DynoZen Planner vs Dyno
The Zen Planner alternative with free belt progression and a community app members keep.
What is Dyno?
Dyno gives martial arts schools the memberships, class scheduling and billing they need, with belt and grade progression tracking built in free, plus a community feed, chat and ticketed gradings in a native member app priced for independent clubs.
What is Zen Planner?
Zen Planner is management software for martial arts schools, gyms and affiliates, covering memberships, scheduling, billing, belt tracking and a member app. It is a capable, established platform, but it is North America centred, sales-led on pricing, and belt tracking sits inside a paid, fitness-oriented suite.
Zen Planner vs Dyno: feature by feature
Zen Planner details are based on publicly available information and last reviewed July 2026; they may have changed, check Zen Planner’s website for their current features and pricing.
Why schools go looking for a Zen Planner alternative
Zen Planner is a mature, capable platform, and for an established North American school it covers a lot: memberships, scheduling, billing and belt tracking in one place. The reasons schools look elsewhere are usually about fit rather than capability. Pricing is sales-led and can feel steep for an independent dojo, the whole system is built around North American processing and conventions, and belt tracking, the thing most central to a martial arts school, sits inside a paid, fitness-shaped suite.
For clubs outside North America the friction is sharper still: billing that assumes local processors, support hours in the wrong time zone, and pricing quoted in a currency you do not bank in. A martial arts school should not have to bend itself around software built primarily for a different market.
How Dyno approaches the same job
Dyno puts progression at the centre and makes it free: belts, stages and levels with full promotion history, on every plan, for as many tracks and disciplines as you run. Around that sit the essentials, recurring memberships by card or Direct Debit through Stripe into your own account, class scheduling with waitlists and cancellation deadlines, digital waivers for new starters, and kiosk check-in with attendance.
The member experience is a native iOS and Android app that is the school’s own space: a community feed, chat, the timetable, and gradings, seminars and socials sold as ticketed events with member and non-member pricing. Family accounts let parents manage and pay for children, which is the normal shape of a martial arts school, and pricing is published openly with a free tier to start, wherever in the world your school is based.
What switching from Zen Planner actually involves
Our team migrates your students, memberships, belt ranks and key records across, and most schools run a short overlap rather than a hard cut-over so gradings and billing continue uninterrupted. Recurring payments are the one part that needs care: when you change platform, members’ card and Direct Debit authorisations have to be re-established with the new payment provider. Dyno collects these through Stripe as members activate their account in the app, and the dashboard shows you exactly who has moved across and who still needs a nudge, so nothing falls through the cracks mid-switch.
Dig into the details
Switching from Zen Planner: common questions
- Does Dyno track belts and grades like Zen Planner?
- Yes, and it is free on every plan. Progression tracking covers belts, stages and levels across multiple tracks with full promotion history, and students and parents can see current rank and progress in the member app. Staff record promotions as they happen, often at a grading.
- We are not in North America. Does Dyno suit us better?
- Often, yes. Dyno bills through Stripe into your own local bank account, supports per-club time zones, and publishes pricing you can actually see. Schools outside North America tend to find it a more natural fit than a platform built primarily around North American processing.
- Can we run gradings and seminars as paid events?
- Yes. Gradings, seminars and socials run as ticketed events with capacity, member and non-member pricing and payment in the same checkout, so you are not managing them on a separate site alongside monthly memberships.
- Does Dyno handle parents paying for children?
- Yes. Family accounts let one parent manage and pay for several children’s memberships, see their gradings and progress, and handle waivers, which matches how most martial arts schools actually enrol their junior classes.
- Can you migrate our students and belt ranks from Zen Planner?
- Yes. We move students, memberships, belt ranks and key records for you, usually with a short overlap so nothing is disrupted. Payment authorisations are re-collected through Stripe as families activate, and the dashboard shows who has completed the move.
Switch from Zen Planner to Dyno
A quick, personalised walkthrough, no slides, no commitment. Tell us a little about your club and we’ll be in touch.