Audience: Independent riding instructors and coaches teaching on their own
Overview
The Instructor plan is Horsify's riding school toolkit sized for one person. You get the same appointment book, client records, availability, lesson packages, gift vouchers and online payments that a full riding school gets — with a single instructor profile (you) instead of a team.
It costs $15/month, comes with a 60-day free trial, and is a standalone plan: you don't need a Basic or Premium subscription underneath it. Manage it under Organiser → Subscription (on your own club site, Organiser → Finances → Subscription).
Who it's for: freelance coaches travelling to clients, independent instructors teaching at a shared facility, and anyone running a one-person lesson business who wants online bookings and payments without staff scheduling.
What you see on the Instructor plan
The riding school menu appears as soon as your Instructor subscription is active — you don't need to switch anything on first. Open the Organiser menu and expand Riding School.
The pages are the same ones a riding school uses, but the labels are written in the first person, because there's only ever one instructor:
| On the Riding School plan | On the Instructor plan |
|---|---|
| Bookings | Your Bookings |
| Clients | Your Clients |
| Instructors | Your Profile |
| School Horses | Your Horses |
| Facilities | Your Facilities |
| Waivers | Your Waivers |
Booking Hours is hidden on the Instructor plan. Club-wide booking hours exist to give a school a house-wide default that individual instructors inherit. On your own, your availability is the schedule, so you set it directly on your profile instead.
Everything else in the menu is unchanged: Enquiries, Student Progress, Curriculum, Lesson Packages, Gift Vouchers, Landing Page Settings, Club Site & Theme and Communication Settings.
Getting set up
1. Check your instructor profile
When your Instructor subscription activates, Horsify creates a starter instructor profile for you automatically so the booking pages have someone to book. It is built from your account details, so the name is usually a placeholder — open Organiser → Riding School → Your Profile and tidy it up before you share your booking link.
If no profile is there, the page shows Set up your profile with a Create Your Profile button. Either way, fill in:
- Name, email, phone, photo and a biography — the bio and photo are shown publicly.
- Active and Bookable Online, so clients can find you.
- Your calendar colour and display order.
2. Set your availability
An instructor with no availability cannot be booked, so this is the step that actually turns bookings on. Open your profile and use the Availability section:
- Calendar View — drag to create weekly recurring slots or one-off available times, block out time, or use Block Dates for holidays and leave.
- List View — the same weekly schedule as a list.
- Slots can be limited to a particular venue or facility if you teach in more than one place.
3. Add your lesson rates
On your profile, Lesson Rates sets the price (inc. GST) for each lesson type, with an optional Requires Deposit (percentage or fixed amount) or Requires Full Payment Upfront. These rules are what the client is charged when they book online.
4. Add your qualifications
Qualifications takes a name, issuing organisation, certificate number, date obtained, expiry and notes. Current qualifications are shown on your public instructor listing.
5. Switch on your public booking page
Unlike the Riding School plan, the Instructor plan does not publish a riding school page for you — you turn it on yourself under Organiser → Riding School → Settings:
- The Your riding school page card at the top shows whether your public page is live. If you don't have a club site yet, its Enable Riding School Site button creates one (address, default theme and starter pages) and gives you a getting-started checklist.
- Set your Riding School URL Slug — your public address under horsify.com.au/riding-school/ — and your Riding School App Bar Title.
- Leave Show "Book Now" button in navigation on so visitors can find the booking flow.
6. Connect payments
Client payments run through a Stripe account connected under Organiser → Payments → Stripe Connect. Online payments cost 2.5% + 30c per transaction, all-in — Stripe's card processing is included. You choose whether that comes out of your lesson prices or is shown to clients as a platform fee at checkout; either way it applies to online payments only — a client paying you cash or by bank transfer is charged your price and nothing more. Connecting your own existing Stripe account, and paying Horsify nothing per transaction, is a Riding School and ClubSite plan benefit.
Your booking link
With the landing page enabled, clients book from the Book Now page on your site. It asks what they'd like to book and offers Lessons, Horses and Facility hire.
Because you're the only instructor, the lesson flow skips the instructor picker entirely and takes clients straight to booking with you. From there it's a short wizard — lesson type, date and time, contact details — and they pay at checkout. If online booking isn't set up yet, the page shows your lesson enquiry form instead, and those enquiries land in Organiser → Riding School → Enquiries.
Your Instructor Dashboard
As well as the organiser pages, you get a personal view at profile menu → Instructor Dashboard. This is the day-to-day screen — the one to open between lessons.
It has four tabs:
- My Bookings — your lesson list, with confirm, complete and cancel actions.
- Calendar View — a diary of just your lessons.
- Availability — the same availability editor as your profile.
- Calendar Feed — a private link that subscribes your lessons into Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook, which you can regenerate or revoke at any time. See Syncing Your Instructor Calendar to Apple Calendar.
The dashboard only appears once your Horsify sign-in is linked to your instructor profile. If it says you're not registered as an instructor, check you have the right organisation selected.
The one hard limit: one instructor
The Instructor plan allows exactly one instructor profile. Once yours exists, the Add Instructor button on the Instructors page is replaced by a locked button reading Add Instructor (Locked), with a note that the Instructor plan is limited to one instructor and a link to upgrade.
Everything else on the plan is a full feature, not a trimmed one — your clients, horses, facilities, waivers, packages, vouchers, progress tracking and payments all work exactly as they do for a riding school.
Instructor plan or Riding School plan?
Both plans include the riding school toolkit, both are standalone, and both come with a 60-day free trial. These are the differences that are actually enforced:
| Instructor | Riding School | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $15/month | $39/month |
| Free trial | 60 days | 60 days |
| Instructor profiles | 1 (you) | Unlimited |
| Club-wide Booking Hours | Not shown — you set your own availability | Included |
| Staff roster & timesheets | Not shown — you have no staff to roster | Included |
| Public landing page | You switch it on yourself | Created for you when you subscribe |
| Menu labels | First person (Your Bookings, Your Clients…) | Standard |
| Email marketing | Not included | Included |
| Sponsorship management | Not included | Included |
| Bookings, clients, horses, facilities, waivers, packages, gift vouchers, progress tracking, payments | Included | Included |
Choose Instructor if…
- You're the only person teaching, and expect to stay that way for now.
- You want online bookings and payments at the lowest monthly cost.
- You teach at a shared facility or travel to clients.
- You don't need email marketing campaigns or sponsor management.
Choose Riding School if…
- You have — or are about to have — a second instructor. This is the single thing the Instructor plan cannot do.
- You want a team calendar with one column per instructor, and club-wide booking hours your instructors inherit.
- You want your public landing page set up for you.
- You want the Premium tools bundled in: email marketing and sponsorship management.
Not sure? Start on Instructor. Your bookings, clients, horses, availability, packages and payment history all stay put when you move to Riding School — nothing is re-entered and nothing is lost.
Moving up to the Riding School plan
- Go to Organiser → Subscription.
- Choose the Riding School plan and complete checkout.
- Once it's active, the instructor limit lifts and Add Instructor unlocks. Booking Hours appears under Riding School and Staff Roster appears under People, and the first-person labels revert to the standard ones.
Your data carries across untouched. The public labels changing from Your Bookings to Bookings is the most visible sign the upgrade has landed.
Troubleshooting
The Riding School menu isn't showing. Check your Instructor subscription is active under Organiser → Subscription, and that you have the right organisation selected if you belong to more than one.
Clients can't book me. Almost always availability. Open Your Profile → Availability and confirm you have slots. Also check your profile is Active and Bookable Online, and that you've set at least one lesson rate.
"Add Instructor (Locked)". That's the one-instructor limit. Move to the Riding School plan to add staff.
Booking Hours has disappeared. That's deliberate on the Instructor plan — your own availability replaces it.
My name on the booking page looks wrong. The starter profile is generated from your account details. Edit it at Organiser → Riding School → Your Profile.
Related Features
- Riding School Management — the map of the whole riding school toolset.
- Riding School Setup Guide (End to End) — a start-to-finish walkthrough.
- Instructor Management System — instructor profiles, availability, qualifications and rates in detail.
- Syncing Your Instructor Calendar to Apple Calendar — getting your lessons into the calendar on your phone.
- Client Management — client records, lesson packages and notes.
- Setting Your Riding School Booking Hours — what Booking Hours does on the Riding School plan.
Support
- In-app help: click the Help link in the top navigation.
- Email: support@horsify.com.au
One instructor, the whole toolkit.\n\n---\n\nSource: wiki/features/INSTRUCTOR_TIER_GUIDE.md \nLast synced: 2026-09-07 11:49:37 UTC