Why Per-Aircraft Pricing Makes More Sense Than Per-User

Most SaaS platforms charge per user per month. For a standard office tool, that makes sense — each user represents roughly equal value and cost. But flight schools are different. A school with 10 aircraft might have 200 students, 20 instructors, and 15 staff members. Under a per-user model, that is 235 seats — and every new student enrollment increases your software bill.

This creates a perverse incentive: the more your school grows, the more you pay. Worse, many of those users — students checking schedules, instructors logging flights — use the platform intermittently. Charging them the same as a full-time administrator makes no sense.

Aircraft are the true unit of capacity at a flight school. Your fleet size determines how many flights you can schedule, how many students you can train, and how much revenue you can generate. Pricing based on aircraft count aligns your software cost with your actual operational capacity.

With per-aircraft pricing, adding a new student costs you nothing extra in software fees. Enrolling 50 more students? Your bill stays the same. Bringing on seasonal instructors for summer demand? No additional charge. This means your software cost is predictable, transparent, and decoupled from growth.

Consider a mid-sized flight school with 15 aircraft, 8 instructors, 120 active students, and 5 admin staff. Under a typical per-user SaaS model at $15/user/month, that is $1,995/month — and it goes up every time a student enrolls.

With Aviatize's per-aircraft model, the same school pays a fraction of that, regardless of how many users access the system. As the school grows from 120 to 200 students, the software cost remains stable. That difference compounds over years, freeing up budget for what actually matters: aircraft, instructors, and facilities.

One of the most common frustrations with flight school software is opaque pricing. Many vendors require you to "contact sales" just to understand what the platform will cost. We believe that is wrong.

Aviatize publishes its pricing publicly. You can see exactly what each plan costs, what is included, and how pricing scales with your fleet. No hidden fees, no per-student surcharges, no surprises. This transparency is not just a feature — it is a reflection of how we think software should be sold.

Per-user pricing was designed for a different industry. Flight schools need a model that rewards growth rather than penalizing it. Per-aircraft pricing keeps your costs predictable, your growth unconstrained, and your budget under control. When evaluating flight school management software, ask yourself: does this vendor's pricing model work for my growth, or against it?