches it to each child's enrollment instead, so the adults who pay for her can be billed separately. Each parent gets their own invoice for their own share, pays with their own card, and does not need the other one’s login.
- ✓Costume money and tuition money are split however the parents worked it out, not forced into one even share
- ✓A grandparent's gift toward costume fees cannot quietly become tuition money instead
- ✓Whoever signs the payment authorization is whoever answers if a charge is ever disputed
- ✓An adult student in the Tuesday tap class pays for herself, and nothing about the system treats that as an edge case
A missed payment does not become a missed costume
When a payment fails overnight, Cadence tries the backup card on file. If the other parent has agreed to cover a missed payment, their card is next in line. Everyone is told what happened before the doors open.
- ✓The backup card runs automatically, and the family finds out before the sizing deadline, not after
- ✓A bounced bank draft is caught and flagged, not silently logged as paid
- ✓Your returned-payment fee applies the same way every time, by your policy
Every month sits next to the same month last year, so the post-recital summer dip reads as a summer dip and not as families leaving for good.
Is the studio growing?
Answered on the screen, not rebuilt in a spreadsheet every quarter.
- ✓This month against the same month last year, so seasonality doesn’t fool you
- ✓Which teacher turns trial classes into enrollments, as a rate rather than a raw count
- ✓“Email me revenue every Monday at 8 a.m.” and it just shows up
- ✓Ask in plain English: “who dropped after their first month this year?”
Tuition by program, creative movement through competition team
March tuition, program by program. The competition team is 22 dancers of 314 and carries the highest tuition on the board, so you can see how much of the month rides on the smallest group.
Demo figures, not a real studio.
A spot opens, and nobody skips a level to take it
A full class fills the next one instead of a wall list
Thursday 5:00 Level 3 is full, so the next enrollment offer goes out the moment somebody drops, in order, with a window to claim the spot before it moves to the next family.
- ✓A parent checks her own spot in line instead of texting the front desk to ask
- ✓Creative movement and Level 3 do not mix by accident, level requirements gate it
- ✓A watch-and-try visit can be free or a paid trial, whichever fills your studio better
- ✓Moving up a level moves a dancer into the right class without re-enrolling her from scratch
Nobody lands in Pointe by accident
Level placement belongs to teachers, and enrollment respects it. A dancer cannot check herself into Ballet III because the time works better; the level gate holds until her placement says otherwise. When she is moved up, the class list, the billing, and the family app all learn it together.
- ✓Enrollment honors placement, not the checkout page
- ✓Level moves come from teachers and land everywhere at once
- ✓No accidental drop into a class two levels up
- ✓Families see the placement, so the why is not a mystery
October money for a show that happens in June
Costume deposits come due in October, competition entries in January, and the show itself is in June. Cadence carries each one on its own line with its own date, so a studio is not funding June out of October's tuition and hoping it evens out.
Four routines, four costumes, one figure
Build the season once: a costume price per routine, the competitions she is actually entered in, and her share of the teacher's travel. Cadence prices it per dancer and puts a due date on each line, so the family sees the whole figure at September orientation and you decide when each line comes due, before the vendor's cutoff or on a later tuition run.
- ✓A dancer in four routines is priced across four costumes, not one lump fee
- ✓Each line carries its own due date, so October costumes and January entries are not one bill
- ✓The competition team's money does not touch a recreational dancer's invoice
- ✓A costume line splits between two households the same way tuition does
Two shows and one on-sale morning
Ticket morning used to mean a line in the lobby and a phone nobody could answer. Both performances open at the same hour on a real seat chart, so a family picks row and seat rather than buying a number and hoping, and the count cannot be sold past what the house holds.
- ✓Reserved seats and general admission sell from one count, not two lists that have to agree
- ✓Tickets ride the family account that already pays tuition, with no second checkout to set up
- ✓A grandmother two states away buys her own pair without calling the front desk
- ✓You price each performance yourself, so a matinee can sit below Friday night
Map the whole show before dress rehearsal
Two tools that save hours of rehearsal time: where every dancer stands on stage, and who gets through the door on show day.
Every dancer, placed to scale, before the studio is booked
Import the cast and drag dancers into place on a real stage grid. Each token sizes itself automatically, a six year old smaller than a senior company dancer, so overlap on screen means overlap on the floor. Turn off snapping for exact placement with live coordinates as you drag, and print it as a tape sheet the crew can mark from with no wifi.
- ✓Choreographing next year's show? Placeholder dancers hold a spot before any cast exists
- ✓A dropped dancer's token disappears, it does not reshuffle the whole formation for you
- ✓Props get width, depth, and rotation, so a bench drawn on the diagram is the size it actually is
- ✓Works for a flat recital lineup or a full production with acts and scenes
The door is a volunteer's phone
Recital doors run on parent volunteers, not desk staff. No app, no new account, just the web page behind the login they already have. Their phone's camera scans one ticket after the next with nothing to reopen in between, a typed backup works when a code will not scan, and a grandmother's paper ticket scans exactly the same as a phone screen.
- ✓A second scan of the same ticket is shown, not blocked, so a nervous volunteer cannot lock a family out
- ✓The live count of who is actually in the building updates as the line moves
- ✓You grant scanning to any volunteer for the night, and take it back the same way
A teacher is out. Saturday morning still runs.
When a teacher calls off, her whole morning surfaces at once, each class marked as uncovered and sent to whoever owns that studio calendar.
Miss Elena calls off before Saturday morning
The call off comes from her phone at seven; the studio owner has options by 7:01, each teacher already screened for who is cleared and free. One tap can cover it. When it takes two, Cadence proposes the pair: Bree steps into Combo 2, and that frees Dana for the senior company rehearsal that actually needs her.
- ✓A phone call-off reaches the owner inside a minute
- ✓Only teachers who are cleared and free make the list
- ✓Two-step covers included when the right fit needs a swap
- ✓Send Request notifies every teacher involved at once
Your demonstrator is fifteen, and the law knows it
Assistants are often seventeen, and the state writes the rules on their hours. The school-night cutoff and the weekly cap for your state are loaded in; a clock-in that crosses one is stopped with the reason spelled out, and the week's schedule warns you long before Friday does.
- ✓Hour caps for minors enforced the moment they clock in
- ✓Late school-night shifts stopped before they start
- ✓The weekly schedule flags a minor near her limit
- ✓Every stop is logged with the rule that caused it
Choreography notes on one screen, tuition on the other
Parents, dancers, and teachers need different things, so they see different screens. It is the same download, not three separate apps to talk anyone into installing.
Parents and dancers
Everything a family calls the front desk about, without the call.
- ✓Schedule, invoices, and payment methods
- ✓Costume deposits paid and sizing deadlines coming up
- ✓Absence and makeup requests
- ✓Waivers and forms signed on the phone
- ✓An adult student sees her own schedule and her own bill in one place
Taking attendance in the studio
Teachers and front desk
Take attendance in the studio instead of walking a clipboard back to the office.
- ✓Attendance from the studio, offline if the wifi drops
- ✓Clock in and out, or scan a QR code at the door
- ✓Her schedule and any coverage she has been offered
- ✓Skill and choreography notes recorded at the moment, not from memory
Tights, shoes, and the 5:00 changeover
A solo private books itself clean
Solo season means privates: one dancer, one teacher, one studio room, every Thursday at five. Cadence books all three at once, refuses the double-booking you did not see coming, and bills it the way the studio prefers, per lesson, as a pack, or monthly with tuition.
- ✓Dancer, teacher, and room booked in one motion
- ✓Double-bookings caught before they happen
- ✓Weekly series or one-off, either way
- ✓Billed per lesson, by the pack, or monthly
Costume season without the spreadsheet
Every dancer's measurements live on her profile, so when recital orders open, the studio pulls a count per class in one click: four youth small, eight youth medium, six youth large. The costume fee posts to the same invoice as tuition, and the two families who did not send measurements get named, not hunted.
- ✓Measurements live on the dancer, taken once a season
- ✓Per-class size counts in one click when orders open
- ✓The costume fee rides the tuition invoice
- ✓Missing measurements get flagged by name
The parent who needs Russian gets Russian
Not a translate button on the website. The actual product, in the language each person reads, one family at a time.
A waiver she can actually read
Cadence translates its own screens and buttons, but not your waivers and forms. That is why Cadence has a multi-lingual form generator, so you can create your waivers in any language you need, because a parent who signs a document she couldn’t read is a document you may not be able to enforce.
- ✓She signs the Russian waiver you created, not one a computer produced
- ✓Medical forms and photo permissions work the same way
- ✓Your terms of service stay in English, which is how they stay enforceable
Set per person, not per studio
One mom reads her invoice in Russian. The dad behind her reads his in English. A costume order goes out with size notes in both languages, so nobody has to translate it by hand before it ships. Invoices, reminders, and the app all follow whatever each person picked.
- ✓Every notice you send arrives in the reader’s language, from one message you wrote once
- ✓Right to left languages are laid out properly, not bolted on
- ✓Your front desk sees which language a family reads before they pick up the phone
Cadence has the languages studios actually need. Nineteen and counting at launch.
A sizing deadline is not a promo. It goes out anyway.
Most studios end up paying for an email service on the side. This is the part that makes that unnecessary.
A costume update does not get mixed with a sales pitch
A family who opts out of your newsletter still gets recital and costume deadlines. Marketing and the messages that keep a show on schedule are kept separate, so nobody misses a sizing cutoff because they unsubscribed from a promo.
Worth checking: if one unsubscribe kills every message, you end up buying a second tool to work around it.Recital season fills itself in your own words
Build the “register now for spring recital” email once, in your studio's colors and voice, and let it go out automatically as enrollment windows open.
A watch-a-class visit that actually converts
Charge a small trial fee for a watch-and-try class and credit it toward tuition when she enrolls. Free for a real prospect, and enough to filter out the family collecting free classes around town.
Know which trial turned into a dancer
Conversion as a rate by teacher or by class time, worked out from who actually taught the trial, not from a guess.
A recital photo gallery families actually open
Share the professional photo gallery link automatically once it is ready, instead of a group text nobody can find two weeks later.
Your list ages out on its own
The mom who toured the studio for her four year old is a lead. The one whose daughter graduated the program is not. Cadence works that out from what it already knows.
Coming from Jackrabbit Dance or DanceStudio-Pro
Your families, enrollments, balances, and history come with you. Do it yourself with our tools, or hand it to us and we’ll do it for you.
Do it yourself, or let us
There is a step-by-step importer with plain instructions if you would rather keep your hands on it. If you would rather not, hand us the export and we will do the whole thing at no charge. Either way you check it over before anyone goes live.
Trial classes do not raise your bill
We count dancers actively enrolled, not every name that ever passed through. Trial-class visitors and one-time workshop attendees do not cost you anything.
Worth checking: some systems price on total records, so one-timers can move you into a higher tier.No fee ever reaches a family
We make our money in the processing, not by adding a line to your families’ checkout. Nothing extra shows up on their end.
Worth checking: some free tiers pass a percentage straight to the person paying.You will not need Mailchimp
Build and send your own emails from inside Cadence, and change any automatic message to say what you would actually say.
Nothing gets written over
“Which teacher choreographed the senior number in 2024?” is a question you can answer. Every change is kept as a dated record instead of replacing what was there.
One login, not four
Tuition, schedules, waivers, recitals, costumes, and email in the same place. No exporting to a spreadsheet to run a recital.
Answered before recital week
Start with your own competition entries
A real walkthrough using your levels, your costume schedule, and your recital date, not a canned tour.