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, plus hours of unbilled admin every week. 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) | $0 |
| 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 working 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.