Best Course Booking Software for Training Providers
Twelve course booking systems compared for training providers: published prices, a worked cost example for a team of five, and where each one stops.
On this page
- Key takeaways
- 1What a course booking system is
- 2What a course booking system has to do
- 3Twelve course booking systems compared
- 4The four types of course booking software
- 5The four types side by side
- 6What course booking software costs: a worked example
- 7How to choose a course booking system
- 8Frequently asked questions
- 9Where Cademy fits
The best course booking software for a training provider depends on how much of the job it has to do. For a schedule of public classes where you only need bookings, Bookwhen (from £12 a month) or Bookeo (from $39.95 a month) is enough. For one-off workshops that need an audience, Eventbrite works, at 6.95% plus £0.59 a ticket in the UK. A provider that also schedules trainers, invoices employers and issues certificates needs a training management system: Dante or Arlo for live courses, or Cademy when online learning has to live in the same system.
Twelve course booking systems are compared here on what each publishes about price, with one example worked through in pounds and a chart of where each type of tool stops. Cademy is our product and is assessed on the same published facts as the rest.
Key takeaways
- Course booking software comes in four types: booking tools, course platforms, training management systems and all-in-one platforms. They differ on what happens after the booking.
- Nine of the twelve publish a price. accessplanit, Administrate and Training Orchestra quote, and BookingLive’s published price starts at £7,500 a year.
- For a team of five selling 4,000 seats a year at £300, the published software cost runs from £228 (Bookwhen) to £10,944 (Arlo). Eventbrite’s ticket fees on the same seats would be £85,760. The pricing model matters more than the headline price.
- A booking tool is the cheapest choice when taking bookings is all you need. Once you schedule trainers, invoice organisations and issue certificates, the cost moves to the admin around each booking.
What a course booking system is
A course booking system is software that lets a learner, or the person booking for them, choose a course date online, register and pay, and that keeps the list of who is booked on each date. Training providers use one to replace enquiry forms, email and a spreadsheet of names. “Course booking software”, “training booking system” and “course registration software” describe the same thing.
A training management system (TMS) includes a course booking system and adds the work around it: scheduling trainers and venues, client records, invoices, registers, certificates and reports. That difference is the main decision a provider has to make, and what a training management system is covers the wider category.
What a course booking system has to do
“Booking software” sounds like one feature. For a training provider it is a checklist of jobs, and where a tool stops on that list tells you what kind of tool it is.
- Online booking and integrated payments. A public course page, self-service registration, group bookings, deposits and discounts, and card payment through the likes of Stripe or PayPal.
- Every delivery format. In-person, live online, on-demand and blended courses handled in one system.
- Scheduling and resource management. One calendar of trainer, room and equipment availability, so a tutor or a venue is never double-booked.
- Automated communications. Confirmations, calendar invites, reminders, joining instructions and waitlist offers that go out without you touching them. These keep seats filled, and our guide to reducing no-shows has the evidence and the schedule.
- A CRM. Contact and organisation records, B2B accounts, and certificate expiry dates you can sort by, so a delegate becomes a client you can sell to again.
- Certificates and compliance. Issuing certificates, tracking assessments, and keeping renewal, CPD and regulated-training records.
- Invoicing and accounting. Purchase orders, credit terms and branded invoices for corporate buyers, synced to Xero or a similar package.
- Security and data protection. You are handing a vendor your learners’ personal data, so GDPR compliance is the baseline, along with a clear answer on where the data is hosted and who owns it. Enterprise, public-sector and regulated buyers may also ask for ISO 27001 or SOC 2 before they sign.
- Integrations and total cost. Calendars, Zoom or Teams, accounting, and a price you can see in full, with setup fees and add-on modules included.
A booking tool covers the first one or two of these. A training management system covers most or all of them. Settle which jobs you need before you draw up a shortlist. If the categories are new to you, our training provider glossary defines LMS, TMS and CRM, and TMS vs LMS works through which of the two a training business needs.
Twelve course booking systems compared
Prices are the vendors’ own, checked on 5 October 2026. “Quote” means the vendor publishes no price a buyer can use without a sales call.
| System | Type | Published price | Fee on each booking | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bookwhen | Booking tool | Free for 50 bookings a month on free events. Paid plans £12, £19 and £39 a month plus VAT | None from Bookwhen | No trainer scheduling, CRM, purchase-order invoicing, certificates or course delivery |
| Bookeo | Booking tool | Standard plan $39.95 a month for 1,000 bookings a month | No commission | The same limits as Bookwhen |
| Eventbrite | Ticketing marketplace | Free to publish | 6.95% plus £0.59 per paid ticket in the UK, card processing included | No operations beyond the ticket, and the fee grows with the seat price |
| Thinkific | Course platform | Basic $54 a month, or $40 billed annually | Card processing only | Built for self-paced courses, with no dated sessions to book |
| Teachable | Course platform | Starter $39 a month, or $29 billed annually | 7.5% on Starter, none on higher plans | The same limit as Thinkific |
| Dante | Training management system | Essentials £70 and Professional £200 a month for one user, plus implementation of £500 to £2,500 | None | No e-learning, and GBP only |
| Arlo | Training management system | Simple £105 per licence a month, or £96 billed annually | About £1.58 per paid registration | E-learning is a paid add-on, and an implementation package from $695 is required |
| accessplanit | Training management system | Quote | By quote | No public UK price, and e-learning is a paid module |
| Administrate | Enterprise training management system | Quote. Its pricing page says “five to mid-six figures” | By quote | Priced and built for large operations |
| Training Orchestra | Training management system | Quote | By quote | Strongest on scheduling and budgets. Ask to see a public catalogue and checkout |
| BookingLive | Enterprise booking platform | From £7,500 a year on a two-year minimum term | None | Its course page lists scheduling, payments and reminders. Certificates and course delivery are not listed |
| Cademy | All-in-one platform | Free plan. Pro £99 and Teams £499 a month billed yearly | 5% on the free plan, none on paid plans | More than you need if taking bookings is the whole job |
The four types of course booking software
1. Booking and event tools
Examples: Bookwhen, Bookeo, Eventbrite. These take a registration and a payment, and do it well.
Bookwhen charges a flat monthly fee with no cut of each booking: £12 for 300 bookings a month, £19 for 800 and £39 for 1,800, plus VAT. Reminder emails, waiting lists and attendance tracking start on the £19 plan. Bookeo works the same way, with its Standard plan at $39.95 a month for 1,000 bookings and no commission. Both are good value for a provider running a recurring schedule who needs a clean booking page and a register.
Eventbrite is a ticketing marketplace with its own audience, so it can help people find a one-off public workshop. In the UK it charges 6.95% plus £0.59 on each paid ticket, which includes card processing. On a £300 course seat that is £21.44 a ticket.
All three share the same limit. There is no trainer or room scheduling to stop a double-booking, no CRM for corporate accounts or renewals, no purchase-order invoicing for B2B buyers, no certificates and no course delivery. If booking is all you need, they are the cheapest option.
2. Course platforms
Examples: Thinkific, Teachable. These are built for creating, hosting and selling self-paced online video courses to individual learners, with quizzes, drip content and completion certificates. If part of your plan is to turn your expertise into an on-demand product line, they fit.
They are the wrong shape for a scheduled, in-person or instructor-led course. A buyer cannot pick a dated session from a calendar, and there is no trainer or venue scheduling, no operations CRM and no B2B invoicing. Live delivery runs through Zoom. Watch the fee model too: Teachable’s Starter plan ($39 a month, or $29 billed annually) takes 7.5% of sales, and Thinkific’s plans start at $54 a month ($40 billed annually).
3. Training management systems
Examples: Dante, Arlo, accessplanit, Administrate, Training Orchestra. This is the category built for the full checklist: scheduling, resources, bookings, CRM, invoicing and reporting for a training operation.
- Dante is a UK system for small and growing providers. Its booking module has a WordPress plugin and takes payment by card through Stripe or on account for chosen customers. It costs £70 a month on Essentials or £200 on Professional for one user, rising with each user, plus a one-off implementation fee of £500 to £1,100 or £1,250 to £2,500. E-learning is not part of the offer.
- Arlo publishes its prices in six currencies and has a strong public course website and checkout. In sterling, a Simple licence is £105 a month, or £96 billed annually, and its calculator adds £132 a month for every 1,000 paid registrations a year. An implementation package, from $695, is required on every plan. E-learning authoring and hosting are add-on modules.
- accessplanit is a deep, established UK system with strong automation and well-reviewed support. Its UK price is by quote with an implementation fee on top, and e-learning is a separately priced module.
- Administrate is an enterprise platform for large organisations. It is quote-only, with packages its own pricing page describes as “five to mid-six figures” and onboarding “in as little as 12 weeks”.
- Training Orchestra is strongest on scheduling instructors, rooms and budgets at scale. Its course booking page describes booking instructors and dates, so ask to see a public catalogue and checkout if you sell seats online.
BookingLive sits beside this group. It is an enterprise booking platform used by councils and public bodies, with course scheduling, deposits, reminders and waiting lists, from £7,500 a year on a two-year minimum term.
A training management system runs the business well. Check whether course delivery is included, because “training management” and “learning delivery” are often sold as separate modules.
4. All-in-one platforms
An all-in-one platform combines the jobs the other three types split up: booking and payments, a course builder and LMS, a training CRM, scheduling, certificates and organisation accounts. The appeal is one set of records and one bill, with delivery included. The trade-off is depth. A bundled feature can be shallower than a specialist tool, so test the parts you will lean on most.
This is the category Cademy is in, and the last section covers it.
The four types side by side
Where each type of course booking system stops
Scroll sideways to see every column.
| The job | Booking tools | Course platforms | Dedicated TMS | All-in-one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Online booking and paymentsCourse platforms sell to individuals only | Covered | Partly covered | Covered | Covered |
| Every delivery formatIn-person, live online, on-demand, blended | Not covered | Not covered | Covered | Covered |
| Scheduling: trainers, rooms, kitAll-in-one: trainers and venues on one calendar | Not covered | Not covered | Covered | Partly covered |
| Automated reminders and waitlistsBooking tools: on the higher plans | Partly covered | Not covered | Covered | Covered |
| Training CRM | Not covered | Not covered | Covered | Covered |
| Certificates and expiry datesCourse platforms: completion certificates only | Not covered | Partly covered | Covered | Covered |
| B2B invoicing: POs, terms, Xero | Not covered | Not covered | Covered | Covered |
| Course delivery (LMS)Often a separately priced module in a TMS | Not covered | Covered | Partly covered | Covered |
Read down each column to the first empty cell. That is where the tool stops and the spreadsheet starts.
For a provider who only sells seats, the right-hand columns are more than they need. For one running a full schedule off a booking tool, a spreadsheet and an accounting package, they cover the rows the booking tool leaves empty.
What course booking software costs: a worked example
Take a provider with five administrators selling 4,000 seats a year at £300 each, which is £1.2 million of bookings. The figures below are each vendor’s published price for that year, before VAT.
| System | Software and booking fees | What the figure assumes |
|---|---|---|
| Bookwhen Standard | £228 | £19 a month. The plan allows five team members and 800 bookings a month |
| Dante Essentials | £2,280 | £190 a month for five users. Implementation of £500 to £1,100 is extra in year one |
| Cademy Teams | £5,988 | £499 a month billed yearly. Five admin users and 5,000 registrations a year included, no booking fee |
| BookingLive | from £7,500 | Entry price on a two-year minimum term |
| Arlo Simple | £10,944 | Five licences and 4,000 paid registrations, billed annually. Implementation from $695 is extra in year one. The same on Arlo’s Professional plan is £13,704 |
| Eventbrite | £85,760 | 6.95% plus £0.59 on each £300 ticket. The fee includes card processing |
Card fees come on top of every row except Eventbrite, and they are the same whichever system takes the payment. At Stripe’s standard UK rate of 1.5% plus 20p, that is £4.70 on a £300 seat. Seats paid by invoice and bank transfer carry no card fee, so a provider selling to employers pays it on fewer seats. Bookeo prices in dollars only, so it is left out: its Standard plan is $479.40 a year.
Read together, the rows show how much the pricing model decides.
- A percentage fee is the expensive model on a course seat. Eventbrite’s fee is small on a £15 ticket. On a £300 seat it is £21.44, and across 4,000 seats it costs more than every subscription in the table added together.
- Charging per licence and per registration grows with the team. Arlo’s price for one licence and 500 registrations is £1,944 a year. For five licences and 4,000 registrations it is £10,944, because the licences and the registrations are both charged. Cademy’s Teams price is the same at 1,000 registrations or 5,000.
- The cheapest row covers the least. Bookwhen at £228 takes the booking and sends the reminders. Dante, Cademy and Arlo also schedule trainers, invoice organisations and issue certificates, which is work a booking tool leaves to you.
How to choose a course booking system
The right type follows from how you operate.
Which type of course booking system fits you?
Bookwhen or Bookeo for a flat fee. Eventbrite if you want its marketplace reach
Thinkific or Teachable to host and sell on-demand content
Fine today. Expect to outgrow it as the admin around bookings grows
Dante or Arlo at the published prices above. accessplanit by quote
Bookings, LMS, CRM, certificates and invoices in one place
Whichever way you lean, compare the total cost. A quote-only system can carry a setup fee of several thousand pounds before you run a course. A per-ticket tool takes a slice of every seat, and a course platform’s cheapest tier can carry a transaction fee. The price you set for your courses has to carry all of it, which is its own decision, covered in how to price your training courses.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a booking system and a training management system? A booking system takes registrations and payments. A training management system (TMS) does that and runs the operation around it: scheduling trainers and rooms, managing clients, invoicing, certificates and reporting. Booking is one feature of a TMS.
Is Eventbrite good for training courses? For a one-off public workshop where you want help being discovered, it can work. For a regular schedule it gets expensive, because its UK fee of 6.95% plus £0.59 a ticket comes to £21.44 on a £300 seat. It also does none of the scheduling, client records, invoicing or delivery a training business needs.
Do I need both an LMS and a booking system? If you deliver any online or blended learning, you need booking and delivery. You can buy them separately and connect them, or use an all-in-one platform where booking and the LMS are the same system, which removes the integration and the double data entry.
How much does a course booking system cost? Booking tools cost £12 to £39 a month (Bookwhen) or about $40 a month (Bookeo). Eventbrite charges 6.95% plus £0.59 a ticket in the UK. Training management systems with public prices start at £70 a month for one user (Dante) or £96 per licence billed annually plus registration fees (Arlo), and the others quote. Cademy has a free plan with a 5% fee and paid plans at £99 and £499 a month billed yearly. Add setup fees and add-on modules before you compare.
What is the cheapest way to take course bookings? A flat-fee booking tool, or the free plan of an all-in-one platform, takes bookings at little or no monthly cost. Bookwhen’s free plan covers 50 bookings a month on free events, and Cademy’s free plan charges 5% on paid bookings with no subscription. The cheapest tool is only the right one if booking is all you need.
Which course booking systems work with WordPress? Arlo and Dante each publish a WordPress plugin, and Cademy has one on its Teams plan. Bookwhen embeds on any site through an iframe or its API, and Cademy’s course list, single-course and form embeds work on any website on every plan. Check whether the plugin shows live availability and takes the payment on your own site, or sends the buyer to the vendor’s page.
Can a course booking system take payment by invoice or purchase order? Training management systems can, and booking tools mostly cannot. Dante takes payment on account for chosen customers, Arlo raises an order with an invoice, and Cademy offers pay by invoice with a purchase order number at checkout from its Pro plan. With a booking tool you mark the booking as paid offline and raise the invoice in your accounting package.
Can one system book both in-person and online courses? Yes, if it treats delivery format as part of the course record. Booking tools handle a live online class as a date with a Zoom link. Course platforms handle on-demand content and have no dated sessions. A training management system or an all-in-one platform books in-person, live online, on-demand and blended courses from the same catalogue.
Where Cademy fits
By this point the checklist has probably answered the question for you. If it ends at booking, a flat-fee booking tool costs less than Cademy and is the better choice.
If you run a schedule and also deliver, certify, invoice and manage clients, Cademy covers the checklist in one system. Its course booking system takes card payment through Stripe, PayPal or Klarna and, from the Pro plan, pay by invoice with a purchase order number. Around the booking sit a course builder and LMS, a training CRM, scheduling with calendar sync, certificates with expiry dates, and group bookings where the person who books manages the places. Invoices post to Xero on the Teams plan.
Its pricing is public: paid plans at £99 and £499 a month billed yearly (£119 and £599 monthly) with no platform fee, and a free plan with a 5% fee on paid bookings. Over a thousand organisations run their training on it. Weigh it on the parts of the checklist you need.
If you are moving from a booking tool, the comparisons with Bookwhen and Eventbrite set the two side by side. To test it on a real course, start for free and put one date on sale, or book a call and bring your checklist. Filling those seats is the next piece, covered in how to fill your training courses.
Sources
Prices and features checked 5 and 6 October 2026 on the vendors’ own pages. They change, so check before you decide.
- Bookwhen: pricing
- Bookeo: classes and courses pricing
- Eventbrite: UK organiser fees and pricing
- Thinkific: pricing
- Teachable: pricing
- Dante: pricing and course booking system
- Arlo: pricing and calculator, implementation and WordPress options
- accessplanit: booking and payment software
- Administrate: pricing
- Training Orchestra: course booking system
- BookingLive: pricing and course booking system
- Stripe: UK pricing
- Cademy: course booking system and pricing