Understanding the Cost of Swim School Software: Is It Worth the Investment?

How much does swim school software cost?

Swim school software has become increasingly popular over the last decade.

In the early 2010’s approximately half of swim schools had started using some form of software system to help them manage their operations.

This number would be over 80% in 2024 with most swim school businesses using software.

Remarkably, still, many swim schools operate their businesses without any software, relying on spreadsheets, Google Docs, or good old-fashioned pen and paper.

In this article we explore if swim school software is worth the investment and best practices for finding the best swim school software for your business.

How can swim school software help your business

Swim school software can help swim schools reduce the administration burden of running a swim school.

Consider the following tasks

– Invoicing
– Communicating with parents
– Managing enquiries
– Enrolling new students
– Moving bookings
– Booking makes up lessons
– Reconciling payments

When these processes are done manually without a software program, they can take hours each week. A well-designed software program can help cut down the time investment in these areas by more than half.

For example, imagine a swim school of 500 students that runs on a term schedule. They need to invoice their clients at the beginning of each term, however, because they charge per lesson this exercise becomes complicated because different days of the week have a different number of terms. For example, there may be 10 Mondays in the term but only 9 Saturdays. There may also be a public holiday on a Tuesday which means Tuesday also has 9 lessons for the term. Trying to invoice manually with these kinds of scenarios becomes complicated to handle.

Using a software system can make this process easier. For example, First Class Software uses a term rollover feature that can roll over customers from one term date range to the next. This process can also create the customer’s invoices and intelligently calculate the number of lessons to charge based on the day of their lesson. Within 30 seconds you can have a correct invoice for each customer.

Let’s consider another scenario – Payments.

Perhaps you allow customers to pay for their lessons as they please. They may transfer you a sum each week via bank transfer or pay you in cash.

This form of payment strategy amplifies the manual time and effort required to manage your swim school. Each payment requires the action of a human to record the payment or to reconcile from the bank account it is often difficult to match payments with invoices if customers forget to put the correct reference details.

Consider the alternate approach of using an online payments portal where parents can log in, view, and then pay their invoices. In this approach there is no action required, the payment once successful will automatically reconcile against the invoice of that customer. This can save hours and hours each term in admin time.

Such examples of the potential time-saving benefits of implementing swim school software are everywhere.

What does swim school software cost?

Swim school software costs vary greatly depending on functionality requirements and quality.

For simplicity, the pricing we refer to in this article will be based on USD.

A cheap swim school software may start from as low as 50 USD per month and expensive swim school software can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year.

A small to medium stand-alone swim school can expect to pay between approximately 150 and 250 USD per month.

Some swim school software providers charge by the number of users whilst others charge by the number of active students.

Functionality will also be a consideration and it is common for different software providers to offer various packages that include premium features.

It’s important to note that developing and maintaining swim school software can be expensive.

Software developers and the infrastructure to develop and maintain software is expensive.

If a swim school software is cheap this may be a red flag that corners have been cut that may compromise things such as data security which can put your business at risk.

Expensive doesn’t mean it’s better - Do your homework!

Typically, a higher-priced swim school software will be more reliable, more secure, have better customer support and provide you with a better overall ROI (return on investment).

However, this doesn’t mean you should focus specifically on price.

It’s important to do your homework.

Consider the following points

– Create a short list of 3-4 software providers who appear to be reputable
– Create a list of “must haves” for your swim school
– Organise a demo with their team
– Ask for references of similar swim schools they can speak to for feedback
– What support is included?
– Do they help with onboarding and transition?

It’s important to remember that certain swim school software may be more compatible with the way you run your business. You want to find the best option for your business.

When these tasks are performed by an admin person you have to pay them for that extra time for the same outcome.

If you pay an admin person USD 20 per month, this work would cost $310 per month

Swim School software ROI

Is swim school software worth the cost?

Let’s explore a short cost-benefit analysis to attempt to answer that question.

Typically swim school software can give you two main benefits that put money back in your pocket.

  1. Can it help you save time?
  2. Can it help you retain customers?
  3. Can it help you save time?

Here are some estimated time savings every month

– Invoice creation: Time-saving: 4 hours
– Payment reconciliation: Time savings: 3 hours
– Booking makes-up lessons: 2 hours
– Moving bookings: 2 hours
– Recording absences: 30 minutes
– Sharing assessment results with parents: 3 hours
– Communication: 1 hour

Total time savings: 15.5 hours

When these tasks are performed by an admin person you have to pay them for that extra time for the same outcome.

If you pay an admin person USD 20 per month, this work would cost $310 per month.

Can it help you retain customers through better communication and customer engagement?

Improved customer retention is another potential benefit of a good swim school software

Many people overlook this when considering swim school software however by helping you provide parents with feedback, better communicate, and track what’s going on in your swim school it is possible to improve your customer retention rates by 5-15%.

Let’s estimate that good swim school software can conservatively help us prevent 3 cancellations per month.

This would equate to a saving of, 55 x 3 = $165 per month.

It is highly possible that the right swim school software and retention strategy can save you significantly more than 3 customers per month.

So now let’s calculate the return on investment.

– $165 in retention benefit
– $310 in time-saving benefits

Total benefit USD 475

– Swim school software cost: USD 225 per month
– Return on investment:  Savings – 475-225 = USD 2250.00
– Return on investment: 211.1% return on investment

A good swim school software should put money back in your pocket whilst making your life easier.

If you’re looking for the best-fit swim school software for your business check out First Class Software- https://www.firstclassretention.com/swimschoolsoftware/.

First Class software can help you automate time-consuming processes and improve your customer retention results with features specifically designed to boost customer satisfaction and retention.

To book a demo go to https://www.firstclassretention.com/swim-school-software/.