Driving instructors
An online diary for driving instructors
Your lesson diary, on your phone and open to pupils around the clock — with travel time between pick-ups built in.
Most instructors run their diary in a paper book, a phone calendar, or a stream of texts. It works until it does not: a pupil cancels and the slot goes unfilled, two lessons end up back to back on opposite sides of town, or somebody forgets and you are sat outside an empty house. An online diary fixes the specific things a paper one cannot.
Claim your booking link
See if the address you want is free. No account, no card — it takes a second.
No card required · 14 days free · Your progress is saved, so you can stop and come back
Unlimited staff · No contract
A typical driving school setup
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Introductory Lesson
1 hr
£25.00
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Standard Lesson
1 hr 30 min
£52.00
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Two-Hour Lesson
2 hr
£68.00
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Mock Test
2 hr
£75.00
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Pass Plus Module
1 hr
£35.00
Your own services, durations and prices — these are only an example.
What it actually fixes
Back-to-back lessons across town
Buffers after each lesson keep travel time in the diary.
Texts at all hours
Pupils book and rebook themselves from your page.
Pupils forgetting a lesson
Automatic reminders, by email or text, the day before.
Several instructors, one diary
Each instructor has their own hours and pupils. No extra charge per instructor.
Why a paper diary runs out of road
A paper diary is quick, private and always to hand — which is why so many instructors still use one. What it cannot do is answer a pupil at nine at night, stop you double-booking while you are writing it up at a red light, or tell you which pupil still owes for last week.
Past roughly fifteen regular pupils, the admin around the diary starts costing more time than the diary saves.
Travel time between pupils is not optional
This is the thing general-purpose booking software gets wrong. It treats appointments as independent, so a two-hour lesson finishing in Clifton at four can be followed by one starting in Arnold at four.
Put a buffer after every lesson and the diary stops pretending you can be in two places at once. Twenty minutes between one lesson ending and the next beginning is realistic. Set it once and every lesson you offer inherits it.
Lesson lengths that match what you actually sell
Most instructors sell in ninety-minute or two-hour blocks, with a shorter, cheaper introductory lesson to get somebody through the door and a longer pre-test session before the day itself.
Each is its own service with its own price and duration, so a pupil books the one they want and the right amount of time is blocked out. No converting "a double" into minutes in your head.
Pupils book and rebook themselves
You get a web address of your own — your-school.takebookingsnow.co.uk — which
shows only the times you are genuinely free. A pupil picks a slot and it is in
your diary before you have read the message you are no longer getting.
The practical difference is your evenings. The eleven o'clock "any chance of Thursday?" text stops, because Thursday is either on the page or it is not.
Fewer lessons nobody turns up to
A no-show costs an instructor more than most trades: you have driven there, and the hour is gone. An automatic reminder the day before — by email, or by text if you want it in their hand — removes most of them.
To be firmer, take payment or a deposit when the lesson is booked. Money changing hands is the most reliable reminder there is.
Cancellations that refill themselves
A cancelled lesson is only lost money if nobody knows it is free. When a pupil cancels, the slot goes straight back on your page, where the pupil who wanted Thursday can take it without you arranging anything.
Running a school with several instructors
Each instructor has their own hours, their own pupils and their own diary, and pupils can either pick an instructor or take whoever is free. There is no charge per instructor — five costs exactly what one costs.
What it costs
£17.99 a month, everything included, fourteen days free and no card needed to start. Text reminders are the only extra, because texts genuinely cost money to send; email reminders are included and work well for most pupils.
Driving instructors often ask
Yes — connect your own Stripe account and require full payment when the lesson is booked. Selling blocks of ten is not supported yet; for now instructors take the block payment separately and add the lessons to the diary themselves.
Not directly. What most instructors do is create a service per area with its own buffer, or simply keep the pupil's address on their record and manage the round themselves.
Move it in the diary and the pupil is notified automatically, if you have that notification switched on.
Driving instructors near you
Try it on your own driving school for 14 days
14 days free. No card required. Set up in an afternoon.
Claim your booking link
See if the address you want is free. No account, no card — it takes a second.
No card required · 14 days free · Your progress is saved, so you can stop and come back
Driving instructors already taking bookings
Every one of these runs its booking page on Take Bookings Now. Have a look at what yours could be.