Stepsi vs Jackrabbit Dance: A complete comparison of dance studio management software

2. Product overview: Understanding the two platforms

Stepsi – More than dance studio administration

Stepsi is an all-in-one dance studio management platform designed specifically for dance schools and studios.

Rather than concentrating exclusively on administrative operations, Stepsi connects three distinct environments:

• Admin dashboard: A central workspace for dance studio owners, administrators and instructors to manage the entire school.
• Public web app: A customer-facing website where prospective students can discover classes, register, purchase memberships, book sessions and manage their accounts.
• Student mobile app: A mobile experience where students and parents can manage memberships, book classes, check in, make payments, communicate and access studio content.

These three environments work together, allowing dance studios to manage their operations without relying on a collection of disconnected applications.

Stepsi also includes CRM, lead management, marketing campaigns, automated student journeys, analytics and AI-powered business insights.

It is particularly relevant to dance studios that want to improve their digital presence, streamline administration, engage their dance community and introduce additional revenue streams.

Jackrabbit Dance – A specialised platform for dance schools

Jackrabbit Dance is a well-established studio management solution focused on the operational requirements of dance schools.

Its core capabilities include class scheduling, enrolment, tuition billing, student and family management, attendance tracking, staff management and parent communication.

One of its most specialised areas is dance-specific administration. Jackrabbit offers dedicated tools for managing costume measurements, automatically calculating costume sizes, collecting costume fees and organising recital performances.

It also provides a Parent Portal where families can access account information, register students, review important communications and manage aspects of their participation.

Jackrabbit's optional Jackrabbit Plus offering adds a custom-branded mobile app to the studio management platform.

For a dance school primarily looking to organise classes, families, tuition and annual recitals, Jackrabbit offers a strong set of specialised tools.

3. Dashboard and dance studio management

A good management system should provide more than a list of students and a timetable. It should give studio owners control over their entire operation.

Stepsi

Stepsi provides a centralised administrative dashboard covering students, memberships, bookings, tuition, payments, attendance, instructors, products, communication, automation and analytics.

Studio owners can manage multiple dance schools from one login, organise different calendars and configure granular staff permissions.

The student management system includes advanced filtering, searchable profiles, activity history, payment records, check-in history and bulk actions.

For growing dance schools, the ability to customise registration, restrict access by student group, configure membership rules and automate administrative tasks can become particularly valuable.

Jackrabbit Dance

Jackrabbit provides a comprehensive studio management environment with tools for handling students, classes, payments, staff and parents.

Its class management capabilities include a dynamic activity calendar, instructor scheduling, attendance, private lessons and appointment management.

Jackrabbit also provides onboarding assistance and data import support to help studios transition from existing software.

4. Student management and family accounts

Dance studios often manage considerably more than individual student accounts.

A single parent might manage several children, each attending different dance classes, holding different memberships and requiring separate attendance records.

Both platforms recognise the importance of family-based management.

Stepsi

Stepsi supports a main account with multiple linked sub-accounts and child accounts.

Parents can manage several family members from a single login, while each child retains an individual profile and activity history.

The platform also consolidates family billing, allowing memberships and payments to be associated with the parent account.

Additional features include:

• Customisable student registration fields.
• Approval workflows for new students.
• Student groups and visibility restrictions.
• Bulk membership and account management.
• Student discounts and promotional access.
• Customisable CSV exports.
• Student history and activity timelines.
• Account-level permissions and controls.

Jackrabbit Dance

Jackrabbit also supports family-oriented studio administration.

Its Parent Portal gives parents access to student information, registration, payments, class details, communications and other account activities.

Families can manage multiple students within the school's account structure, making it suitable for dance schools serving children and parents.

5. Class scheduling, bookings and waitlists

Scheduling is at the centre of virtually every dance studio.

A platform needs to support recurring dance classes, different session structures, instructor availability, capacity restrictions, cancellations and attendance.

Both solutions provide substantial scheduling functionality, although their approaches differ.

Stepsi

Stepsi supports multiple calendars, including main and private calendars, with configurable staff access.

Classes can operate in three different ways:

1. Bookable classes: Students reserve a place based on class capacity or available time slots.
2. Term registrations: Students register for a recurring dance class programme or tuition period.
3. Drop-in classes: Students attend and are checked in without a conventional advance registration.

The booking system supports cancellation windows, booking restrictions, minimum booking notice, student eligibility, payment requirements and no-show penalties.

Another useful feature is support for leader and follower roles, including role-aware class capacities. This is particularly relevant to partner dancing and social dance schools.

Stepsi also supports waitlists for classes, registrations and products, with automatic notifications when availability changes.

Jackrabbit Dance

Jackrabbit provides a dynamic class calendar and tools for managing class enrolments, room availability and instructors.

It supports attendance tracking, make-up classes, future absences, private lessons and appointment scheduling.

Families can also manage eligible make-up classes through the Parent Portal based on the school's configured policies.

Waitlisting is supported for classes with configurable availability settings.

6. Memberships, tuition and recurring payments

Memberships and tuition are not always interchangeable.

Some dance studios charge monthly tuition for a particular class, others sell unlimited memberships, and some combine subscriptions with individual bookings or prepaid sessions.

The flexibility of the billing system can have a substantial impact on administration and revenue.

Stepsi

Stepsi supports a configurable membership system with:

• Fixed-price and recurring memberships.
• Monthly and custom-day renewal periods.
• Automatic renewal controls.
• Limited-session and unlimited-session plans.
• Weekly or periodic entrance limits.
• Unused session rollover.
• Shared prepaid session pools.
• Commitment periods and cancellation rules.
• Three-, six- and twelve-month packages.
• Couple and family memberships.
• Renewal discounts and proration.
• Time-of-day and class restrictions.
• Student-group-specific memberships.
• Manual membership assignment.
• Cash, bank transfer and card payments.

Dance studios can also allow students to purchase memberships through guest checkout, pay later or use loyalty points.

This flexibility makes the system suitable for dance schools operating several different tuition and membership models simultaneously.

Jackrabbit Dance

Jackrabbit focuses heavily on tuition management and recurring fee collection.

Its payment functionality includes automatic tuition posting, recurring auto-drafts, discounts, prorating and payment surcharges.

Jackrabbit Pay provides integrated payment processing, connecting payment activity directly with studio accounts.

The platform also provides tools for managing family accounts, payment statements and outstanding balances.

7. Website, online registration and mobile applications

Your website and mobile app are often the first digital touchpoints a prospective or existing student has with your dance studio.

The experience should make it easy to discover classes, register, pay and stay connected.

This is one of the clearest differences between the two platforms.

Stepsi: Website builder and student mobile app

Stepsi includes a website builder that allows dance studio owners to create and publish their own public-facing website without requiring a separate website development project.

Available website blocks include:

• Headers and landing pages.
• Text and image sections.
• Dance class calendars.
• Booking pages.
• Membership listings.
• Online shop sections.
• Registration and forms.

The platform also provides embeddable widgets for displaying calendars, forms and member account functionality on an existing website.

The native student mobile app extends that experience, allowing students and parents to:

• Browse and book dance classes.
• Purchase memberships.
• Manage family accounts.
• Scan QR codes to check in.
• Access membership and payment history.
• Receive notifications and studio news.
• Participate in chat groups.
• Join waitlists.
• Purchase merchandise and event tickets.
• Access digital videos.
• Sign legal agreements.
• Manage loyalty points and referral codes.

Jackrabbit Dance: Online registration and Jackrabbit Plus

Jackrabbit provides online class registration that can be integrated with an existing website.

The Parent Portal allows families to manage student information, payments, registrations, absences, make-up lessons and communication.

Its optional Jackrabbit Plus subscription adds a custom-branded application available through the Apple App Store and Google Play.

The app connects with the Parent Portal and provides push notifications and mobile access to studio services.

An important distinction is that the branded app is packaged as Jackrabbit Plus, rather than being included in the standard Jackrabbit Dance offering.

8. CRM, communication and student engagement

Acquiring a new student is only the beginning.

Successful dance studios need to communicate regularly, encourage attendance, promote classes, maintain relationships with families and identify students who may be losing interest.

This is where CRM and engagement tools become important.

Stepsi

Stepsi includes a built-in CRM and engagement system.

Studios can manage prospective students, import leads from CSV or Excel, organise them into segments and track their activity.

Communication tools include:

• News and announcements.
• Promotional campaigns.
• Coupons and discount codes.
• Polls.
• Group chats.
• Targeted email communication.
• Scheduled and recurring messages.
• Read and seen tracking.
• Birthday messages.
• Free trial class invitations.
• Loyalty and referral rewards.

Campaigns can target specific student groups, memberships, classes, registrations, leads or inactive students.

The loyalty system allows studios to reward purchases, check-ins, birthdays and successful referrals. Students can then use accumulated points towards eligible memberships.

Jackrabbit Dance

Jackrabbit provides communication tools designed to connect studios with students, parents and staff.

Studios can communicate through email, text messaging, Parent Portal announcements and push notifications through Jackrabbit Plus.

Its Parent Portal provides a central point for important information and account activity.

Jackrabbit also offers Zippy AI, an AI-assisted email drafting tool designed to help studios create communications more efficiently.

9. Workflow automation and artificial intelligence

Automation is becoming increasingly important for dance studios that want to reduce repetitive administrative work.

Instead of relying on staff to remember every membership expiry, missed class, birthday or inactive student, software can trigger these activities automatically.

Stepsi: Visual automation builder

One of Stepsi's major differentiators is its visual automation builder.

Studios can create workflows using triggers, conditions, delays and actions.

Available triggers include:

• New student registrations.
• Membership purchases.
• Membership expiry.
• Membership freezes and cancellations.
• Booking creation and cancellation.
• First check-in.
• Student inactivity.
• Birthdays.
• New leads.
• Form submissions.
• Shop purchases.
• Manual triggers.

Automations can then execute actions such as sending messages, issuing coupons, adding loyalty points, notifying staff, changing student groups and starting other workflows.

The builder also supports if/else conditions, percentage splits, waiting periods, event-based waiting and execution logs.

This allows dance schools to create entire student journeys.

Artificial intelligence in Stepsi

Stepsi also incorporates AI into dance studio operations.

Its capabilities include AI-assisted migration from existing systems, where exported data can be analysed and converted into student accounts, memberships, groups, classes and session records.

The analytics area also provides AI-generated monthly insights, churn alerts and suggested actions based on studio activity.

Jackrabbit Dance: Automation and AI

Jackrabbit supports automation across areas such as tuition processing, payment collection and class management.

It also offers integration with Zapier, allowing studios to connect Jackrabbit with external applications and automate processes across different services.

Its Zippy AI email assistant helps generate communications based on a user's prompt and relevant class information.

For larger or multi-program dance organisations, its Business Intelligence Dashboard provides additional performance reporting.

10. Online shop, events, tickets and video gallery

Dance studios often generate revenue beyond standard monthly tuition.

Costumes, merchandise, workshops, performances, event tickets and digital training material can all contribute to additional income.

Stepsi

Stepsi includes a built-in online shop that supports physical and digital products, variants, stock management, product visibility and online payments.

Products can also be connected to calendar events.

For events, Stepsi supports checkout forms that collect attendee information, fees and custom details.

It can generate PDF tickets containing QR codes, send tickets automatically after payment and provide Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes.

Staff can validate tickets at the entrance using the mobile application.

The video gallery provides another revenue opportunity by allowing studios to publish free, private or paid video content.

Dance studios can use this functionality to distribute tutorials, practice sessions, choreography, workshops and exclusive student content.

Jackrabbit Dance

Jackrabbit has a particularly strong dance-specific costume and recital management module.

Its functionality includes:

• Costume measurement worksheets.
• Automatic costume sizing using vendor size charts.
• Costume fee collection.
• Costume deposits and payments.
• Costume ordering workflows.
• Recital lineup planning.
• Performance order management.
• Recital programme exports.

These are specialised workflows designed specifically for the dance industry.

Jackrabbit also offers secure live streaming through its Parent Portal.

11. Payments, tuition and financial management

Managing incoming payments and keeping accurate financial records are essential for any growing dance studio.

Both platforms provide payment-related functionality, although their approaches to payment infrastructure and financial operations differ.

Stepsi

Stepsi integrates Stripe Connect to support online payments and studio payouts.

It supports:

• Card payments.
• Apple Pay and Google Pay.
• iDEAL.
• Cash and bank transfers.
• Manual payments.
• Payment refunds.
• Partial refunds.
• PDF invoices.
• Multiple currencies.
• Shop orders and payment tracking.
• Staff payout requests.
• Staff payments through individual or company Stripe accounts.
• Romanian e-Factura XML submission and downloads.

The platform connects membership sales, bookings, registrations, check-ins, online shop purchases and staff payments.

Jackrabbit Dance

Jackrabbit Pay provides integrated payment processing, including automatic payment collection and tuition management.

Its published payment features include card and bank-draft payments, payment automation, payment notifications, real-time account updates, surcharges and next-day payout capabilities.

Jackrabbit also supports integrations with external services through its partner ecosystem.

12. Instructors, staff and permissions

As a dance studio grows, managing instructors, availability, schedules and administrative permissions becomes increasingly important.

Stepsi

Stepsi includes instructor profiles, teaching schedules, availability, time-off management and assigned class views.

When instructors are unavailable, time-off periods can be managed centrally, with affected students' memberships potentially frozen according to the studio's configuration.

The platform also includes staff payout functionality, allowing instructors and staff to request payments and administrators to process them.

Permissions can be configured individually for areas such as:

• Students.
• Memberships.
• Calendars.
• Check-ins.
• Payments.
• Shop.
• Gallery.
• Mobile app.

Access can additionally be limited to particular calendars or instructors' own classes.

Importantly, access controls are enforced through backend security rules, not just by hiding interface elements.

Jackrabbit Dance

Jackrabbit provides a Staff Portal with instructor schedules, electronic attendance tracking, time-clock functionality and staff availability.

Its substitute management tools allow studios to identify available instructors when someone is absent.

The platform also supports staff communication through email, text and push notifications.

Payroll data can be exported or connected to payroll processing solutions.

13. Analytics and business intelligence

A dance studio management system should help owners understand how their business is performing, not simply record what has already happened.

Stepsi

Stepsi includes analytics for:

• Revenue.
• Student growth.
• Membership performance.
• Class attendance.
• Class fill rates.
• Booking cancellations.
• No-show rates.
• Instructor performance.
• Product sales.
• Payment methods.
• Revenue sources.
• Busy periods and attendance patterns.

The system also includes student engagement scores and churn-risk indicators.

Owners can establish weekly or monthly targets for students, revenue, bookings and check-ins, with progress monitoring and forecasts.

Monthly AI insights provide summaries, potential churn alerts and suggested actions.

Jackrabbit Dance

Jackrabbit provides financial and enrolment reports designed to help owners assess the performance of their dance studio.

Its Business Intelligence Dashboard includes more than 30 key performance indicators for multi-site and enterprise organisations.

It covers areas such as revenue, enrolment trends and retention across programmes and locations.

Jackrabbit's Business Intelligence Dashboard is available through its Enterprise offering, while core financial and enrolment reporting is available across its subscription options.

14. Internationalisation and local requirements

For dance studios operating in different countries or managing international dance communities, language and payment compatibility can make a real difference.

Stepsi currently supports eight interface languages:

• English.
• Romanian.
• Spanish.
• French.
• Italian.
• Dutch.
• German.
• Polish.

It also supports multiple currencies and includes Romanian e-Factura integration.

Its public document-generator tools additionally support document creation for the UK, Romania and the Netherlands.

Jackrabbit's publicly documented product information focuses on its dance studio management capabilities, payment processing and integrations. International language, payment and invoicing requirements should be confirmed directly with its team.

For dance schools outside Jackrabbit's primary operating markets, this is an important area to validate before making a decision.

15. Pricing comparison

Pricing is an important consideration, particularly for smaller dance studios and schools with large student databases.

Jackrabbit Dance uses a tiered pricing model based on the number of students in the account.

According to its publicly listed pricing on 12 November 2026:

Jackrabbit Plus also has a one-time, non-refundable setup fee of $169, in addition to app store fees.

An important detail is that standard tiered billing considers both active and inactive students in the account. Inactive families can be archived in the Lead File to avoid including them in the subscription count.

Jackrabbit states that all its core studio management features are included across subscription options, with free data imports and support included.

You can review its official pricing page.

16. Advantages and disadvantages

No management platform is perfect for every dance studio. Each has a different focus, and the right choice depends on your business model and operational priorities.

Stepsi is particularly interesting for dance studios that see their software as more than an administrative database.

It is designed to connect studio operations, student experience, sales, communication and retention.

Jackrabbit is a strong option for dance schools where established classroom administration and recital-specific workflows are the main priorities.

18. The bigger question: Managing a dance studio or growing a dance business?

There is an important difference between software that helps you manage your current operations and software that helps you develop new ways to operate and generate revenue.

A dance studio doesn't just manage classes.

It manages relationships with students, parents, instructors and prospective customers. It sells memberships, organises events, collects tuition, communicates with families and constantly works to retain its dance community.

This is why the broader capabilities of a management platform matter.

A studio might initially need nothing more than a student database, a timetable and recurring payments. As it grows, however, its requirements change.

It may need to introduce:

• Online registration and payments.
• A branded mobile experience.
• Membership packages.
• Multiple locations.
• New revenue streams through merchandise and workshops.
• Automated communication.
• Student retention campaigns.
• More advanced reporting.
• Digital learning content.
• Better financial and operational control.

Using separate applications for each of these activities can create additional costs, disconnected information and unnecessary administrative work.

The advantage of an integrated platform is that these activities can work together.

A student books a dance class, attends, earns loyalty points, receives a personalised offer, purchases a membership and eventually becomes a regular part of the studio community – all within one connected environment.

That's the broader direction Stepsi takes.

19. Final verdict: Stepsi vs Jackrabbit Dance

Both Stepsi and Jackrabbit Dance offer comprehensive tools for dance studio management, but they are built around different priorities.

Jackrabbit is a well-established option for studios looking for specialised dance management functionality, particularly around tuition, class administration, costumes, recitals and parent communication.

Stepsi takes a broader approach by combining dance studio management with a complete student-facing digital platform, including websites, mobile applications, CRM, marketing automation, loyalty programmes, e-commerce, ticketing, analytics and AI-powered insights.

For studios that primarily need structured tuition management and dedicated recital workflows, Jackrabbit deserves serious consideration.

For studios looking to centralise more of their operations, improve student engagement, automate repetitive work and build additional revenue streams, Stepsi offers a broader set of integrated capabilities.

Ultimately, the best solution is the one that fits the way your dance studio operates and gives you the flexibility to grow without continuously adding more disconnected tools.