--- title: "The Studio Director Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice" description: "Reviews of The Studio Director. Learn how real users rate this software's ease-of-use, functionality, overall quality and customer support. Talk to our advisors to see if The Studio Director is a good fit for you!" source_url: "https://www.softwareadvice.com/fitness/the-studio-director-profile/reviews/" page_type: "reviews" language: "en" --- 1 million+ businesses helped. Get advice Get Free Advice [Home](https://www.softwareadvice.com/) / [Dance Studio Software](https://www.softwareadvice.com/dance-studio/) / [The Studio Director](https://www.softwareadvice.com/fitness/the-studio-director-profile/) / The Studio Director Reviews Software Advice offers objective insights based on verified user reviews and independent product and market research. When our advisors match you to a software provider, we may earn a referral fee. [Overview](https://www.softwareadvice.com/fitness/the-studio-director-profile/) Reviews [Alternatives](https://www.softwareadvice.com/fitness/the-studio-director-profile/alternatives/) # The Studio Director User Reviews ## Reviews summary - Overall rating: 4.6/5 - Total reviews: 98 ### Secondary ratings - Ease of use: 4.4/5 - Customer support: 4.8/5 - Value for money: 4.5/5 - Functionality: 4.3/5 ### Rating distribution - 5 stars: 65 reviews (66%) - 4 stars: 27 reviews (28%) - 3 stars: 4 reviews (4%) - 2 stars: 0 reviews (0%) - 1 star: 2 reviews (2%) ### Most mentioned pros - It was easy to navigate client accounts and transaction summaries. - It was an upgrade from the multiple free platforms that were used previously but the organization outgrew Studio Director. - Studio Directors provides its user a complete management solution at single platforms where we can enjoy their amazing features such as class management, attendance management, point of sale, online registration and many more. ### Most mentioned cons - SD is ignoring their clients begging to return to the previous user interface. - Major billing issue that lasted 3 weeks. - Could not successfully list classes on our website with links directly to enrolling. ## The Studio Director customer reviews Showing reviews 1-25 of 98 (page 1). ### Review of The Studio Director by a Dance Studio Manager - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Rachel Z. - Industry: Performing Arts - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: February 2017 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered I have worked in many corporate databases, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I started using The Studio Director. The dance studio I work for had already been using it for quite a few years when I became the studio manager. I was able to figure almost all of our daily functions in less than two days! The software is user-friendly, dynamic, and has great technical support! The staff are always friendly and prompt and have some kind of solution for most of our questions. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros This software is dynamic! It lets us manager our studio store items and sales, our dance classes, seasons, and performances, our online client portal, our families, students, and communication methods - all in one program! #### Cons Setting up seasons can be a little complicated, depending on the various types of class set-ups we may want to offer - in the summer we have multiple 1-week camps, a 7-week session, grouped dance intensives, etc., and all require some real thought to make sure they are set-up correctly for the right dates, charges, and so they make sense to the client in their online registration portal. In addition, there is no good way to pick and choose clients to email out of a group - you can only email the whole group or an individual family, unless you can figure out which clients are which by their email address and delete them individually from the "to" line - which is near impossible! --- ### I really like most of what Studio Director offers! - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Becca H. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2017 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 2/5 - Value for money: 2/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros I like that improvements are made regularly and that functions keep improving. I get quick email responses from the customer support team. #### Cons The cost is the biggest hang up for me. It's difficult for a small non-profit to keep up with rising costs without losing data (by deleting students.) Many of my parents have a difficult time using SD from a mobile device and I get complaints about that regularly. I would love for SD to integrate with MailChimp. When we use the templates for newsletters, if we take a break and come back to it, the system kicks us out and we have to start all over, would love for that to be auto saved or a setting that allows more time (if my admin is waiting for an answer from me.) I'd love to preschedule emails to go out at a later date as well as the ability to schedule credits to be used at a later date. A more efficient way to schedule private lessons through the software. An easy way to add teachers to emails that are sent out. Customizable evaluations for the teachers to fill out and email to students. --- ### Good software, but awkward/not straight forward formatting - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Ada S. - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: November 2017 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 2/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros It has features that many softwares dont have, like organizing shows and events, but those features are hard to use, so even though they are there, our club makes our own spreadsheets. Costumer support is great and fast, but its tedious to call in with every question, so mostly we skip over things we dont understand. #### Cons awkward formatting, some features are not easy to use, or figure out. For example, I would love to be able to use the attendance sheets for each child. It would be awesome to be able to click on a child, and then see a LIST of classes they have missed, rather than have to scroll through each month. Then, would be great if we could click on that missed class, and say "schedule a makeup class for this missed class." It is not easy or straight forward to see which missed classes have been made up. --- ### Studio Director customer support is top-notch! Timely return of phone calls and emails especially. - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Kim S. - Industry: Performing Arts - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: June 2017 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Way more for our money, especially in the areas of customer service and access to reports. The recital planning features were extremely helpful and made good use of my time. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros The recital planning features are in-depth and yet very user friendly. Their customer service folks never rush my questions and are always willing to walk me step by step through a new process. The number and types of reports are amazing...they have thought of everything we need before we even knew we needed it! Setting up seasons and classes is very user-friendly as well. But again, Studio Director's Customer Service sets them far above and apart from their competition. They are thorough, yes, but most of all, they are ACCESSIBLE! #### Cons 1. There is NO good way to let our families know their account history. All of the option are confusing. The summary does not have enough info, the statements have too much info or too many lines of info that the families don't understand, and the other options are lacking as well. The way the account is set up in the portal is also confusing to many of our families. 2. We need to have more font/bolding/italicizing options for the class/event confirmations. Also, we need less automatic information put in and more access to putting in our own info. Our families were confused by the fact that their class time was in the chart, but their rehearsal time in the notes and at the top of the chart was overlooked because I couldn't make it stand out. 3. The family/EC information on the class rosters should not be centered; it makes them very difficult to read. --- ### From an owner's standpoint, this is the cream of the crop. - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: John S. - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2017 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered It was the key to our growth from 1,200 to 4,500 +/-. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Very fast. Accessible by customers on PC or phone via app. Super search capability. Full accounting capability -- can support GAAP, tax, and custom reporting. Fits with QuickBooks. Support extremely responsive and new features appear every two or three months. Has many features competing programs don't have including elaborate skill tracking, inventory and event support. Price capped even with thousands of students in the system. Usage is highly customizable to speed registration work. Exhaustive standard reporting plus support can create custom reports. Most information can be exported to Excel. Can integrate with your web site, too, to show what's available. Useful for every member of the company and customers. #### Cons Can't consolidate accounts over several sites, so customers can end up enrolled in two or three places. Not as cheap as entry-level systems; this is the high end product for knowledgeable users. Doesn't allow API access to your data for customer reporting. --- ### Awesome program - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Amy S. - Industry: Sports - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2016 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Studio Director has been an incredible program. It is easy to use and has helped us be organized. I am continually learning about features that the program includes that have saved me hours of work. I am impressed by the customer service and how quickly they respond to my questions. I also love that your customer service takes feedback and requests from me and other studios and is continually improving to better serve our needs. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros It is easy to use and has helped me improve my communication with my families through emails (including automated emails), event confirmations, etc. I also love the many types of reports I can run and the incredible amounts of information available to me in so many formats. #### Cons I have recently incorporated welcome emails, new student emails, birthday emails, etc (drip campaigns). I would love an option to set up several new student drip campaigns. Specifically, I would like to be able to set up a different email to be automatically sent for each season to new enrollees. I have one set up currently, but have to manually send welcome emails to every other season. --- ### Extremely Helpful - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Claire S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Health, Wellness and Fitness - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. The Studio Director helps us track class attendance, keep account balances up to date, and the customizable reports are extremely helpful in tracking financial trends. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros The Studio Director's Class Charge administration is what adds the most value to my day-to-day operations. The system seamlessly calculates special discounts, prorated tuition, and credits in a way that helps our clients and staff immensely. I'm able to keep all of our student accounts up to date as they add and drop throughout the season. The Studio Director is able to generate customizable reports that help us in almost every business decision. #### Cons While The Studio Director mobile website is helpful and agile, we still nonetheless continue to get feedback from clients who say that they would prefer to use an iOS app over a mobile site. --- ### Studio Director works well for our non-profit dance program - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Lauren D. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Non-Profit Organization Management - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: March 2018 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I appreciate the ability to easily pull student and family account data reports, as well as keep our dance classes and seasons well organized and archived. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros The interface is clean and easy to navigate. There are various options for customizing account pages to suit your needs, for example adding custom fields for information. We utilize the Reports feature daily, which gives easy to use data that's easily transferable to Excel. #### Cons The only snag recently is trying to get families enrolled in the texting feature. I wish there was a way to send texts directly to phones with the family's opt-in code, instead of manually looking it up for each person. --- ### Excellent Software! - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Alyssa G. - Industry: Fine Art - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: October 2016 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Our experience with The Studio Director has been fantastic! We love this program because it has saved us valuable time and money. We used to handle our enrollment with physical files were things would get easily lost or miss-filed, now we have a way of keeping accurate records of everything. Searching and tracking our enrollment numbers has never been easier and the enrollment in automatic payments has kept us accountable as well as our customers. Their customer service is some of the best I, personally, have ever received (Pam is awesome!). They respond quickly to any questions we have and their staff is very helpful, knowledgeable and kind. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Customer Service User Friendly Multiple Features/Reports Easy to search and find specific records or groups of records with the ability to tag groups and email groups #### Cons User fields can only be added on Student level and not the Family level. We do a lot of research based on our family population and not having that option is little difficult, but The Studio Director actually came up with a nice alternative. This may not apply to a lot of studios. --- ### Studio director streamlined some processes, but was hard to use - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Miranda O. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Performing Arts - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: March 2024 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered It was an upgrade from the multiple free platforms that were used previously but the organization outgrew Studio Director. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 2/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 2/5 #### Pros Finding contact information and running reports were very helpful. #### Cons The site was not intuitive and many features were very hard to find or understand. --- ### Studio Director Review - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Susan Q. - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: February 2017 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered The customer support at The Studio Director is amazing. We are very grateful to have live people available and ready to help when its needed. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 3/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros customer service user friendly we love that we can see if email has been read #### Cons cost not sure how to personalize certain things - for example, we have recital fees based on how many dancers there are in a family. So 1 dancer is $. 2 dancers are $, 3 dancers are $, 4 dancers are $ etc. --- ### Studio Director serves many of our needs for an after-school dance training program for students. - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Lindsay S. - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2017 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. We are able to manage hundreds of family and student accounts, set up our seasonal class schedules and rosters, and manage our recitals. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros The function for pulling a recital show order that has the least quick changes possible is excellent. #### Cons Sometimes it's hard to find one report that covers everything we need, so we often have to piece things together manually. --- ### Always, always helpful - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Jacinda M. - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: November 2016 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered I reach out to the Studio Director several times throughout the year and they are always beyond helpful in answering my questions, providing me detailed instructions and honestly caring about making sure that everything works for my studio. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Cons It's a little clunky looking to new families - it doesn't look as modern as many other software that people are using. --- ### Once the system is set up with our classes, it's really easy for me and all our customers to use. - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Judith F. - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: January 2018 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros The layout of classes is neat colourful And specific. I like the little icons that identify each genre #### Cons I would like a facility for parents to book private lessons and have them charged to Their account. At the moment I do not know who is having private lessons with which teacher. --- ### Function and Service - Studio Director DELIVERS - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Kris N. - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: October 2017 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Ease of use! Lots of reporting features - I love that I can request new reports and they are usually implemented. #### Cons I wish promo codes would allow users to receive a discount when they enter the code and it could be deducted from the payment due. --- ### Easy to navigate through the program - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Karen L. - Industry: Sports - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2017 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Information is very accessible, allows for good communication with members. Reports are very helpful with our daily operations. #### Cons Would like to see the ability to change fonts or text colors in notes, etc. Make bold, underline, or italic --- ### GREAT CUSTOMER SEVICE! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Paula T. - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: November 2016 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered It won't take long t receive an answer from this company. I am so impressed with the return calls or emails to help me out whenever I need them...and with the speed that's amazing. They are always available to make the corrections whenever I make the mistakes! #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Ease #### Cons Can't calculate for my taxes- especially my expenses each month. Would really like to have it all in one place. Wish you would add that feature. --- ### Awesome Customer Service - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Debbie F. - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: September 2017 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered ease of use #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Personalized customer service and user very user friendly. I would highly recommend this software to all studios. #### Cons That I have to hit save changes every time. Still learning the program. We haven't hit too many road blocks yet. We need to learn how to not see other sessions in ledgers. --- ### We love it for our dance club! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Vanessa J. - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2017 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros We love it for our club. We try to use more and more of the program each year. We use it for pre approving, registering and keeping track of all of out dance families. #### Cons Some of the things the program does we don't use or it won't work for our club. A few of the reports are difficult to read. --- ### It's easy to understand and navigate - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Cindy D. - Product usage: Used daily for less than 6 months - Reviewed: June 2017 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros The detailed family account page. I like how easy it is to navigate between the parents and students information. #### Cons I wish each class had a feature to take attendance all at once for the whole class as oppose to one student account at a time. #### Vendor response Hi Cindy, If you go to the class page that you are looking to do attendance for all at once, you can choose "Attendance, Make-ups & Drop-ins" in a blue box on the right side of the screen to record attendance for everyone at once instead of going to the student's pages. Replied June 2017 --- ### I think Studio Director is great! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Melissa F. - Industry: Non-Profit Organization Management - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: July 2017 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros I love the ease of the user interface. It's very intuitive which is helpful when trying to figure out a new feature. #### Cons The amount of clicking that needs to be done to upload documents to a profile. I find it could be an easier process. --- ### Great Service! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Elizabeth L. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Fine Art - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 6 months - Reviewed: June 2020 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros We appreciate Studio Director as our software. Learning curve is simple, Service is exceptional! #### Cons Nothing to List for this category. #### Reasons for switching to The Studio Director More functions --- ### Best choice I ever made for my Studio! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Shelly P. - Product usage: Used unspecified for unspecified - Reviewed: November 2016 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered I looked at several programs before finally making my choice to go with Studio Director. I am glad I looked around because when I finally found Studio Director, I found everything I needed in one package (that all the others were missing). It has been worth every minute spent learning and every penny spent on services! Support is fantastic! Rates are fair and reasonable! I find it very user friendly and my customers love being able to do business on-line! I am just sorry it took me so long to find. If I would have known about them sooner, I would have switched a long time ago. Hands down, THE BEST program in the industry! #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 --- ### One satisfied customer! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Angelika S. - Product usage: Used unspecified for unspecified - Reviewed: November 2016 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered For the first six years of our school existence we used a different software until I had it with those unlogical features. I wish we would have used The Studio Director from the start. We're now in our 4th year with this software and it couldn't get any easier but it does. They listen to our complaints and suggestions and update the software every few months to make it easier to use or to add new features. We're very happy to use it -every day! #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros That we can do anything within our business with it --- ### The best customer support ever! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Ruth F. - Product usage: Used unspecified for unspecified - Reviewed: September 2016 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered When we switched over to Studio Director I was worried that I wouldn't have support in changing my system of billing and running my studio. I shouldn't have worried because Studio Director has the most responsive support people ever. They always get back to us within a couple of hours and they help us understand things in a timely manner, which is very important to a busy studio. Thank you Studio Director! #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 ## More reviews [Next reviews](https://www.softwareadvice.com/fitness/the-studio-director-profile/reviews/?page=2) --- The Studio Director Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice