Stop losing lessons to no-shows.
Holdfast charges a pupil's lesson in full the moment they book, and keeps your standard no-show fee automatically if they don't turn up. Solo instructor or a whole school of them, every pupil pays the instructor who taught them, automatically.
No credit card. Free forever for a single instructor, only 2% on money that actually moves through Stripe.
- Paid in full
Priya N.
1hr lesson · Tue 10:30
- No-show fee kept
Mark O.
2hr lesson · Tue 12:00
- Completed
Sasha W.
Mock test · Mon 08:00
- Cancelled (refunded to balance)
Femi A.
1hr lesson · Wed 09:00
48hrs
the standard cancellation window most UK instructors already write into their terms
£30+
lost per missed lesson slot you'd already blocked out and turned other pupils away for
0
diaries to migrate, Holdfast sits alongside however you already book lessons
Three steps. No new calendar to learn.
Drop your link in
Add your Holdfast link to your booking page, Instagram bio, or wherever pupils message you. No diary to migrate.
Set your cancellation window
The standard 48-hour rule, or your own, held on the pupil's card and only captured if they no-show or cancel late.
Get paid either way
They turn up: you were already paid in full at booking. They no-show: you keep it automatically, no chasing on WhatsApp.
Two things nobody else in this space does.
No-show protection done properly
Most instructors either skip deposits or take a flat one. Holdfast charges a pupil's lesson in full at booking, straight from their balance, topping it up with their card for only what's short. No-show or cancel late and your own tiered policy keeps the right amount automatically; cancel with enough notice and it's credited straight back to their balance for a future lesson.
Drive-time-aware scheduling
Back-to-back lessons pull live drive times from Google Maps between one pupil's drop-off and the next pupil's pickup, and pad the gap automatically. No more guessing a flat 15-minute buffer that's sometimes too tight and sometimes wastes a bookable slot.
Built to run a whole school, not just one diary.
Add instructors as your school grows. Each one gets their own login and their own book of business, while you keep one view over everything.
Every instructor gets their own workspace
Calendar, availability, pupils, waitlist, promo codes, disputes, expenses, and earnings, each scoped to just that instructor's own lessons. Nobody sees another instructor's pupils or payouts.
Paid directly, not pooled
Stripe Connect routes each pupil's payment straight to the instructor who actually taught them. No end-of-month spreadsheet to split who's owed what.
One link in, everyone finds their way
A single sign-in page with a pupil/instructor toggle, plus a school-wide overview for the owner. No separate URLs to remember or hand out.
Everything else a booking system should already do.
Not a stripped-down MVP bolted onto a payments form, the rest of what running lessons day to day actually needs.
Recurring weekly lessons
Instructors and pupils can both set up "every Tuesday at 4" once instead of booking it fresh every week. Any week that clashes with something else is skipped automatically, not double-booked.
Prepaid hour packages
Pupils buy a block of hours up front and book lessons straight off the balance, no repeat card charges, no manual tracking of who's paid for what.
Waitlist that actually matches
Pupils set a preferred time window and a "notify me before this date" cutoff. When a slot frees up, only the pupils it actually suits get emailed, straight to the day that opened.
Promo codes & gift cards
Run a % -off promo or sell a gift card, each one tied to a specific instructor since the discount comes out of their own payout, not the school's.
DVSA skill tracking
Rate a pupil across the DVSA's 27 driving-test skills after each lesson. They see their own progress on their booking page, no separate app to check.
Dispute handling with a paper trail
Stripe chargebacks and pupil-raised fee disputes both surface on your dashboard, with a permanent history kept even after you've dealt with one, not silently deleted.
Tax & mileage tracking
Log expenses and business mileage as you go, valued at HMRC's flat mileage rate automatically. Export a tax-year statement whenever your accountant asks.
Instructor profiles pupils actually see
A photo, a short bio, and what car to look out for, shown to pupils before their first lesson so they know exactly who's picking them up.
Free text & WhatsApp reminders
One-tap links prefilled with a reminder message, ready to send from your own phone. No paid SMS API, no per-message cost, ever.
Automated email reminders
Every pupil gets a reminder email about a day before their lesson, sent automatically in the background, nothing for you to trigger or remember.
Pupil self-service accounts
Pupils sign up, book their own slots, cancel or reschedule within your policy, and buy hours, without messaging you first for every little thing.
Earnings & analytics dashboard
No-show rate, late-cancellation rate, revenue collected, active pupils, one dashboard instead of piecing it together from memory, per instructor or for the whole school.
Batch multi-slot booking
Pupils can select and confirm several lesson slots in one go, instead of repeating the whole booking flow one lesson at a time.
Real availability when you reschedule
Moving a lesson checks the same live availability engine as booking one, working hours, breaks, drive-time buffers and all, so you can't accidentally double-book yourself.
Your week, laid out with travel time already factored in.
Day or week view, colour-coded by status, with a drive-time buffer shown between back-to-back lessons. Filter to one instructor or see the whole school at once.
"I already ask pupils to transfer a deposit"
Plenty of instructors do: a bank transfer before the first lesson, chased over WhatsApp. It works until it doesn't. The difference is what happens automatically between booking and the lesson, without you doing anything.
Bank transfer & WhatsApp
- Chase sort code and account details manually, every new pupil.
- A one-off transfer with no link back to your 48-hour policy.
- You have to remember to actually invoice the no-show fee after.
- No single view of who's paid, who hasn't, and who's been charged.
- Disputes come down to your word against theirs, with no record.
With Holdfast
- Payment is taken in full at booking automatically, no manual chasing.
- It's drawn from their balance first, topping up their card for only what's short.
- No-shows and late cancellations keep the right amount automatically, on your 48-hour rule.
- Turn up as planned? Nothing more happens, you were already paid.
- One dashboard with a timestamped record of every payment and fee, plus a permanent history if either of you ever disputes one.
Free to start. Pays for itself if you outgrow it.
No monthly fee unless you want one. Either way, nothing to pay until money actually moves through Holdfast.
Free
+ 2% on money that moves through Stripe
- No-show & late-cancel fee engine
- Drive-time-aware scheduling
- Prepaid packages, reminders, pupil self-service
- Waitlist, promo codes
- Earnings & analytics, DVSA progress tracking
- Single instructor
Pro
0% platform fee, keep everything you take
- Everything in Free
- 0% platform fee instead of 2%
- Built for one instructor
Once you're moving roughly £750/month through Stripe, the 2% you'd pay on Free equals Pro's flat £15, so switching starts paying for itself from there.