If you’re reading this article, you’re probably looking for, or at least considering switching to a new online registration software.
You might feel like your current solution has let you down in some way.
Or that they simply can’t seem to evolve with your organization’s changing needs.
We’ve curated a list of the best tools for online registration for Dance, Gymnastics, Cheer and Swim in the market.
Each software has its own set of features, but we’ll focus on how they provide more than just class management benefits.
DISCLAIMER: Activity Messenger is our product. We created it because we struggled for years with the shortcomings of existing online registration software and believe that most class management softwares are broken.
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Author’s note: Olivier shares tips and tricks he’s learned over the past decade as the owner of a children’s sports program. Today, as co-founder of Activity Messenger, he helps hundreds of dance, swim, cheer and gymnastics clubs across North America simplify the management of their online registrations.
Activity Messenger is not just another online registration software. While it offers all of the same features as other online registration software, it also fully integrates all of your favourite tools like Canva, ChatGPT, Zoom and Stripe.
And because we’re still operating a kids sports activity business , we know how it feels to need other tools like SurveyMonkey, MailChimp, JotForm, EventBrite and SmartWaiver,
So we built tools to replace all of them and provide a complete solution for all your needs.
The idea is simple: Automate manual tasks nobody has time for. And create workflows instead of workarounds
For a detailed overview of Activity Messenger, book a demo.
Three key features differentiate Activity Messenger from other Class Management and online registration software.
1. Personalized Registration Path (easier than ordering with UberEats)
2. Powerful marketing tools (Canva integration in addition to replacing Mailchimp)
3. Automated tasks (it’s like having an extra employee)
What It Is: Activity Messenger personalizes the registration experience for each customer. Once a participant selects an option from the form, the next option appears based on the initial selection. Your customer is guided to the right course in no time.
Why It Matters: Most software programs show all your course options to every visitor. Without even considering the needs of each individual. Activity Messenger simplifies the process and reduces confusion by presenting only relevant choices based on each individual’s answers.
Extra Perks: Nobody likes having to create a new account on a new platform. By eliminating account creation for the customer, Activity Messenger offers a much faster online registration process with less friction. And don’t worry, your customers do have an account and will be able to log in.
📌 Pro tip: When my team and I made the leap to Activity Messenger, designing a simple form with no customer account helped us increase our conversion rate for free trials and events where it makes little sense for leads to create an account and need to fill out so much information.
What It Is: Imagine no longer having to switch from one tool to another for your various marketing tasks. In addition to online registration, Activity Messenger allows you to send newsletters (alternative to Mailchimp), mass SMS, online ticketing, marketing automations, and even end-of-session surveys.
Why It Matters: Think about your newsletter. Right now, you have to manually export your participants from your registration software to a newsletter platform such as MailChimp or ConstantContact. The process is laborious and can easily lead to errors (as well as having to pay for an extra tool).
Extra Perks: Our seamless integration with Canva lets you create email marketing campaigns without ever leaving Activity Messenger for your designs. What’s more, an analytics table gives you an overview of your marketing efforts and their impact.
📌 Pro tip: Switching to Activity Messenger has saved us an enormous amount of money on our newsletter mailings. Not only are the newsletter-sending features included, but the number of subscribers doesn’t influence pricing like MailChimp or ConstantContac.
What It Is: Automation in Activity Messenger is not just a buzzword; it’s a functional reality. From sending reminders for unsigned waivers to marketing automation for children’s parties, our system covers a wide range of automations, such as
Why It Matters: Say you run a swim school. Automated reminders for unsigned waivers ensure that no child dives in without all safety protocols in place. Such targeted, specific automation not only improves efficiency, but also adds an extra layer of safety and reliability to your operations.
Extra Perks: Automations work hand in hand with the platform’s mailmerge options. You can create your session start reminder email before you receive a single registration and know that it will be sent at the right time, to the right people, with the right personalized mailmerge options.
Discover our kids party booking & Marketing workflow
📌 Pro tip: Automating our welcome email allowed us to share relevant information with new customers. This saved us time but to our surprise we also saw a dramatic reduction in questions from parents following the purchase. This now saves us hours of work and the parent gets the information immediately.
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Activity Messenger is more than just class management software; it’s an all-in-one tool designed to streamline your operations, boost your marketing, and provide an unparalleled, personalized experience for your customers. Book a demo today
Activity Messenger also offers the other features considered standard in a registration platform.
But we’ve reinvented them to better equip you. Here’s how
You’ve created the perfect Instagram post. People click and visit your beautiful website.
Only to be redirected to a sign-up platform with completely different branding (that usually doesn’t look great).
Activity Messenger does things differently.
You’re in complete control of your brand, from the social media post to the confirmation email.
Plus, everything stays on your site and customers are never redirected to another platform to sign up.
With Activity Messenger, you can say goodbye to learning how to use eventbrite or tututix. Plus, you’ll save money with lower transaction fees. Attendees can purchase tickets and receive branded electronic tickets with a QR code.
This QR code can be scanned with a smartphone at the event entrance for easy access control. And you can automate an SMS reminder 24 hours before the event and an automated survey to be emailed after the event.
All platforms allow you to send bulk emails and SMS. But very few track open rates for you. So you have no way of knowing who received and opened that important email you sent last week.
That’s where our open rate comes in, and the ability to resend to those who didn’t open your email. Best of all, when you re-send a message, you can do it via SMS with a link to the email to make sure everyone gets the message.
📌 Pro tip: Being able to send marketing and non-marketing emails depending on the type of communication allowed us to create well-defined lists and better communicate with parents. This assures us that people get important communications but can unsubscribe form marketing outreach too.
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Discover how we also replace Mailchimp, SurveyMoney & Eventbrite for gymnastics clubs, danse studio and swim schools
Almost every company or organization needs online forms, a newsletter, surveys and SMS communication. In this sense, the possible uses for Activity Messenger are broad and touch every industry.
That being said, there are three types of use cases that benefit the most from Activity Messenger. They are:
1) Large sports club that offer swimming lessons, gymnastics, dance or cheer programs that are looking for a more complete and modern class management solution.
Activity Messenger is an alternative to: JackRabbit, IclassPro, Amilia, DanseStudioPro, TheStudioDirector
2) Small club or studio with only 1-2 full time staff looking to have everything in one place without the complexity of most class management software.
Activity Messenger is an alternative to: Pen & Paper, JotForm, Google Forms, Wufoo
3) Sports Federations & Franchisors that are looking to better communicate with members, streamline registration, manage training and events and collect injury reports.
Activity Messenger is an alternative to: Uplifter, Interpodia, Trackie
Before Activity Messenger, Sportball Laval’s small administrative team struggled with the monumental task of serving over 5,000 families each year. They faced multiple challenges: how to keep parents informed, ensure classes ran smoothly, and automate repetitive tasks – all without getting overwhelmed.
Their communication toolkit was fragmented, relying on multiple platforms for different functions such as email, SMS, and waivers. They had reached a ceiling in terms of efficient customer communication and were missing the opportunity to improve their services based on customer feedback.
Here is what Olivier says now that he has implemented Activity Messenger:
“Activity Messenger has changed the way we work. Our mission is all about customer satisfaction, and now we’ve got the tools to do it. The impact has been immediate – not just in time and cost savings, but in parent satisfaction and retention.
One parent summed it up perfectly: “The service at Sportball is exceptional, from registration, to communication before and during the session, to coaching on the field. Plus, the built-in automation has allowed our team to focus more on what really matters: delivering exceptional sports programs to young athletes.
Before Activity Messenger, Selena was drowning in administrative tasks at Swim to Safety. Managing bookings, tracking digital signatures for waivers, and sending manual communications were all part of her daily grind. She worked hard, but found it difficult to keep up as the business scaled.
As Selena put it, she had “no real way to take registrations” and was “manually tracking every single part of the process. This chaos was affecting their ability to focus on what really mattered: teaching water safety skills to young children.
Here’s what Selena says now, after implementing Activity Messenger:
Activity Messenger became their lifebuoy, automating and streamlining everything from capturing digital signatures to communicating with parents. Selena estimates that the platform has cut her workload “at least in half if not more,” allowing her to be fully present for the children they serve.
Communications no longer fall through the cracks; parents now receive timely updates and reminders, resulting in fewer miscommunications and unfortunate incidents like showing up to an empty pool.
Before Activity Messenger, Gymnastics BC faced a number of challenges. With over 50,000 members, including coaches, judges, athletes, and club owners, they desperately needed an online system that met Canadian legal standards, improved communication, and simplified administrative tasks.
Their small team was overwhelmed by the manual processes of transcribing handwritten injury reports, processing liability waivers, and struggling with ineffective communication systems.
Here is what Gymnastics BC is saying now that they have implemented Activity Messenger:
In Activity Messenger, we finally found a complete toolkit that immediately saved us time and money. Our injury reporting processes are much more streamlined, ensuring faster and more reliable data collection. As a result, compliance rates have increased significantly. With Activity Messenger’s analytics, we can now track the most common types of injuries and provide targeted educational initiatives.
The automated email/SMS notification system ensures that the right people are alerted as soon as an injury form is completed, eliminating the chance of delayed administrative processing that caused multiple problems in the past.
We’ve also replaced Mailchimp for our weekly outreach. Activity Messenger is much easier to use and fully integrated with Canva, making it easy for us to stay on brand for all communications with members and athletes.
Sign up for a free trial or book a 20-minute demo with Olivier; we’ll show you how Activity Messenger can help your club, studio or federation, demonstrate best practices, and answer any questions you may have.
Tired of juggling multiple tools to manage your sports and recreation organization?
In a short 20-minute demo, you’ll see why hundreds of clubs and associations rely on Activity Messenger to streamline everything from online registration to digital waivers to member communications.
Learn more: Improve your online registration process and increase conversions
Before you finalize your choice of class management software, consider these two things:
Navigating through countless class options on typical registration platforms can be overwhelming for customers, especially new ones. This often results in lost customers who abandon the cumbersome process. In contrast, it is now possible to replicate the guided, personalized experience of a phone call with modern class management software.
By incorporating key questions into an intuitive online workflow, organizations can help customers quickly and easily find the classes that best meet their needs, improving user experience and retention.
Activity Messenger embraces the simplicity, speed, and innovation with a clean, minimalist and customer-centric registration path. The platform also allows you to replace tools like Mailchimp, SurveyMonkey, Eventbrite, and SmartWaiver.
Sure, our clients love the cost savings, but they love having all their data and tools in one tool that gives them a 360 view of registrations, communications, waivers, and marketing.
NOTE: Most of the products we’ve mentioned offer either a free plan, 14-day trial, 30-day free trial, or a money-back guarantee, allowing you to take them for a spin.
Below you’ll find several class management and online registration tools you may be considering for your dance studio, swim school, gymnastics club or sports federation.
For your convenience, we’ve provided a quick demo video, links to their homepages, pricing details, and key features, as well as a link to their Capterra reviews. (Feel free to check our own reviews on Capterra—currently holding a 4.8-star rating!)
Most of these platforms offer a mix of registration, communication, and class scheduling features. Some even dabble in extras like email marketing, event ticketing, and digital waivers.
While these features are fine for standard class management, we find that in many cases, specialized features like form building or email marketing feel like add-ons rather than integral components.
As a result, many studio owners end up looking for other tools to fill in the gaps.
That’s is where Activity Messenger shines.
We’re a platform built from the ground up to simplify your operations by translating your business rules into scalable workflows.
So, while other tools may cover the basics, Activity Messenger goes the extra mile to streamline your entire operation, without forcing you to juggle multiple add-on tools.
Now let’s look at some of the other best options on the market.
Jackrabbit Classes has been a stalwart in the class management software arena, especially in the niche of gymnastics and dance studios. Its strength lies in its extensive features—ranging from attendance tracking to online registration and billing.
Jackrabbit Drawbacks
However, where it excels in functionalities, it sometimes lags in user experience. The interface can feel a bit dated, and the system requires a certain amount of training to master.
In the competitive landscape of class management software, iClassPro has long been a go-to solution for many gymnastics clubs, dance studios, and swim schools. Known for its robust set of features, the platform aims to be an all-inclusive system, that covers everything from class scheduling and online registration to billing and reporting.
IClassPro Drawbacks
But while its breadth of features is its greatest strength, it can also be its most intimidating aspect, especially for smaller organizations that may find the interface overwhelming or unnecessary for their specific needs. Pricing may also be a limiting factor for smaller organizations.
Amilia features an easy-to-use interface and customizable features that suit a wide range of organizations, from sports clubs to art schools. Designed with the end user in mind, Amilia offers a smooth online registration process and an intuitive dashboard that simplifies administrative tasks such as billing, scheduling, and member tracking. One of the platform’s most notable features is its integrated e-commerce capabilities, allowing organizations to seamlessly sell merchandise or additional services alongside class registrations.
Although it offers a wide range of functionalities, Amilia lacks depth in the ability to personalize communications, send SMS and it’s marketing tools are very limited. Amilia is also known to be one of the most expensive options on the market. The software’s customization options are limited, which can be a significant drawback for companies with specific or unique operational needs.
Uplifter positions itself as a versatile class management software tailored for sports organizations, ranging from figure skating clubs to soccer academies. What sets it apart is its focus on skill development tracking, a feature that allows coaches and parents to monitor athlete progress in real time. The platform is robust, offering automated invoicing, online registration, and even built-in website creation tools for organizations without an existing web presence.
Uplifter Drawbacks
While Uplifter offers a comprehensive set of features, it’s not without its drawbacks. For one, its interface can be a bit overwhelming for first-time users, given the plethora of options and functionalities. This could potentially slow down the onboarding process for non-technical employees. Finally, while customer support is generally responsive, the availability of support can vary depending on the subscription level, which could be a concern for organizations that require frequent assistance.
DanceStudioPro stands out in the crowded field of class management software as a specialized solution designed specifically for the unique needs of dance studios. With features that facilitate everything from student registration to performance scheduling, it aims to be a comprehensive system that streamlines studio operations. Its platform offers intuitive class scheduling, integrated payment processing, and even marketing tools to help studios grow their client base.
DanceStudioPro Drawbacks
But it also has its shortcomings. First and foremost, the user interface can appear dated, which not only affects the aesthetic experience, but can also make navigation less intuitive for both administrators and clients. Customization is another area where DanceStudioPro could improve; while it offers various templates and settings, the flexibility to tailor the platform to meet unique needs is somewhat limited.
NOTE: Though the above are our top picks for best class management software platforms. You may also choose to look at Class Juggler, Wellness Living, MindBody, Class Manager and TheStudioDirector
We hope this comparison will make it easier for you to find the online registration platform that’s right for you.
If you choose Activity Messenger, we look forward to showing you the many ways we can simplify your life.
When you’re ready, book an introductory call and join hundreds of Dance, Gymnastics, Swim and Cheer organizations across North America
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Online registration software is a digital tool that enables organizations to easily manage registrations and payments for courses or events, providing a smooth and professional experience for managers and customers alike.
In Canada, popular online registration tools include Activity Messenger, Amilia and Uplifter. These Canadian companies offer integrated solutions for registration, class management and customer communication and store all of their data in Canada.
Online registration software optimizes registration management, simplifies payments and enhances the customer experience, while providing accurate tracking and effective communication for sports and leisure organizations. You can get started with a simple registration form.
Online registration software centralizes your members’ and participants’ information. This facilitates targeted communications, real-time follow-up and better interaction with your customers.
A digital platform simplifies online registration by automating processes, offering an intuitive interface for users, and integrating secure payments, making the whole process faster compared to taking registrations over the phone or in person
