Chess academy management software
Chess academy management software for classes, fees and student progress
ChessCore is chess academy management software for owners, admins and coaches. It keeps student records, batches and attendance, fees, game review and parent reports in one workspace. Below is one operating week at an example academy, what the AI can and cannot do, the limits, and what it costs. To compare other options, use the academy software buying guide.
- active students at Knight’s Gate
- 42
- batches across one centre and online
- 3
- people: an owner who coaches, a coach, an admin
- 3
- a month on Core, billed annually
- $69
Knight's Gate is a made-up example academy, not a customer.
What it covers
The six weekly jobs it covers
These six jobs are what academy software has to cover every week. A feature list tells you what exists somewhere in a product. The six jobs tell you whether it runs your week.
- 1
Enrolment and student records
A single profile for each student: guardians, consent, contact, batch and coaching history, instead of a sign-up sheet and a contacts app.
- 2
Batch scheduling and attendance
Recurring batches, make-up classes and attendance that rolls up by student and by coach, without a separate calendar and register.
- 3
Fee collection and reconciliation
Invoices tied to a student and batch, with payments matched to them, so you stop chasing dues in a spreadsheet.
- 4
Game review and coaching
A coach uploads PGN files or syncs games, picks which ones Stockfish analyses, then reviews the AI explanation before sharing it.
- 5
Progress reports and parent updates
Monthly reports and class recaps built from attendance, ratings and games, so each one is not written from memory.
- 6
Ratings and tournaments
Rating progress and events tracked next to everything else, so a student's story lives in one place.
General sports and tutoring software covers many subjects. ChessCore is specialised for chess: student records connect to PGN games, coach-selected engine analysis and chess ratings alongside attendance and fees. To judge your own case, read about when a generic class app is enough.
A week in an academy
One operating week at Knight's Gate
Knight's Gate Chess Academy is an example academy, not a customer. It has one centre and online batches, 42 active students, three batches and three people: owner Hannah, who also coaches, coach Daniel and admin Noor. Every name and number below is made up.
Before Monday
A family asks about a trial
Parent Diego G. writes on the website about his daughter Mia, who is 9 and plays casually. The next day he writes again on WhatsApp. Admin Noor keeps both messages on one enquiry and owns the next action: a trial in Beginners A on Monday at 17:00. The booked trial downloads as a calendar file for the family, and Mia enrols after it. See the chess academy CRM for how enquiries, trials and enrolment sit on one record.
Monday and Wednesday
Beginners A runs, attendance is marked
Coach Daniel teaches 16 students at the centre, 17:00 for 60 minutes. Attendance is marked per class. Liam W. is marked present for 2 of 8 classes this month, and two of his classes have no attendance record at all. Those two stay unrecorded; nobody guesses them. Recurring classes, make-ups and attendance are covered in batch scheduling.
Thursday
A class moves
Owner Hannah is at a tournament, so Thursday's online Intermediate B class moves to Friday at 18:00. Two students cannot make Friday and take a make-up credit instead. The class runs in the built-in video classroom, or in a Zoom or Google Meet link that Hannah pastes into the class.
Saturday morning
A game review before the squad session
Minjun K. lost a 10+5 Lichess rapid game with Black. Hannah uploads the game as a PGN file, which works on every plan, and selects it for analysis. Stockfish flags move 18 as the turning point: Black moves a pinned knight and loses a piece. The AI explains it in plain words, Hannah edits one sentence and approves the review. See what the ChessCore AI drafts and what it leaves to a person, below.
Fee day, the 9th
A partial payment
Sara A.'s monthly fee of $120 was due on the 5th. The fee reminder went out on the 6th: a fixed template the academy switched on, with no AI text. Her parent paid $60 on the 9th by bank transfer, which Noor records on invoice KG-1027 in the family ledger, so $60 remains. A second, AI-drafted personal note waits in the approval queue for Noor to edit and send. See billing and fee collection for invoices, receipts and the family ledger.
Month end
A progress report a parent can trust
Minjun K. attended 7 of 8 classes. His rating went from 1120 to 1185 over the term. Hannah adds a coach note about missing pins against the knight and sets 12 pin puzzles due Friday. That note is her own judgment, not engine analysis generated inside the report. Hannah edits the AI-drafted narrative and approves it. If the academy has switched on monthly report emails, those carry attendance and rating data only, with no AI text; the narrative is a separate draft. The report does not claim progress the data does not show; in this example Liam W.'s report reads “attendance not recorded for 2 classes”. See student progress tracking for recurring reports.
The weekly review
Use the weekly academy review checklist (CSV) to record who will check the roster, unmarked classes, open invoices and parent reports. It is a one-page planning sheet using this made-up academy, not a record of customer results.
Who does what
Owner, admin and coach roles
In the example, Hannah owns the academy and coaches two batches, Noor handles enquiries, fees and messages, and Daniel teaches and marks attendance. Approvals for high-stakes copilot actions come from an owner, admin or finance role, and never from the person who asked for the action.
Centres and branches
Schools, centres and branches
One academy account can run several centres or branches, which suits a chess school with more than one site. Each centre is set up as physical, online or hybrid, and batches are linked to their centre, so a chess school with two city branches and an online wing runs all three from the same account.
A chess school gets centres, batches with a set capacity, attendance and homework. A chess club that does not charge regular fees can leave billing unused and still keep members, sessions and games in one place. The data is shared across the account, so every centre's staff work in one academy, not in separate walled-off branches.
AI with a person in charge
What the AI can and cannot do
Stockfish evaluates, the AI explains, and your coaches decide what reaches families. The full list of drafts, approvals and limits is on the ChessCore AI page; how personal data is handled is on the security page. To rehearse the rules with your own examples, use test approval and automation rules.
What it can do
- Draft a plain-language explanation of a game from Stockfish's evaluation, for a coach to edit.
- Draft a progress report narrative from attendance, rating and game records.
- Draft a message to a parent, such as a personal note about an overdue fee.
- Answer questions about your academy's records in the copilot, and prepare a change such as an invoice or a rescheduled class. By default it asks before it changes a record.
What it cannot do
- Send a draft to a student or parent by itself, except class recaps if the academy turns on auto-publish. A person edits and sends the rest.
- Evaluate a chess position. Stockfish produces every engine evaluation.
- Mark an invoice paid or approve a refund on its own. These copilot actions need approval from a second person.
- Pay coaches on its own. A payroll run is paid out to coaches only after a person approves it.
- Go past its daily allowance. The allowance is the same on every plan, and when it is used up the copilot resumes the next day.
A read-only question
Made-up owner task at Knight's Gate: before using the copilot, Hannah opens Sara's invoice and payment records to check what remains due. With copilot assistance, she asks, “Show Sara's invoices so I can check the open balance.” She checks the returned records against invoice KG-1027, its $120 fee and the $60 payment, leaving $60 due. This is a read-only question, not an instruction to mark the invoice paid or send a reminder. Noor still reviews any personal note before sending it.
What runs on its own
Routine automation runs without a click, and the scheduled messages below use fixed templates, with no AI text. Class reminders go 24 hours and 2 hours before class, fee reminders follow the schedule the academy turns on, and recurring invoices are generated when a subscription falls due. When the academy switches on monthly reports, those emails carry attendance and rating data only. Other messages, such as an absence follow-up or a trial no-show recovery, are fixed templates you switch on from the automation gallery.
Report narratives, parent notes and game explanations that the AI writes are drafts until someone edits and approves them. Class summaries are published by a coach by default; an academy can switch on auto-publishing for summaries whose coach notes pass a completeness check. Copilot actions that mark an invoice paid or refund a payment go to an approval queue, and someone other than the requester approves them.
Before you choose
Limits to know before you choose
Student capacity
Each plan covers a set number of students. Core covers up to 100. At the limit, new students cannot be added until the academy upgrades.
Online payments
Razorpay UPI AutoPay, Stripe billing and WhatsApp payment links start on the Grow plan. Core has invoices, receipts and the family ledger.
Game sync
Lichess and Chess.com game sync is part of Pro and Enterprise. PGN upload works on every plan.
Calendars
Confirmed bookings can be mirrored into Google Calendar, with sync status and automatic retry. A booked trial class also downloads as a calendar file.
Video links
Zoom and Google Meet are links a coach pastes into a class. ChessCore does not create them.
AI allowance
The AI has one daily allowance, the same on every plan. It does not replace a coach's judgment on what a student should work on.
Flat capacity tiers
Setup and pricing
ChessCore prices by flat capacity tier, sized by how many students an academy has, and it also has a Free plan for a small roster with no credit card required. Setup starts there: create a batch, add a few students and guardians, mark attendance, and see whether the weekly routine fits. When the roster outgrows Free, pick the tier that covers it. Amounts are in USD.
Knight's Gate fits here
Core: up to 100 students, $89 a month, or $69 a month billed annually ($828 a year).
Grow: up to 500 students, $139 a month, or $109 a month billed annually ($1308 a year).
Pro: up to 1,000 students, $179 a month, or $149 a month billed annually ($1788 a year).
Enterprise: tailored to your needs.
The worked example
Knight's Gate has 42 students, so capacity alone fits Core: $89 a month, or $69 a month billed annually ($828 a year, an annual commitment). The operating week above stays inside what Core includes: PGN uploads and fees recorded by hand in the family ledger. Capacity is not the only test. If Knight's Gate wanted Razorpay UPI AutoPay or Stripe, the plan would be Grow at $139 a month, or $109 a month billed annually ($1308 a year); if it wanted games to sync from Lichess and Chess.com on their own, Pro at $179 a month, or $149 a month billed annually ($1788 a year). The academy charges its families in rupees; ChessCore's own subscription is billed in USD. See ChessCore pricing for what each plan includes, or walk your own week through a demo.
Comparing against a spreadsheet or another platform? See spreadsheets vs software, ChessCore and Chessverse compared and compare named academy software options. Starting with a free tool? Read compare free plans and their limits first.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
- Is chess academy management software free?
- Partly. ChessCore has a Free plan for a small roster with no credit card required. Paid plans are flat tiers sized by student count, starting at $69 a month billed annually. Compare on the jobs you need, such as billing, scheduling and game review, not on price alone.
- Does it work for online academies?
- Yes. ChessCore runs in a browser, so coaches and families install nothing. Online classes can use the built-in video classroom, or a Zoom or Google Meet link that a coach pastes into the class. Game files can be uploaded as PGN on every plan; Lichess and Chess.com game sync is part of the Pro and Enterprise plans.
- Does it support Indian payments like UPI?
- Yes, from the Grow plan. Grow and above connect Razorpay for UPI AutoPay and payment links, and Stripe for academies abroad. Core includes invoices, receipts and the family ledger.
- What does the AI do, and what does it not do?
- Stockfish evaluates the position, the AI drafts the explanation in plain language, and a person edits and sends it. An AI draft reaches a student or parent only when a person sends it, unless the academy turns on auto-publish for class recaps. Routine class and fee reminders are fixed templates the academy switches on, with no AI text, and copilot actions that move money need a second person's approval.
Written by Abhishek Tiwari. See our editorial standards.
