Your diary, your learners, your money. One place.
FirstDrive replaces the paper diary, the notes app and the shoebox of receipts — on your laptop and your phone, always in sync. Three months free, then £8 a month.
No card up front · Cancel any time · 100% tax-deductible
- 3 months
- free, no card needed
- £8
- a month after that
- 0%
- commission on your own learners
- 10 mins
- to move a full week across
One tool for the whole job. The diary, the learners, the money, and the hours you haven't sold yet — built with instructors who were running their week on a paper diary and a WhatsApp thread.
What you get
Diary
Weekly and fortnightly learners, tests and time off — and it knows your working hours, so it won't let you double-book yourself by accident.
Learners
Hours banked, next lesson, next test, and a 35-topic syllabus rated 0–5 that your learners can follow in their own app.
Money
Expenses and mileage logged in seconds, totalled monthly, exported to CSV when your accountant asks.
Gaps
Your declared hours against what's actually booked, so the sellable time in your week stops being invisible.
Diary
Drag it, and it's done
Your whole week on one screen. Move a lesson and everything follows — the learner's record, your totals, and the gap it leaves behind.
- Weekly, fortnightly and one-off lessons
- Driving tests marked out with the test centre
- Clash, holiday and working-hours warnings you can override
- Block out time off in two clicks
Learners
Everything you know about a learner, in one place
No more flicking between a notebook and a group chat. Each learner has their hours, their notes, their regular slot and a syllabus you can mark off at the roadside — and they see the same progress in their own app.
- 35 syllabus topics rated 0–5, from introduced to independent
- Lesson notes kept against the lesson they belong to
- Invite by text, or share your instructor code
- Flags learners who've gone quiet for three weeks
Money
Tax time, minus the shoebox
Log an expense in ten seconds and a journey in five. FirstDrive keeps the running totals, works out your mileage deduction at HMRC's approved rates, and reminds you before the MOT or your ADI certificate expires.
- Fuel, insurance, maintenance, finance, cleaning
- Mileage at HMRC's approved rates, calculated for you
- Monthly totals and a one-click CSV export
- Renewal reminders so nothing lapses
Gaps
See the money you're leaving on the table
Most instructors are within a couple of lessons a week of being full and can't see where. Gaps compares your declared hours against what's actually booked and shows you the sellable time, day by day.
- Unsold hours, open slots and utilisation at a glance
- Holidays and days off read as deliberate, not missing
- Slivers under 45 minutes are hidden — you can't sell them
- Your turnaround buffer is respected either side of a lesson
Later
A marketplace, when you want more learners
One day FirstDrive will put learners in front of instructors who want them. It will be something you opt into, and it is the only part of FirstDrive that will ever carry a fee. Every learner you bring yourself — invited, code, or already on your books — stays commission-free, always.
How we intend to charge for it
- Your first two marketplace learners are free
- After that, a new marketplace learner costs half of their first lesson, capped at £20 — charged once, not monthly
- Every later lesson with that learner is yours in full, forever
- Never a fee on a learner you brought yourself
We're publishing this early so nothing about it is a surprise later. It isn't built yet, so treat the figures as what we intend rather than a promise — we'll confirm the terms, and how it's collected, before it launches, and you'll have to agree to them before you can be charged anything.
Getting started
Moving across takes an evening
You don't have to change how you teach, or ask your learners to do anything you wouldn't.
- [01]
Add your learners
Name and mobile is enough. Text them an invite, or give them your instructor code and approve them when they enter it.
- [02]
Set your hours
The days and times you teach, plus any regular break. That's what makes clash warnings and Gaps work.
- [03]
Put your week in
Add each regular slot once and it repeats. From there the diary, money and gaps pages keep themselves up to date.
Pricing
One price for the tool. Everything in it.
No tiers, no per-seat pricing, and no commission on the learners you bring — however many lessons they take. Around the price of two lessons a year, and it's tax-deductible as a business expense, so what it actually costs you is less again.
One extra lesson a month more than covers it — and there is nothing else to buy.
Three months free to start
- Diary with clash, break and holiday warnings
- Unlimited learners, syllabus tracking and notes
- Expenses, mileage at HMRC's rates and CSV export
- Gaps — the bookable time you haven't sold
- The mobile app, in sync, included
- No commission on your own learners, however many lessons
No card up front · Billing by Stripe · Cancel from Settings
£8 is the whole price of the tool. The only thing that will ever cost more is the marketplace, if you opt into it once it exists — never the learners you bring yourself.
Questions
Answered plainly
Anything else, email us — a person replies.
- Do I need a card to start?
- No. You get three months free with no card on file. We only ask for payment details when the trial ends, and you can leave before then without giving us any.
- What happens when the trial ends?
- You'll be prompted to subscribe for £8 a month. Until you do, everything you've entered stays readable — you just can't add or move lessons.
- Do you take a cut of my lessons?
- Not for the learners you bring. Whether you invited them, they used your code, or you were already teaching them, they pay you exactly as they do today and we never take a penny of it — however many lessons they take. The only thing that ever carries a fee is a learner the marketplace introduces you to, and that isn't live yet.
- Can I bring my existing learners across?
- Yes, and it takes about ten minutes. Text them an invite from the app, or give them your instructor code and approve them when they enter it.
- Will my learners have to use it?
- Only if you want them to. They get their own app to see lessons and progress, but you can run FirstDrive purely as your own diary.
- Can I cancel?
- Any time, from Settings. Nothing is deleted when you do — export everything to CSV whenever you like.
Three months free. Set up tonight.
Three months free, then £8 a month. No card up front.