If you’re a private music teacher or a small studio that mostly runs one-on-one lessons, My Music Staff is a mature, music-specific tool with flat pricing per teacher. If you run an academy with group classes, terms, many families and a need for a parent app, goals and messaging in one place, Outcoach is the MyMusicStaff alternative built for that.
It’s Thursday night and you’ve got two browser tabs open. One says “music teachers”, the other says “academies”, and you teach 140 kids across piano, guitar and a Saturday ensemble. This page is for working out which tab to close.
Key takeaways
- My Music Staff (MMS) has been running since 2013 and describes itself as studio management software for private music teachers and music studios. It’s a strong, focused choice for that group.
- MMS charges per teacher with unlimited students. Outcoach charges per student per month and never charges for parents, coaches or admins.
- Both handle scheduling, invoicing, online payments and make-up credits. The differences are in who they’re designed around: a teacher’s studio, or an academy with classes, terms and families.
- Every statement about MMS below comes from My Music Staff’s own website, checked October 2026. Where their site doesn’t say, we say so.
Who is each one built for?
My Music Staff is built for music teachers and studios, while Outcoach is built for coaching businesses that run classes across many activities, music included.
The My Music Staff homepage (checked October 2026) says it has served “private music teachers & music studios” since 2013 and lists private in-home lessons, music studios and schools, travelling teachers and retail lesson programs. The company says it’s Canadian, and it has a separate product, TutorBird, for private tutors. Its site is available in six languages.
Outcoach is class management software for sports academies, music schools, dance studios, swim schools and tutoring centres. The Outcoach for music schools page covers 30, 45 or 60-minute private lessons, group classes, ensembles, exams, recitals, lesson packs, instrument hire and sibling discounts.
The honest short version: if your business is a teacher (or a few teachers) and a lesson calendar, MMS was designed with you in mind. If your business looks more like a school with terms, groups and parents who want to see progress, that’s where Outcoach is aimed.
How do they compare, feature by feature?
On paper they overlap a lot. The table sets out what each publishes. MMS details are from My Music Staff’s own pages, checked October 2026.
| Area | My Music Staff (from their site, checked October 2026) | Outcoach |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Private music teachers and music studios, including travelling teachers and retail lesson programs (homepage) | Coaching businesses: music schools, sports academies, dance, swim and tutoring |
| Scheduling | Private and group lessons, recurring lessons, categories and locations, month/week/day/timeline/agenda views, two-way calendar sync, Zoom/Skype/FaceTime links (Calendar & Attendance); teacher availability by date range (Multi-Teacher) | Recurring and one-off classes, camps, holiday calendar, bulk copy of a term into the next, coach availability and room capacity checks, Google Calendar sync (class scheduling) |
| Invoicing and payments | Calendar-based billing per lesson, monthly or hourly; lesson packages; sibling discounts; Stripe and PayPal; Auto Pay; automatic reminders and late fees (Invoices & Payments); QuickBooks integration (pricing page) | Card payments via Stripe, bank transfer, payment at booking; standard, recurring, quantity and per-event invoices; bulk class invoicing; reminders with a pay link; CSV export (payments and invoicing) |
| Parent portal / app | Optional Student Portal for lesson notes, files, studio news, invoices and online payments (Student Portal). A dedicated family mobile app: not stated on the pages we checked | Free family app on iOS and Android showing invoices, bookings, schedule, goals, feedback and photos (mobile app for families) |
| Communication | Bulk email and SMS, message history, automated email and SMS lesson reminders (Student Management); studio news in the Portal | Direct messages, announcements, class notifications and group chats over push, SMS and email (messaging) |
| Progress and practice | Lesson notes, repertoire library, assigning pieces (Learning Management); student Practice Log with timer and video uploads (Student Portal) | Skill, milestone and performance goals, homework from To Do to Done, photo and video evidence, progress parents can see (goal tracking) |
| Make-ups | Issue and use make-up credits (Calendar & Attendance); families can self-schedule and make-up lessons can be created from cancellations, with your own deadlines (Student Portal) | Make-up rules per event type, dollar credit balances, self-serve booking, level-matched group make-ups (make-up classes) |
| Pricing model | Per teacher, all features included, unlimited students. Default display: $16.95/month plus $4.95 per additional teacher or staff member. The page shows regional pricing; its Australian pricing is $22.95 plus $5.95 (pricing page) | Per student per month, three plans: Starter $0.99 ($0.70 billed yearly), Standard $1.50 ($1.00 yearly), Performance $2.99 ($2.00 yearly). No charge for parents, coaches or admins (pricing) |
| Free trial | 30 days with all features, no credit card required; 90-day money-back guarantee (pricing page) | 30-day free trial; no lock-in contract |
Two notes on that table. First, Outcoach features differ by plan. Messaging, make-up management and goals sit in Standard and above, and the pricing page lists the booking system for registrations under Performance. Check the pricing page for the plan you’re looking at. Second, the Outcoach pricing page doesn’t name a currency, so don’t compare the two dollar for dollar until you’ve confirmed it.
Where is My Music Staff strongest?
MMS is strongest for music teachers who want a music-specific toolkit and predictable pricing that doesn’t rise as their student list grows.
Things it does that suit music teachers well
- Flat pricing per teacher. The pricing page says you can add as many students as you want. A busy solo teacher pays the same with 30 students or 60.
- Music-specific learning tools. A repertoire library with composer, genre and instrument, plus a lending library for books and instruments with reminders when items are due back.
- Practice logging. Students record practice time with a built-in timer and can upload a video for the teacher.
- Running the business side. Payroll calculated as an hourly rate or a percentage of revenue, expense and mileage tracking, and tax summaries.
- A website builder, hosted at no extra cost, with online registration and lesson booking.
- Wide integrations, including Stripe, PayPal, QuickBooks, Google Calendar, Outlook and Zapier.
- A low-risk trial: 30 days, no card, and a full refund if you tell them within 90 days that it’s not the right fit.
Where does Outcoach fit better?
Outcoach fits better when you run a school rather than a studio: lots of families, group classes, terms that roll over, and parents who expect an app.
- Terms and groups. You can bulk copy a term into the next in four steps, and set a holiday calendar so classes don’t land on closure dates.
- A family app. Parents get a free iOS and Android app with their child’s schedule, invoices, goals, feedback and photos. Each parent sees only their own child’s data.
- Messaging that stays in one place. Announcements to a class or the whole school, group chats, and SMS that Outcoach says it covers the cost of. Parents can’t start private chats with each other.
- Goals parents can see. Practice tasks, homework and evidence (a video of the scale they finally nailed) tied to each student.
- More than music. If you also run a drama class, holiday camp or dance program, it all sits in one system.
The trade-off is cost structure. Per-student pricing rises as you grow, where MMS rises only when you add teachers or staff. Outcoach says it will “work out a special deal” for businesses beyond 350 students.
What would each cost a typical studio?
Which one costs less depends mostly on your ratio of students to teachers. Here’s a worked example using each company’s published prices.
Example only. Say you run a studio with 3 teachers and 90 students, and you’re in Australia.
- My Music Staff (Australian pricing on their page): $22.95 + 2 × $5.95 = $34.85 a month, whatever your student numbers.
- Outcoach Starter, billed yearly: 90 × $0.70 = $63 a month.
- Outcoach Standard, billed yearly: 90 × $1.00 = $90 a month. Billed monthly: 90 × $1.50 = $135.
On published prices alone, MMS costs less for a studio shaped like this one, and the gap widens as each teacher’s student list grows. What you’re comparing is not just the bill but what it covers. If a parent app, group messaging and goal tracking would replace other tools you pay for (or the hours you spend on WhatsApp), weigh that in. If they wouldn’t, the cheaper tool is the right tool. For more on how to think about this, see our guide to music school management software.
Which should you choose?
Pick the one that matches the shape of your business today and where it’s heading in the next two years.
Choose My Music Staff if
- You’re a solo or travelling teacher, or a small studio built around one-on-one lessons.
- You have lots of students per teacher and want pricing that doesn’t rise with enrolments.
- You want a repertoire library, a lending library, practice logs and payroll in a music-specific tool.
- You want a website builder included, or need PayPal, QuickBooks or ACH/Bacs payments.
Choose Outcoach if
- You run terms with group classes and ensembles as well as privates.
- Families expect an app with schedules, invoices and progress in one place.
- You want messaging, make-ups and goals in the same system as your rolls and invoices.
- You run, or plan to run, programs beyond music.
Either could work if
- You’re a mid-sized studio mainly after automated invoicing, reminders and make-up credits. Trial both with the same five real families and see which one they find easier.
How do you switch without losing a term?
Switch between terms, not halfway through one, and test with real data before you tell families.
Outcoach’s getting started page says that if you have lots of data to bring in, they’ll do it for you. MMS’s pricing page also says it offers personalised migration support, so moving in either direction is supported.
Switching checklist
- Export your student and family list, with contact details, instrument, teacher and lesson time.
- Export outstanding invoices and any unused lesson-pack or make-up balances. Write down who is owed what.
- Pick your switch date: the first week of a new term is cleanest.
- Start the free trial and set up one teacher’s timetable first.
- Send the data to the Outcoach team for import, or use the CSV template yourself.
- Check ten student records by hand against your old system.
- Set up payments (Stripe) and run one test invoice to yourself.
- Invite a handful of families to the app and ask what confused them.
- Message all families a week before the new term with what’s changing and what they need to do.
- Keep read-only access to your old system until the first invoice run has gone out cleanly.
If you’re timing the switch with next term’s enrolments, our guide to getting families to re-enrol for next term pairs well with this checklist. You can also start an Outcoach trial and run it alongside your current system for a few weeks.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on your business. Outcoach suits academies with group classes, terms, many families and a need for a parent app, messaging and goal tracking. My Music Staff suits private music teachers and small studios that want music-specific tools and flat pricing per teacher with unlimited students.
My Music Staff’s pricing page (checked October 2026) charges per teacher with all features included and unlimited students. The default display is $16.95 a month plus $4.95 per additional teacher or staff member, and the page shows regional pricing, listing $22.95 plus $5.95 for Australia.
Outcoach charges per student per month across three plans: Starter, Standard and Performance. Starter is $0.99 per student a month, or $0.70 billed yearly. Parents, coaches, teachers and admins are never charged, there are no setup costs and there’s no lock-in contract.
Yes. My Music Staff offers a 30-day free trial with all features and no credit card required, plus a 90-day money-back guarantee, according to its pricing page. Outcoach offers a 30-day free trial and has no lock-in contract.
Outcoach’s getting started page says that if you have lots of data to bring in, the team will do it for you. Export your students, families, balances and outstanding invoices first, and switch at the start of a term so billing stays clean.
Yes. My Music Staff’s calendar page says you can issue and use make-up credits for missed lessons, and its Student Portal page says families can self-schedule and make-up lessons can be created from cancellations, with policies and deadlines you set.
