Dog training software vs the duct-tape stack: the real $170/month math
Booking app + Mailchimp + Thinkific + a Notion doc + a Google Sheet ≈ $170/mo — and 8–11 hours of weekly admin you don't bill. Here's the math, and the alternative.
You're not paying for one tool. You're paying for five.
Most working trainers run on a booking app for scheduling, Mailchimp for client email, Thinkific (or a Google Drive folder) for course content, a Notion doc per client, and a Google Sheet they don't quite trust. The math doesn't favour you.
The line items
| Tool | What it does | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Booking app | Scheduling, session packages | $27 |
| Stripe | Payments (free, but transaction fees) | — |
| Mailchimp | Client email + lesson recap broadcasts | $45 |
| Thinkific or similar | Course content, lesson library | $99 |
| Notion / Google Sheets | Client notes, attendance, packages | $0–$10 |
| Stack total | …and the gaps between them | ~$170 |
| PupManager | All of the above. One login. | $49 |
Costs reflect typical paid plans for a solo trainer in 2026. Free tiers exist; the time you spend duct-taping them together is the bigger bill.
The math the spreadsheet doesn't show
The duct-tape stack costs more than $170. The real cost is the 8–11 hours a week of admin that doesn't bill — the post-session note-typing in your car, the Sunday-night Stripe reconcile, the four "what was the cue again?" texts you answer between appointments.
At $165 a session, that's $1,300–$1,800 of unbilled labour a week.
PupManager doesn't replace your training. It replaces the admin overhead the stack forces on you.
Side by side
Without PupManager Spreadsheets, WhatsApp, no real system | With PupManager One tool. Built for trainers. | |
|---|---|---|
| Reschedule at 9:47 pm | Personal-cell text. Open the booking app, hope the calendar syncs, remember to tell the client. | Client opens their app, picks a new slot from your real availability, the session just moves. You don't open a tool. |
| Post-session admin | Notes app in the car. Maybe transferred to a Google Doc later. Maybe not. Video stuck on your camera roll. | Mark tasks complete in 90 seconds. Drop in the phone-shot video. The client gets tonight's homework before they're home. |
| "What was that cue again?" | You covered it two weeks ago. You wrote it down somewhere. You can't find it. You retype it from memory at 10 pm. | Client opens their home screen, sees the homework with the cue and the demo video you attached at the time. No text needed. |
| No-shows | A $165 hour you can't get back. The "I thought it was 2 pm??" text after the fact. | Auto reminders at -24h and -2h cut no-shows on their own. Stripe payment links and invoicing are shipping soon. |
| Group classes | Printed roll-call sheet. Two paid by bank transfer, one paid Stripe, three on a 6-week package — nobody remembers who's owed a make-up. | Sign-ups in one go. Attendance in two taps per team. Catch-ups auto-tracked. |
| End-of-week admin | Three hours reconciling Stripe, bank transfers, and the EFTPOS receipts your clients texted you against a sheet that hasn't been updated since November. | Twenty minutes. Glance at the dashboard. Reply to two messages. Done. |
"Switching is the painful part."
We know. Sixty active clients in your old booking tool, three years of session notes scattered across Notion docs, a Stripe account that has to keep working through the move.
For early customers we do the migration for you — bring us your exports, we'll bring the clients, packages, and history into PupManager and hand you back a working day-1 setup.