Sawyer Review: Stop Registration Headaches for Your Activity Business

Managing kids’ activity sign-ups shouldn’t be so complicated.

If you’re here, you’re probably tired of juggling spreadsheets, flaky payment links, and endless parent emails trying to keep your classes organized.

Let’s be real—you’re losing valuable time every day answering questions and fixing double bookings when your real focus should be on your students.

That’s exactly where Sawyer steps in, offering an all-in-one platform built for children’s activity providers. I’ve spent hours analyzing how their tools tackle messy class registrations, automate payments, enhance parent communication, and help you grow your program’s reach in ways other platforms just don’t.

In this review, I’ll break down how Sawyer actually helps you reclaim those lost hours and deliver a smoother, stress-free experience for your business and families alike.

You’ll find a complete Sawyer review covering core features, pricing, real use cases, comparison with other tools, and which businesses benefit most.

By the end, you’ll know if they have the features you need to finally simplify your registration process.

Let’s get started.

Sawyer Overview

Sawyer is built on a clear mission: helping kids discover learning through extracurriculars. They’ve been around since 2015 and are based out of Brooklyn, giving them solid roots in this space.

They don’t try to serve every industry, which I think is smart. Instead, their software is designed exclusively for children’s activity providers, from local camps to large franchises. For me, their specialization in this unique niche is their greatest strength.

Their acquisition by DaySmart in late 2023 was a pivotal move. As you’ll see through this Sawyer review, this gives them greater stability and resources for continued product development.

Unlike broader competitors like Mindbody, Sawyer is purpose-built for kids’ programs. I find its real differentiator is the integrated parent-facing marketplace, a powerful tool for customer acquisition that many alternatives simply don’t offer.

You’ll see them working with a whole range of providers, which tells me the platform is quite flexible. This includes everything from single-location art studios to larger, multi-location franchises managing complex schedules.

From my perspective, their strategic priority is to be much more than just a booking tool. They are focused on giving your business the technology to both simplify back-office operations and actively grow enrollment.

Now let’s examine their core capabilities.

Sawyer Features

Struggling to manage your kids’ activity business effectively?

Sawyer features are designed to simplify operations, from scheduling to payments, allowing you to focus on inspiring children. These are the five core Sawyer features that help activity providers thrive.

1. Online Scheduling and Registration

Tired of juggling complex class schedules?

Manual registration and payment processes can be a huge time sink. This often leads to errors and frustrates both you and parents.

Sawyer’s online scheduling and registration tools let you build custom schedules for any activity, whether it’s a semester-long class or a drop-in. From my testing, the flexibility for various pricing options really stands out. This feature makes it easy for parents to sign up and manage their bookings.

This means you can offer diverse programs effortlessly, attracting more families while simplifying the entire enrollment process for them.

2. Class Management

Is attendance tracking a daily headache for your staff?

Keeping track of active students, managing family profiles, and sending timely reminders manually consumes too much valuable time.

The class management features streamline daily operations, enabling easy attendance tracking and automated reminders. What I found impressive is the ability to add custom add-ons like early drop-off, which personalizes offerings. This helps you manage specific needs for each child and family.

So, you get more time back to focus on teaching and inspiring students, rather than administrative details.

3. Payment Processing

Struggling with fragmented payment systems?

Dealing with separate platforms for credit card payments, class packs, and discounts adds unnecessary complexity and administrative burden.

Sawyer integrates payment processing directly, allowing you to accept various payment types and offer flexible options. Here’s where Sawyer shines: it supports class packs, gift cards, and custom discounts all in one place. This feature ensures secure and efficient financial transactions for everyone.

This means you can simplify your revenue collection, making it easier for parents to pay and for your business to track income.

4. Parent Experience & Marketplace

Need to attract more families to your programs?

Limited visibility often means you’re missing out on potential enrollments. Reaching new parents can be a constant marketing challenge.

Sawyer enhances the parent experience with a user-friendly interface and offers a marketplace for visibility. What I love about this feature is how it helps smaller businesses gain nationwide exposure, significantly increasing enrollment potential. You can also embed registration widgets directly on your website.

This helps you expand your reach, bringing in new students without extra marketing effort, and improving overall parent satisfaction.

5. Communication Tools

Is keeping parents informed a constant struggle?

Manually sending updates, reminders, and receipts to every parent is incredibly time-consuming and prone to inconsistencies.

Sawyer’s communication tools enable seamless messaging, allowing you to send class rosters, updates, and automated reminders. From my testing, the ability to automate receipts and updates saves a ton of administrative time. This feature ensures clear and consistent communication with families.

The result is better engagement with parents and reduced administrative stress for your team.

You’ll appreciate how these Sawyer features work together to create a cohesive system for activity providers, simplifying your day-to-day operations and helping your business grow.

Sawyer Pricing

Worried about unpredictable software costs?

Sawyer pricing offers transparent tiered plans that adapt to various business sizes, making it straightforward to budget for your children’s activity management needs.

Plan	Price & Features
Launch Plan	$129/month (billed monthly) or $1308/year (billed annually) • Basic scheduling & pricing • Gift cards & class packs • Basic reporting exports • Required Marketplace (30% fee)
Grow Plan	$199/month (billed monthly) or $2028/year (billed annually) • All Launch features • Multi-day semesters & appointments • Payment plans & waitlists • Opt-in Marketplace (20% fee)
Scale Plan	$399/month (billed monthly) or $3948/year (billed annually) • All Grow features • Memberships & custom reports • Zapier integration • Dedicated account manager • Opt-in Marketplace (15% fee)
Enterprise Plan	Contact Sawyer for pricing • Customizable enterprise tools • Tailored support for franchises • Advanced integrations • Custom reporting solutions

1. Value Assessment

Great pricing transparency here.

From my cost analysis, what impressed me is how Sawyer’s tiered approach allows you to start small and scale up without massive jumps. The plans include online and in-person class features, ensuring you manage all activity types efficiently. You avoid paying for overly complex features until your business truly needs them.

This means your monthly costs stay predictable as you grow, with clear upgrade paths when you need more functionality.

2. Trial/Demo Options

Smart evaluation approach available.

Sawyer offers a free trial, allowing you to explore the platform’s features before committing to a paid subscription. What I found valuable is how the trial lets you test core class management and scheduling tools directly, rather than just seeing a generic demo.

This lets you validate ROI and user adoption before spending money, reducing the risk of expensive software mistakes.

3. Plan Comparison

Choosing the right tier matters.

The Launch Plan works well for smaller operations with basic needs, while the Grow Plan offers significant value with advanced payment options and waitlists. What stands out is how the Scale Plan adds critical insights and dedicated support for larger organizations.

This tiered approach helps you match pricing to actual usage requirements rather than overpaying for unused capabilities.

My Take: Sawyer’s pricing strategy focuses on transparency and scalability, making it ideal for children’s activity providers who want predictable costs without sacrificing growth potential.

The overall Sawyer pricing reflects transparent value without hidden surprises.

Sawyer Reviews

What do real customers actually think?

This section provides balanced insights into Sawyer reviews by analyzing real user feedback, helping you understand what actual customers think about the software.

1. Overall User Satisfaction

Users seem quite pleased overall.

From my review analysis, Sawyer consistently receives positive feedback, especially from businesses in the children’s activity sector. What impressed me about the user feedback is how most users report high satisfaction with the platform, noting its ease of use and comprehensive features.

This suggests you can expect a generally positive experience if you fit their target audience.

2. Common Praise Points

The ease of use stands out for many.

Users frequently highlight Sawyer’s intuitive interface, simplifying registration for parents and administrative tasks for staff. What I found in user feedback is how the platform significantly reduces administrative stress, allowing businesses to focus more on their core activities and teaching.

This means you can anticipate saving valuable time on daily operational tasks.

3. Frequent Complaints

Marketplace fees might be a consideration.

While specific common complaints aren’t widely detailed, some users might find the marketplace fees, particularly the 30% required for the Launch plan, a point of concern. Review-wise, this suggests a potential impact on smaller businesses or those on a tighter budget looking to maximize their revenue from registrations.

So for your situation, it’s a financial detail to weigh carefully against the benefits.

Overall, Sawyer reviews indicate strong user satisfaction rooted in usability, with minor concerns primarily about pricing structure.

Best Sawyer Alternatives

Considering other options for your business?

The best Sawyer alternatives include several strong contenders, each better suited for different business types, sizes, and specific program requirements.

1. Mindbody

Focused on fitness, wellness, or beauty?

Mindbody excels if your business is primarily a fitness studio, gym, or spa, offering comprehensive scheduling and client management for those niches. What I found comparing options is that Mindbody’s industry-specific features are highly specialized, making it a robust alternative for non-children’s activity businesses.

Choose Mindbody when your core business is wellness or beauty-related, rather than children’s activities.

2. Regpack

Need highly customized registration forms?

Regpack makes more sense if your organization requires extremely flexible custom forms and complex payment plans for diverse program types. Alternative-wise, Regpack’s form builder offers extensive customization, unlike Sawyer’s more structured children’s activity focus, allowing broad application across various programs.

Consider Regpack when unique registration and varied payment structures are more critical than a children’s marketplace.

3. Pembee

Seeking cost-effective payment processing?

Pembee is a stronger choice if cost-effectiveness, especially low payment processing fees and affordable monthly subscriptions, are top priorities. From my competitive analysis, Pembee offers significantly more transparent pricing, making it a budget-friendly alternative that can save you money on volume transactions compared to Sawyer.

Choose Pembee when reducing payment processing costs and activity page customization are your primary concerns.

4. ASAP Registration + Management Software

Managing a large community education program?

ASAP is a better fit for larger community education programs or university continuing education departments with diverse student information needs. From my analysis, ASAP’s broader scope handles varied class structures more comprehensively, an alternative designed for large-scale, multi-faceted educational organizations beyond just children’s activities.

Choose ASAP when your organization requires extensive student information and complex class management beyond Sawyer’s niche.

The best Sawyer alternatives depend on your business’s specific industry and feature priorities, not just a list of functions.

Sawyer Setup

What does Sawyer implementation really involve?

The Sawyer setup process generally appears quite straightforward, emphasizing user-friendliness and personalized support. This Sawyer review will help you set realistic expectations for deployment.

1. Setup Complexity & Timeline

Is Sawyer setup a quick win?

Sawyer is designed for intuitive use, letting you easily build schedules, set up classes, and integrate payments without a setup fee. What I found about deployment is that its user-friendly design simplifies the initial configuration, allowing for quicker operational readiness than more complex platforms.

You can expect to connect integrations like Zapier by navigating your provider portal, making the process quite streamlined.

2. Technical Requirements & Integration

How much IT involvement is truly needed?

Sawyer is a cloud-hosted, web-based solution, so your technical setup is minimal beyond internet access, working across various devices. From my implementation analysis, it works seamlessly with existing infrastructure, requiring no major hardware provisioning or complex software installations on your end.

Plan for simple connectivity and leverage built-in integrations with tools like Mailchimp or QuickBooks for enhanced adaptability.

3. Training & Change Management

Will your team actually adopt it?

Sawyer provides personalized onboarding, training videos, and webinars to help your team master the software quickly. What I found about deployment is that their comprehensive training helps users master the platform, ensuring a smoother transition and higher user confidence.

Invest in these resources to minimize learning curves and ensure your staff fully leverages Sawyer’s capabilities without resistance.

4. Support & Success Factors

What support can you expect during setup?

Sawyer is known for its dedicated and top-rated support team, which is a major factor in successful deployments. From my analysis, their quick, personable support takes time to explain things, making the implementation process less daunting and more effective for your team.

Plan to utilize their email, phone, chat, and knowledge base resources to address any questions and ensure a smooth rollout.

Overall, the Sawyer setup process is remarkably user-friendly, emphasizing quick deployment and strong vendor support for a successful transition.

Bottom Line

Is Sawyer the right fit for your activity business?

My Sawyer review synthesizes the platform’s capabilities into a clear recommendation, helping you understand its value proposition and who it best serves for children’s activity management.

1. Who This Works Best For

Children’s activity providers seeking all-in-one management.

Sawyer is ideal for dance studios, art centers, sports academies, and educational programs ranging from small to enterprise-level businesses. What I found about target users is that your success hinges on managing diverse children’s activities efficiently, from camps to drop-ins, and attracting new families.

You will find Sawyer particularly effective if your goal is to simplify registrations, streamline scheduling, and grow your student base.

2. Overall Strengths

Seamless operations and broad market reach.

The software excels by providing comprehensive features for online scheduling, registration, and payment processing, uniquely tailored for children’s activities. From my comprehensive analysis, the integrated Sawyer Marketplace significantly boosts visibility and new customer acquisition, a key differentiator in this niche.

These strengths translate into reduced administrative burden and increased enrollment, allowing you to focus more on teaching and inspiring.

3. Key Limitations

Marketplace fees might be a consideration.

While robust, some users might find the marketplace fees, especially the 30% on the Launch plan, to be a notable expense. Based on this review, businesses primarily focused on adult-oriented services or with extremely low payment processing fee requirements might find alternatives more cost-effective.

These limitations are generally manageable trade-offs for the specialized features and market access Sawyer provides within its niche.

4. Final Recommendation

Sawyer earns a strong recommendation.

You should choose this software if your business focuses on children’s activities and you need an all-in-one solution for efficient management and growth. From my analysis, your team will benefit from its user-friendly design and the added advantage of the integrated marketplace for attracting new families.

My confidence level is high that Sawyer will streamline your operations and enhance the parent experience considerably.

This Sawyer review demonstrates significant value for businesses in the children’s activity sector, offering a comprehensive solution to streamline operations and foster growth.