Introducing ClassRoot: Class Management Built by a Studio Owner
ClassRoot is simple class management for dance, music and art studios: online registration with signed waivers, autopay or Zelle, attendance, make-up classes, a parent app and messages in every family's language.
Payanai Team5 min read
Running a small studio means wearing every hat. You teach the classes, and then you chase registration forms, remind families about tuition, track who paid by Zelle, rebook missed classes and answer the same questions in the parents' group chat. The software that's meant to help often costs a monthly fee whether you use half of it or not.
ClassRoot is Payanai's answer to that. It started at Cool Beats Dance, a studio in Frisco, Texas run by Payanai's founder, which now runs entirely on it: every family, class and past payment moved over from its previous system. Today ClassRoot is open to other dance, music, art and enrichment studios.
What ClassRoot Does
| Area | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Registration | One online form where families register their children, pick classes, sign your agreements and set up payment |
| Tuition | Monthly tuition created and collected automatically, with sibling discounts and optional late fees |
| Payments | Autopay by bank account or card through Stripe, with the money going to your own Stripe account. Zelle, cash and cheques are recorded in seconds |
| Attendance | Teachers mark who's here from their phone. Cancel a class and offer a make-up in the same step |
| Make-up classes | Parents tap "Can't come" and book a make-up class themselves, within rules you set |
| Free trials | Families request a trial and sign your waiver online; ClassRoot sends a reminder the day before, a "register" link afterwards and one gentle follow-up |
| Parent app | Each child's classes, what's due, what's been paid and the studio's agreements, on any phone with nothing to download |
| Messages | Email everyone, one class or chosen families. AI drafts the message from a few notes, and one click adds a translation |
| Ask ClassRoot | Questions in plain words, like "who hasn't paid yet?" or "what will next month's tuition come to?" |
| Bookkeeping | Edit or remove a fee with a reason, void a payment entered by mistake, export transactions for your accountant, and see every change in the activity log |
Built for How Small Studios Actually Work
Most studio software is designed around large studios with front desks. ClassRoot was designed around a studio owner who teaches the classes too.
Zelle and cash are first-class. Many families pay the way they always have. You can record Zelle, cash and cheques for free, require autopay instead, or allow both.
Messages every family can read. Studios teaching Indian classical dance and music, Bollywood, or language-rich communities often have grandparents doing pick-ups. A message can go out in English with a translation underneath in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean or Arabic. You can also share it straight into your parents' WhatsApp group.
Your agreements, your rules. A dance studio might require a liability waiver; a music school might not need one at all. You choose which agreements are required, which are optional, and which are asked for each child. When you change the wording, families are asked to review the new version, and every answer is kept with the exact text they agreed to.
Families who don't register online. Some families sign up in person or by phone. You can add them from the dashboard in a minute, with or without an email address, and enrol their children straight away.
No passwords. Parents and staff sign in with a link sent to their email. Studios can also send a parent a personal sign-in link that works for seven days, which makes onboarding a whole class far easier.
What It Costs
There's no monthly fee, no setup fee and no contract. ClassRoot earns only when families pay online, and even then the fee is capped each month by the size of your studio:
| Active students | ClassRoot fee on online payments | Never more than |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 100 | 1% | $29 a month |
| 101–250 | 1% | $69 a month |
| 251–500 | 1% | $99 a month |
| 501+ | 1% | $139 a month |
Payments you record yourself, like Zelle and cash, are free. Stripe's own processing fees for card and bank payments are separate and go to Stripe.
Switching From Another System
Moving is usually the hardest part, so we do it with you. If you're on JackRabbit, your classes, families, students and payment history can be imported straight from its export, with totals shown so you can check that everything matches. On something else, or on spreadsheets? We'll help you bring it across. Families add their payment details once, sign your agreements in the parent app, and you're running.
Privacy and Security
- Card and bank details never touch ClassRoot. They go straight to Stripe, and payments land in the studio's own Stripe account.
- The AI only sees what it needs. Ask ClassRoot can read your studio's records to answer questions, but it can't send, charge or change anything, and it never sees contact details or medical notes. The message writer only sees the notes you type.
- Every change is recorded. Fees, payments, refunds, agreements and family details all leave a trail in the activity log.
- Families' information isn't sold or used for advertising.
Who It's For
ClassRoot works for any class-based program in the US: dance, music, art, martial arts, swimming, tutoring, coding clubs and sports teams. It's especially at home with small and mid-size studios that want something simpler than enterprise studio software without giving up the essentials.
If you run a studio, or know someone who does, take a look at classroot.app. Setting up a studio takes a few minutes.
