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Go to Dashboard → Set up my public profile, or open driveinstruct.co.uk/dashboard/profile-setup directly. It walks you through seven short steps: your name and rate, where you teach, transmission and languages, your photo and bio, your web address, the hours you work, and finally switching the listing on. Each step saves as you go, so you can stop halfway and pick it up later. Everything can also be edited afterwards under Settings.

Almost always one of three things. First, no town or postcode area set, in which case you cannot appear in search at all. Second, the listing toggle is still off under Settings → Marketplace. Third, the profile is live but empty: no photo, no bio, no rate. Learners scroll past those. The status card at the top of Settings → Marketplace tells you which of these applies to you.

It stays off until you have set a city or town and a postcode area. Search matches learners to instructors by location, so with neither of those there is nothing to match you against. Fill both in under Profile details and the toggle will work.

No. Your profile URL is set once and is permanent. It gets shared in messages, printed on cards and indexed by Google, and changing it would break every one of those links. Pick the version of your name you will still be happy with in five years.

Write it the way you would say it out loud. Two or three short paragraphs covering how you teach, who you are good with (nervous learners, retests, refreshers), how long you have been teaching, and anything that makes your lessons different. Avoid a list of adjectives. Learners are choosing a person, not reading a CV.

It is optional, but listings with a clear photo of the instructor get noticeably more enquiries than listings without one. Use a photo of your face rather than your car.

Into your Leads inbox in the dashboard, and we email you as soon as one arrives. Reply quickly: learners who do not hear back within the first hour usually book someone else.

Go to Students in the sidebar and click "Add student". Fill in their name, phone number, and test date. You can add more details like their address and target hours later from their profile page.

Go to Settings → Availability. Toggle on the days you teach and set your start and end times for each day. Once saved, students can only book slots within those hours.

Every school gets a unique booking link like driveinstruct.co.uk/book/your-school-name. Share this link with students via WhatsApp or your website. They pick a date, choose an available time slot, enter their details, and confirm. You get notified and the lesson appears on your calendar.

Yes, and it is worth installing it properly rather than using a browser tab. On an iPhone or iPad, open DriveInstruct in Safari, tap the Share button in the toolbar, scroll down and tap "Add to Home Screen". On Android, open the Chrome menu and tap "Add to Home screen" (Chrome often offers this itself after a few visits). Either way you get an icon alongside your other apps, and it opens full screen with no address bar. The option lives permanently under Settings → Appearance if you want to do it later.

Not as a separate download. DriveInstruct installs straight from the browser instead, which means there is nothing to update and no store account needed. Follow the steps above and it behaves the same as a store app: home-screen icon, full-screen window, and it stays signed in.

Go to Calendar and click on any empty time slot, or click the "Book lesson" button. Select the student, date, time, and duration. The lesson will appear on your calendar immediately.

Yes — on the calendar you can drag and drop any lesson to a new time slot. You can also click on a lesson and use the reschedule option. The student receives an automatic notification (SMS on paid plans, email otherwise).

You'll be prompted to log the skills you covered in the lesson. These are saved to the student's profile and update their skills matrix. The lesson is removed from your upcoming calendar and added to their lesson history.

Cancel is used when a lesson is called off in advance — either by you or the student. No-show is for when the student simply doesn't turn up. No-shows can trigger an automatic payment reminder if a deposit was outstanding.

Go to Settings → Payments and click "Connect Stripe". You'll be taken to Stripe's website to create or connect your account. This takes about 2 minutes. Once connected, you can take deposits at booking and sell lesson packages online.

Go to Payments and create package templates (e.g. "10 hours for £350"). You can then send a payment link to any student — they click it, pay via Stripe, and the hours are credited to their account. Hours are automatically deducted each time you mark a lesson complete.

DriveInstruct takes 2% of each payment processed through the platform. Stripe also charges their standard fee (1.4% + 20p for UK cards). So on a £350 package, you'd receive approximately £337.

Yes. Go to Settings and enable "Require deposit at booking". Set the deposit amount. When a student books online, they'll be taken to a Stripe payment page before their booking is confirmed. Deposits are automatically recorded in the system.

When a lesson is booked, DriveInstruct automatically schedules reminders to the student — one 48 hours before and one 2 hours before. Email and SMS reminders are Pro and School features. You can customise the message templates in Settings → Reminder templates.

Yes. Go to Reminders and click "Send manual message". Select the student, choose SMS (paid plans) or email, type your message, and send. The message is logged in the reminders history.

Check the Reminders page — any failed reminders will show with a red "Failed" badge and an error message. The most common cause is the student's phone number being in the wrong format. UK numbers should start with 07 or +44.

After marking a lesson complete, you're prompted to log which DVSA skills you covered. Each skill can be marked as Introduced, Developing, or Independent. Over time this builds a complete picture of each student's progress against the full DVSA syllabus.

Yes. From a student's profile, go to the Portal tab and generate a progress link. Share this with the student — they can view their hours, skills, upcoming lessons, and lesson history without needing to log in.

On a completed lesson (either from the calendar or the student's lesson history), you'll see a "Download lesson report" option. This generates a PDF with the lesson details, skills logged, and cumulative progress stats.

Yes. When adding or editing a student, scroll down to the Parent / Guardian section. You can store a guardian name, phone number, and email address. This is particularly useful for learners under 18 whose parents pay or need to be kept informed.

Open the student's profile and click Edit. In the Test Details section you'll find a Theory Test sub-section where you can record the test date, whether they passed, and their Multiple Choice and Hazard Perception scores. The scores show pass/fail automatically (43/50 for multiple choice, 44/75 for hazard perception).

Yes — there are two types of notes. Private notes are only visible to you. Shared notes appear in the student's progress portal. You can write shared notes when completing a lesson (in the Log Skills modal), or edit them later by clicking "Edit notes" on any completed lesson in the calendar.

Students can book up to 6 weeks ahead. The booking calendar shows one week at a time with Prev/Next week buttons to navigate forward.

Go to Settings → School. Scroll down to the Booking Settings section (visible to school owners). You can set the minimum notice required before a booking (e.g. 4 hours), the default lesson duration, and whether a deposit is required — and how much.

Yes. Students who provide an email address when booking receive a confirmation email with a "Manage booking" link. Clicking it shows them the lesson details with options to cancel or reschedule, subject to your cancellation policy.

Go to Refer & Earn in the sidebar to find your unique referral link. Share it with other driving instructors. When they sign up using your link and subscribe to a paid plan, you both get a free month — your next billing cycle is free, and their subscription is extended by 30 days automatically.

There's no limit. Every instructor you refer who subscribes earns you one free month. Credits are applied to your billing cycle automatically — you'll see them on the Billing page.

Go to Billing in the sidebar. If you have queued credits, a green banner shows how many free months you have. The credits are also listed in the current plan details alongside your next billing date.

Not at the moment. The founding rate is running instead: you lock a permanently lower price rather than getting a free month, and you get one or the other, never both. You add a card at signup and your first month is charged straight away.

Your plan continues automatically at the normal price using the card you added at signup. If you cancel before the trial ends, you pay nothing and your account moves to the Free plan — your data is never deleted.

Go to Billing in the dashboard and click "Cancel subscription", or "Manage subscription" to open the Stripe billing portal where you can cancel, change your plan, or update your payment method. Cancel during your trial and you pay nothing. Cancel later and you keep access until the end of your current billing period.

Yes — the School plan (£79/month) supports up to 10 instructors. Go to the Instructors section and click "Invite instructor". They'll receive an email to set their password and join your school.