YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts
How to Switch Class Management Software Without the Chaos
In this solo episode, Cheer Biz Podcast host Dan Cotton gives gym owners a five-question framework for deciding whether to switch class management software, plus a phased timeline that makes the move far less painful.
Why Class Management Software Matters
Welcome to another episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast. I’m your host, Dan Cotton, and today’s conversation tackles a question that comes up constantly in cheer gym owner communities: which class management software is best, and is it time to switch? Dan walks through how to make that call, how to avoid chaos if you do, and closes with a bonus tip on exactly how and when he would make the move.
Dan is upfront that he won’t endorse any single platform. He has personal preferences, and he sees a top tier, a mid tier of up-and-comers, and a bottom tier he wouldn’t recommend, but his goal is to give owners actionable information they can use to evaluate their own situation rather than just his opinion. Coaching clients can dig into specifics with him privately.
One point is non-negotiable in Dan’s mind: if you don’t have a class management system, you need one. You cannot operate at the scale and speed a growing gym requires without it. At its core, the software consolidates your billing, lets you sell classes through recurring subscriptions or memberships, shows who is enrolled, sets enrollment caps, and tracks who is instructing each class. A good system also makes sure you aren’t missing money or letting unpaid bills slip through the cracks.
Experience Drives Referrals
Dan points out that the software debate itself reveals something valuable about how people shop. Gym owners ask their communities what others use and like because they want referrals. Your own prospective families do exactly the same thing. When a parent posts in a local moms’ group asking where to take a daughter who wants to learn to tumble, you want your families jumping in to say you have to go to your gym.
That kind of raving fan base only comes from an amazing experience, and your class management system directly contributes to whether families have a great one or a frustrating one. That is why, Dan argues, these systems matter far more than many owners assume.
Question One: What Is Actually Broken?
If you already have a system and are weighing a switch, Dan offers a framework of questions. The first is the simplest: what is actually broken? If you can’t answer that in a single sentence, he doesn’t think you should be switching.
For his own gym, the answer was cost. The previous system worked fairly well overall, but Dan didn’t want to pay a percentage on every transaction, including cash and check payments, on top of everything else. Once he looked at the true cost of using it, the high processing fees were clearly the problem, and he could save money by moving.
The follow-up is whether the software is broken or your own operations are. When Dan’s gym changed systems, the new platform couldn’t set different lengths for birthday party packages. The gym’s base package runs an hour and a half, while the two upgraded tiers run two hours, and the team wants to steer families toward the longer slots. It was partly a software limitation and partly a limitation of how the gym was doing business, so they had to decide whether it was essential or whether they could adjust their approach. Dan notes this give and take exists with any software, including a CRM. If you don’t have a system at all, the answer to question one is easy: what’s broken is that you don’t have one.
Question Two: What Will the Move Cost?
The second question is what it will cost to move your billing data and train your staff. Some providers offer an onboarding team that migrates data and sets everything up for you. Others don’t, and you may need to pay staff to export and import data. Dan advises asking whether the new system has an easy import and export process.
Staff training is the other hidden expense. Even experienced users find that every platform is laid out differently and some are less intuitive than expected, so owners should estimate whether training will take 10, 20, 30 or 100 hours. That matters because the thing that’s broken may only be an annoyance, not a drain on money or time. If it costs $5,000 to solve an annoyance, Dan says, you have to ask whether it’s truly worth it.
Question Three: What Support Will You Get?
Dan encourages owners to spend real time talking with each company about support before, during and after the move, because it often varies by package. Some providers give top-tier customers concierge-level service with a quick phone call included, while lower tiers require booking time and paying by the hour.
Most leading providers also maintain libraries of FAQs, help guides and walkthroughs. Dan’s hack: if you use AI as he recommends, train it on those help sections so it can answer many questions without a paid support call.
Ongoing support is the piece people forget. Onboarding calls sound great, but Dan stresses that it’s not if you hit a glitch, it’s when. Eighty to ninety percent of the time it’s user error, but occasionally the software is truly broken or limited. He shares a common frustration: members of cheer Facebook groups report being told by a provider that the software can’t do something, only to have fellow owners reply with a workaround. Cheer people are good at thinking on their feet and finding solutions.
He gives his own example. His gym bills only its membership, set up as a class with an associated cost, while the individual classes are set at zero dollars and require staff to enroll athletes. Parents can’t enroll themselves in a zero-dollar class, so the team cross-references memberships and enrollments. It’s a headache and semi-broken, Dan admits, but both providers the gym has used over the past ten years initially said it couldn’t be done and insisted on billing per class. His gym wanted memberships so that athletes aren’t paying for a back handspring class they’ve since graduated out of. The question to ask any provider is whether they think outside the box and help solve your problems, or simply tell you no.
Question Four: What Will Parents Feel?
The fourth question is what your families will experience, which Dan says tends to be the lowest priority but should be among the highest. No one enjoys switching software, even when the new system is excellent. For parents, the pain points include learning how to log in, redoing payment setup because stored credit card information won’t transfer, and possibly learning a new app or interface.
Dan believes interactions with the software should be value driven. Parents shouldn’t have to log in to do work your admin team should handle, like moving classes around. They should go in to see what’s coming up, check schedules and view skill trees. If families dislike the new platform, it could create a long-term problem even if you love it.
He mentions one provider that does a good job but that he won’t use because the parent interface feels clunky, isn’t pretty and hasn’t been updated in years. That doesn’t fit his brand, so he chose a more elegant option. It’s a visual preference that may not matter to every owner, but it mattered to him. He also says his gym probably won’t stay with its current provider forever, because if you’re not trying new things you may be missing opportunities.
The Smartest Time to Switch
The last question is when to switch, and this is the bonus tip Dan promised. He recommends making the change in two phases. For an all-star-only program, the best time for the wholesale switch is the start of the competitive season, because that’s when families are already handing over billing details and credit cards. Asking them to do it again two or three months later creates unnecessary pain.
Before then, Dan suggests a test run. Sign up now and move a small group, such as half-year teams, tumbling classes or a fundamentals program, onto the new platform and treat it as a beta test. It adds some expense and complexity, but starting in January or February at the latest gives you three or four months to learn the system, build classes, and train your team and AI assistants. When the new competitive season launches, you’ll already know the system well and can knock out the switch.
What to Check Before You Commit
Dan closes with a checklist of items to review for any platform. First, understand every fee. Providers deserve to be profitable, and most earn the bulk of their income from transactions and fees, so a large cut of your revenue can become a problem. Some charge no monthly subscription but take an added percentage, such as 1.25 percent, on credit card processing and let you pass it to customers. Dan prefers building costs into your pricing rather than having families see the price jump at checkout. Next, look at the provider’s security structure.
Automated recurring billing is Dan’s personal pet peeve. If a system doesn’t offer monthly automated billing, he says he literally can’t use it. He remembers running charges manually years ago and switching providers, despite higher fees, specifically to get automation. Manual billing creates mistakes, while an automated system simply runs and delivers a report of failed payments to follow up on.
Finally, make sure the system offers strong reporting. You need to see how much money is coming in and from where, because you can’t make good decisions without good data, and some platforms make billing easy but reporting hard.
Final Thoughts
Dan’s closing advice is to know exactly what your system can do, know what it costs, run through the five-question framework, and decide whether a switch makes sense and whether now is the right time. Wherever you are, make sure you have a good class management system.
Thank you to everyone for listening. Before you go, join the Cheer Gym Owners and All Star Cheer Coaches and Owners groups on Facebook, and sign up for a Cheer Biz Accelerator event, where you can learn directly from Dan and the NextGen team, including Danielle, Shelly and Rihanna, and leave with a clear roadmap for growing your business. The 2026 events are complete, but 2027 events are scheduled for January, February and March, so claim your spot today. We’ll catch you on the next episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like “Gym Owners: You’re Not Executing”
