Comparison

The Nova Music alternative for schools.

Nova Music is a modern, well-designed studio management platform - a free plan, a parent and student portal, and gamified practice tracking that keeps students motivated between lessons. Set the Tune is a season-scheduling engine: it builds and optimizes the calendar for a whole roster. Here is the honest split.

What Nova Music is good at
  • ♩Modern, polished studio management interface
  • ♩Free plan for smaller studios
  • ♩Parent and student portal
  • ♩Gamified practice tracking to keep students motivated between lessons
Where it stops
  • ✱No one-click optimizer that places a whole season roster for you
  • ✱No drive-time awareness for teachers traveling between in-home lessons
  • ✱No teacher workday rules - 8-hour caps or meal-break compliance
  • ✱No alternating A/B week balancing
  • ✱No self-serve, per-school Stripe billing - built as one shared studio platform, not a scheduling engine
CapabilitySet the TuneNova Music
One-click schedule optimization (whole roster)♩ Yes-
Automatic conflict detection - double-booking, availability, overlaps♩ YesManual
Drive-time-aware scheduling for traveling teachers (real traffic data)♩ Yes-
Teacher workday rules - 8-hour cap, meal-break compliance♩ Yes-
A/B (alternating) week balancing♩ Yes-
Messy-file roster import (CSV/DOCX) with AI cleanup♩ Yes-
Waitlist with one-click placement♩ Yes-
Season clone & roll-forward♩ Yes-
Self-serve online signup and Stripe billing, per school♩ Yes-
Free plan for small studios-♩ Yes
Parent / student portal-♩ Yes
Gamified practice tracking for students-♩ Yes

Based on each product's published feature list and pricing page, June 2026. Spot something out of date? Tell us.

𝄞
What Set the Tune doesn't do.
Tuition invoicing, attendance, parent portals, family messaging. On purpose. Set the Tune is the scheduling layer - it builds the calendar your admin tools manage. If you need full studio admin, keep it and use both.
Set the Tune
  • ♩Starter $79 / Pro $129 / Studio $199 per month, per school
  • ♩Sized by students you actually schedule, not your raw roster
  • ♩Unlimited teachers on every tier - one price per school, never per teacher
  • ♩Free look at signup: build your real schedule free, pay only to export and keep it
Nova Music
  • ♩Free plan available for smaller studios
  • ♩Paid tiers scale with studio size - see trynovamusic.com for current pricing

Which one fits?

If what you need is a free, modern portal that keeps students practicing between lessons, Nova Music covers that well. The moment you are placing a whole roster across multiple traveling teachers each season - drive time, teacher hours, A/B weeks - that is the job Set the Tune is built for, with self-serve billing published up front.

Schedule the season in an afternoon, not a week.

See your schedule freeSee pricing
More comparisons
Set the Tune vs My Music Staff.Set the Tune vs Music Teachers Helper.Set the Tune vs Jackrabbit.Set the Tune vs the spreadsheet.Set the Tune vs Teachworks.Set the Tune vs Fons.Set the Tune vs StudioGrowth.Set the Tune vs SoundSort.Set the Tune vs Tutorbase.Set the Tune vs AmpliTeach.