Comparison, checked 14 October 2026

MyDriveTime vs Orbit: an honest comparison for driving instructors

MyDriveTime costs £19 a month after a 30-day free trial, and its Making Tax Digital updates go through a partner such as FBTC or Xero, or a CSV. Orbit is free for instructors, takes card payments when pupils book online, and charges the learner a booking fee instead of charging you a subscription.

Searched for "my drive time"? MyDriveTime is a diary and business app for UK driving instructors, running since 2014. Pick it if you want an iPhone app today, reminders that fall back to a text message at no extra cost, or an accountant-run Making Tax Digital service. Pick Orbit if you want no subscription, learners who book and pay by card, and a marketplace listing for new pupils. We build Orbit, so every MyDriveTime figure below links to MyDriveTime's own pages.

MyDriveTime vs Orbit at a glance

MyDriveTime details are from its own website and app store listings, checked on 14 October 2026.

Price: what you pay each month

MyDriveTime's pricing page lists £19 a month for an individual instructor, after a 30-day free trial that needs no card. That is £228 a year. The plan is described as commitment free and includes SMS text messages. MyDriveTime also offers a 6-month money-back guarantee: cancel within six months and it refunds your subscription.

Trainees get a good deal. Through PDI Best Start, MyDriveTime is free until you qualify: you send a photo of your trainee licence (pink badge), and once it is verified the free trial runs until the licence expires.

Schools pay £19 for the first instructor, £15 each for instructors 2 and 3, £10 each for 4 to 10 and £5 each from the 11th, with admin accounts free.

Orbit has no subscription, no paid instructor plan and nothing to trial: the instructor app is free, for ADIs and PDIs alike. Orbit earns from a booking fee paid by the learner on lessons booked or paid online, the greater of £2.99 or 4% of the lesson price, added on top of your price. On a £40 lesson the learner pays £42.99. Driving schools pay from £8 per seat per month.

The fair way to compare is the whole stack. If you already pay for Xero or an accountant for Making Tax Digital, add that to the MyDriveTime column (see the MTD section below). Our guide to the best ADI software in the UK puts more apps side by side.

Diary, pupil app and online booking

Both run your diary and both give pupils their own view of their lessons. The difference is who can put a lesson in it.

MyDriveTime

The MyDriveTime diary handles repeating lessons, clash warnings, diary gaps you can offer to selected students, and automated pre-lesson reminders that show whether they were received. Reminders go through the student app, with a backup text if the notification is not seen. Its feature list adds lesson route tracking, lesson themes, reflective log questions you can change to fit each lesson, digital terms and conditions with signatures, and a student app with a feed of past and upcoming lessons, payments and progress. It suits an instructor who books every lesson themselves: we found no public booking page for new learners advertised on its site.

Orbit

Orbit gives you a booking page that learners book and pay through, plus a one-line widget for your own website. When you are full, learners join a waiting list, and the first person on it is emailed when a pupil cancels through their portal. A cancelled lesson can be posted as a gap slot that the first learner to claim it gets. Reminders go by email 24 hours and 2 hours before the lesson, with a push notification for pupils who switch them on. There is no SMS.

Payments and card fees

MyDriveTime is built around recording money. You log a payment, say how much lesson time it covers, and the diary shows whether each lesson is paid, part paid or owed, with warnings when a pupil's prepaid credit runs low. A cancelled lesson can be marked as charged or not. MyDriveTime's site does not advertise taking card payments inside the app, so collecting the money is up to you.

Orbit takes the money. You connect your own Stripe account, learners pay by card when they book, and Stripe pays out to your bank automatically. Set a cancellation window and fee, and a late cancellation is charged to the card the pupil booked with. Apart from the marketplace introduction fee below, you pay nothing per card payment: the learner pays the booking fee on top of your price, and Orbit pays Stripe's processing fees on your account. Lessons you record as cash or bank transfer carry no booking fee. More on the card payments page.

Making Tax Digital: two different routes

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies from 6 April 2026 if your qualifying income was over £50,000 in the 2024 to 2025 tax year, from 6 April 2027 if it was over £30,000 in 2025 to 2026, and from 6 April 2028 if it was over £20,000 in 2026 to 2027, according to HMRC's guidance. Once you are in, you keep digital records, send quarterly updates and submit your tax return through compatible software. MyDriveTime and its partners call that last step the final declaration.

MyDriveTime: records in the app, submission elsewhere

MyDriveTime's MTD guide (published 23 July 2026) sets out four options. Each quarter you check your records in its MTD tools, export them to your chosen third party and self-certify that you have submitted to HMRC. The costs on its Making Tax Digital page, which you pay to the third party directly:

Add the £19 subscription and the managed route comes to £68.99 a month. The hybrid route is about £57.40 once the Xero offer ends. For an instructor who wants an accountant to handle everything, the managed route is a reasonable deal. For one who only wants the updates sent, it is a lot.

Orbit: built on HMRC's API, not live yet

Orbit keeps lesson income, expenses and mileage in one place and totals them into your quarterly figures. It is built on HMRC's MTD for Income Tax API and completing HMRC's software recognition process; live submissions open once HMRC approves it. There is no extra charge for it.

Be clear on what that means today. If you are already signed up for MTD this tax year, you still need a live submission route now, and Orbit's answer for the moment is the same as MyDriveTime's Export option: export your records for an accountant or other software. See how it works on the Making Tax Digital feature page, or read our MTD guide for driving instructors.

Pupil supply

MyDriveTime manages the pupils you already have. Its site advertises no learner directory or lead service, so new pupils come from your own website, word of mouth or a franchise.

Orbit lists you in its instructor marketplace, where learners find instructors through Orbit's search and driving instructor town pages. Listing is free. When a learner who is new to you books their first lesson through it, a one-off £30 introduction fee comes out of that first card payment, never more than the lesson price, and their later lessons carry no introduction fee. Pupils who book through your own link never trigger it. You can also choose to claim a learner's lesson request, which costs £30. To appear, set a service area, connect card payments and switch on Get new pupils automatically.

Moving from MyDriveTime to Orbit

One thing MyDriveTime does better here: its team migrates your records from another system free. Coming to Orbit, you do it yourself, in four steps.

1. Ask MyDriveTime for a copy of your student list (its support address is support@mydrivetime.co.uk), and export your payment records as a CSV with its Export option for your tax records. Finish the current MTD quarter in MyDriveTime if you are mid-way through one.
2. Import into Orbit. Pupils, then Import, takes a list of names, phone numbers and emails. Settings, then Import, takes a CSV of pupils and their lessons. Outstanding balances aren't imported, so add those by hand (see pupil management).
3. Connect Stripe and set your lesson rate, then send pupils your booking link or add the widget to your website.
4. Cancel MyDriveTime once everything is across. Its plan is described as commitment free.

Comparing other diary apps too? See Orbit vs Total Drive and Orbit vs Lesson Diary.

Questions about MyDriveTime and Orbit

MyDriveTime information is taken from mydrivetime.co.uk, the App Store and Google Play on 11 October 2026. MyDriveTime is a trademark of its owner. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.

Switch free: import your pupils

Orbit is free for instructors, with no card needed. Bring your pupil list across from a CSV and keep MyDriveTime until you are ready to cancel.