MusicDesk vs Shinnpad

MusicDesk provides student management, scheduling, and billing tools for music teachers and schools. It supports one-on-one and group lessons, attendance tracking, lesson notes, substitute teachers, and teacher-specific schedules. Schools can bulk-import students, manage family contacts, assign students to teachers, and store notes and files. Families can view upcoming lessons in a portal, cancel within the school's notice window, and book makeups when enabled. Recurring monthly family subscriptions and major credit card payments are supported through Stripe. The service also supports instrument rentals and estimates teacher pay from lessons taught and attendance, using hourly or lesson-type rates; timesheets can be exported to CSV. MusicDesk runs in a browser on phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops, but has no separate iOS or Android app. Its plan costs $14.99 per month for one team member, with each additional teacher or admin adding $4.99 per month. New accounts receive 30 days of full-feature access without a credit card, and subscriptions can be changed or canceled anytime.

Shinnpad is web-based lesson-management software for independent music teachers. It combines scheduling, student rosters, payments, a parent portal, bookkeeping, and tax-report preparation. Teachers can create rotating A/B or red/green campus days, with schedules shifting around holidays, breaks, and days off. The free Studio plan is always free for up to 10 students and includes manual payment tracking, a read-only parent portal, a public studio site, and manual bookkeeping tools. Studio Pro costs $8.99/mo or $89.99/yr and adds unlimited students, Stripe card payments and autopay, automatic mileage, calendar sync, Schedule C export, and an email suite. Studio Max costs $17.99/mo or $169/yr and adds receipt scanning, an AI deduction finder, an AI year-end tax report, and priority support. Studio Admin costs $19/mo plus $7 for each additional studio. Shinnpad tracks mileage, expenses, and income, but does not file taxes or provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. Records can be exported to spreadsheets.