My Music Staff is the best-known studio management app in the world, it has been around for over a decade, and a great many UK teachers use it happily. This page is written by the people who make My Studio Tracker, so read it with that in mind; we have tried to be straight about where each tool is the better choice. Prices and features are as we understood them from the two products' public sites in September 2026, and we will correct anything a reader tells us is wrong.
The short version
- Choose My Music Staff if you run a school or studio with several teachers, want a website builder, online practice logs, a lending library and a repertoire database, or you need to bill in US dollars.
- Choose My Studio Tracker if you teach one-to-one in the UK, you want term fees, cancellations and chasing handled properly from your phone, you would rather parents never had to create an account, and you want one price in pounds with nothing to configure.
Price, in pounds
| My Studio Tracker | My Music Staff | |
|---|---|---|
| Solo teacher, per month | £9.99 | $16.95 (about £13 at September 2026 rates) |
| Additional teachers | Not offered (one teacher per account) | $4.95 each per month |
| Free trial | First month free, no card needed | 30 days, no card needed |
| Card payments | Your own Stripe account; Stripe's fee only, My Studio Tracker takes nothing | Via Stripe or PayPal; their fees apply |
| Billed in | Pounds | US dollars (your card issuer may add a foreign transaction fee) |
| Referral | A free month for you and the teacher you refer | Their own referral programme |
Over a year, the difference for a solo teacher is roughly £35 to £40, before any foreign transaction fees on a dollar subscription. That is real but not decisive; the decision should rest on the next two sections.
Built around UK teaching
My Studio Tracker was built by a UK teacher's family for UK teaching, and it shows in the defaults rather than in a settings page:
- Term fees in advance. Start a term, and the next ten lessons are claimed, one invoice goes out due before the first lesson, reminders go 14, 7 and 1 days before it, and every lesson is tracked against the term. Make-ups owed are listed until they are booked.
- UK cancellation norms. 24 hours' notice, illness excused, forfeits otherwise, with the outcome shown before you confirm a cancellation and the policy printed on the invoice.
- Pounds, UK dates, UK time zone, bank transfer as a first-class way to pay, with parents able to report a transfer from the invoice page so reminders pause until you confirm it.
- Data in the UK's neighbourhood. Hosted on Microsoft Azure in Western Europe, under UK GDPR.
- SMS reminders to UK mobiles, included in the price.
Where My Music Staff is the better choice
Be honest with yourself about these. My Music Staff has had years to build features that My Studio Tracker does not have and may never have:
- Multiple teachers. Studios with staff, shared calendars and per-teacher pay are My Music Staff's home turf. My Studio Tracker is one teacher, one account.
- A student and parent portal with practice logs, lesson notes, a lending library and online resources. My Studio Tracker deliberately gives parents nothing to log in to: they get an invoice link and a calendar feed.
- A website builder and a lesson-booking widget for new enquiries.
- Group lessons, packages and a repertoire database.
- Reviews and track record. Hundreds of public reviews and a long history. My Studio Tracker is new, and you should weigh that.
Where My Studio Tracker is the better choice
- Getting paid. Invoices build themselves from attended lessons (per lesson on the day, monthly, or a term in advance), every one carries a pay link, reminders go by email and SMS on your schedule, and a parent can pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay in about ten seconds without an account.
- Term-based teaching, as above. This is the thing most UK teachers ask for and the thing My Studio Tracker was built around.
- Simplicity. Ten minutes from sign-up to first invoice; no settings you must visit before it works; passwordless sign-in with Google or an emailed link.
- Your phone. Every page, including the calendar and the invoice, was designed for a phone first, because that is where you are between lessons.
- One flat price in pounds, no add-ons, and a free month for every teacher you refer.
Switching
There is no import tool yet, and we would rather say so than pretend. Switching is: add your students by name (email and mobile are optional but let invoices send themselves), set each one's billing to per lesson, monthly or termly, add their weekly lesson, and start a term where you have one. Most teachers with twenty students do it in an evening. Your first month is free, so you can run both side by side for a term and decide.
If you are comparing other tools, the Private tutor invoice template (UK) and Music lesson cancellation policy template (UK) pages show the wording My Studio Tracker uses by default, which is a fair way to judge whether its assumptions match yours.