Built for UK driving instructors, by people who know the job.

What we do

Orbit (formerly DrivePro) is business management software for UK Approved Driving Instructors (ADIs). Everything a self-employed instructor needs to run their business — diary, booking, card payments, pupil records, mileage and expense tracking, and Making Tax Digital (HMRC production approval in progress) — in one platform, free for instructors.

Orbit is a software product, not a franchise. You drive your own car. You set your own prices. You choose your own pupils. Orbit is free for driving instructors: no subscription, no contract, no card needed.

Why we built it

The UK driving instructor industry is in a strange place. Demand for lessons is at an all-time high. Test waiting times are 12-20 weeks. Thousands of career-switchers are training as ADIs every year. And yet the operational software most instructors use is either a paper diary and WhatsApp, or a franchise app that comes with a £200/week fee attached.

We built Orbit because we think independent ADIs deserve better than both. You should be able to run a professional driving instruction business, with online booking, card payments, structured pupil records, and proper tax records, without paying hundreds of pounds a week to a national brand that didn't find your pupils anyway.

From April 2026, HMRC's Making Tax Digital for Income Tax requirements apply to self-employed ADIs earning over £50,000 a year. We wanted every independent instructor to have compliant software that just works, free, without needing a separate accountant subscription.

Who we are

The Orbit Team is a small group of software engineers and product designers based in the UK. We work directly with practising Approved Driving Instructors, Potential Driving Instructors (PDIs), ORDIT-registered trainers, and driving school operators to build tools that fit the way the job is actually done.

Every feature in Orbit has been informed by conversations with working instructors. We don't ship things because they sound good — we ship them because an ADI told us they were losing two hours a week to a specific problem that software could solve.

Our editorial content — the blog, the guides, the calculators — is written by the team and reviewed against public DVSA and HMRC guidance before publication. We link to gov.uk sources where possible and add disclaimers on tax and legal topics. We don't claim to replace your accountant or solicitor, but we do promise to tell you what we know and where we're uncertain.

How we make money

Orbit is free for driving instructors and trainee instructors (PDIs), with every feature included. Driving schools running multiple instructors can take a school account from £8 per seat per month. Optional extras: marketplace introductions (a one-off £30 finder's fee, taken from a new pupil's first booking through the Orbit marketplace) and lead credits (buy a pack when you want to unlock learner enquiries near you). Both are optional.

A booking fee is added to lessons booked or paid online through the app, paid by the learner: the greater of £2.99 or 4% of the lesson subtotal. It's added on top of your price, never deducted from your payout. Lessons taken from an already-paid block aren't charged a second fee.

Card payments run through Stripe Connect. Each instructor holds their own Stripe account, and payouts go directly into the bank details you set up at onboarding — Orbit never holds your funds in an escrow account. Every fee applied to a payment is itemised in your Stripe dashboard in real time.

If we tell you about a tool or service in our blog, it's because we think it's useful, not because we're being paid to mention it.

Contact us

Email us at hello@orbitdriving.com. We read every message. If you're a working ADI with a feature request, a bug report, or a question about how we handle something, we want to hear from you.

For press enquiries, editorial corrections, or comments on our content, use the same email and mention "Editorial" in the subject line.

Create your free Orbit account

Free for instructors · no card needed · every feature included