Ski school software is the part of a rental shop's system that sells a lesson as seats in a session, puts every student on a roster, lets the instructor sign off a progression on snow, runs a knowledge check and records the level the student earned. Most small ski schools do this in a binder or a spreadsheet next to a separate booking tool. Ribbe runs lessons as courses inside the same system as the rental counter, the booking site and lift tickets, so one order can hold the gear, the lesson and the ticket.
One worked example runs through this post. The shop is Summit Ski & Board in Breckenridge, its school is Summit Ski School, and the course is the Beginner Ski Lesson: a 3-hour morning session, 8 seats, ages 13 and up, meeting at the shop at 8:45 for gear fitting. It ends with a Snow Safety Knowledge Check quiz on the student's phone and a Green Run Ready card.
A lesson looks like a ticket when you sell it: a date, a time, a price and a number of spots. It behaves like a course once it starts. Each session has a seat cap and an instructor. Each student has a status, a progression to work through and, at the end, a knowledge check and a level. A booking tool stops at the sale. Ski school management starts there.
Shops that sell lessons alongside rentals usually end up with three places to look: the booking tool for who paid, a binder for the roster and sign-offs, and the register for the gear. The level card goes home in a jacket pocket, and nobody can find it when the same family returns next season. For the rental side of the system, see our guide to ski rental software.
In Ribbe a course is tied to the ticket product that sells its seats. The Beginner Ski Lesson is a ticket product on the shop's booking site; the course behind it holds the curriculum, the quiz and the certification. Each lesson date and time is a session with its own seat cap, here 8. The same cap applies on the booking site and at the register, so a session cannot be oversold across channels.
Public booking page for the Beginner Ski Lesson showing dates, times, seats left and price
The Beginner Ski Lesson on the shop's website, with each morning session, its seats left and the price
Ski lesson booking happens alongside rentals, lift tickets and tours, and a lesson can sit in the same order as the rental gear. A family that books skis, boots, a lift ticket and a beginner lesson for the teenager pays once. At the counter the ski check-in form (height, weight, boot sole and ability level for DIN) and the digital waiver with guardian consent for minors happen in the same visit, so the 8:45 gear fitting is part of the lesson rather than a separate line.
Staff can change a session's cap, though never below the seats already sold. Raise it from 8 to 12 when a second instructor is free and the extra seats sell online and at the register.
Every seat sold, online or at the counter, puts the student on that session's roster. A reschedule moves the student to the new session. A cancellation withdraws them, unless the student is already In progress. Staff can add a student by hand, a Sync bookings button pulls in anything sold while the roster was open on screen, and the roster exports to CSV.
Roster of morning beginner lesson sessions with seat cap, seats sold, enrolled and certified counts and instructor
Each morning session with its cap of 8, seats sold, enrolled and certified counts, and the instructor assigned
Instructors are staff members marked as instructors. Assign one per session, and when a group of 8 splits into two groups of 4, override the instructor per student so the office sees who teaches whom. Ribbe does not schedule instructors; you decide who takes which session, and Ribbe records it.
Ski instructor kneeling beside a teenage beginner on a gentle snowy slope
Each course carries a curriculum: checklist items grouped in sections, each marked Required or not. The example course uses three sections. Briefing covers what happens before the group leaves the shop. On snow covers the progression itself: first slide, wedge stops, linked turns, the first chairlift and a green run. Knowledge holds the Snow Safety Knowledge Check.
Course editor curriculum tab with Briefing, On snow and Knowledge sections, weights and a 70 percent pass mark
The Curriculum and grading tab, with the three sections, a weight per item, score out of 100 and a 70% pass mark
On the hill the instructor marks each item Pending, Done, Failed or N/A, with a note where it helps. Ribbe records who signed off and when. The first sign-off moves the student from Enrolled to In progress, so the office sees which groups are out on snow.
Grading is set per course, with three schemes. No grading means a checklist only. Score out of 100 gives each item a weight and shows a weighted average of the item scores. Letter grade uses the same average shown as A, B and C bands you can edit. The Beginner Ski Lesson uses a score out of 100 with a pass mark of 70, and the running mark is visible while the course is under way, so an instructor knows before the last run who needs one more pass at linked turns.
A certified student's record showing the final mark and each curriculum item signed off with score, instructor and time
One certified student, with the final mark and every item signed off with its score, who signed it and when
A short quiz at the end confirms the student took in the safety briefing and gives the shop a record. Ribbe's quizzes and exams support multiple choice, choose all that apply, true or false and short written answers, with points per question, a pass mark, a time limit and an attempts limit. The Snow Safety Knowledge Check has 7 questions, a 10-minute limit, 2 attempts and a pass mark of 70.
The quiz goes out by email, by text or as a QR code shown at the counter. The student answers on their own phone, with no app and no password. Choice questions mark themselves; written answers are matched to an expected answer or held for the instructor to mark. Each sitting keeps a snapshot of its questions, so later edits never change what a past result shows.
The Snow Safety Knowledge Check open on a student's phone with a multiple choice question
The Snow Safety Knowledge Check as the student sees it on their own phone, no app and no login
Pin the quiz to the Knowledge item in the curriculum and a pass signs that item off and feeds its score into the grade. Ribbe's built-in AI assistant can draft the quiz from the curriculum; staff review every question before it goes out.
When a student passes, Certify saves a certification on the customer's Training tab: the name, the school or agency, a number, the issue date, an expiry worked out from the course's validity months, and the instructor. Ski levels are in-house certifications, so Green Run Ready sits next to any other level the school issues. A level earned at another school can be added by hand.
A customer's Training tab showing the Beginner Ski Lesson certified and the Green Run Ready card
The customer's Training tab, with the Beginner Ski Lesson marked certified and the Green Run Ready card
The next time that customer rents or books, staff see the level on the customer record, so the front desk can offer the parallel clinic instead of the beginner lesson again.
Student statuses run Enrolled, In progress, Completed, Certified, Incomplete and Withdrawn. The Students page filters by course, session, dates, status, instructor and free text, with KPI tiles across the top.
The instructor report covers any date range and shows, per instructor, sessions taught, students, how many are active, completed, certified, incomplete or withdrawn, the pass rate, revenue and commission. It exports to CSV.
Commission is a rule set per course: a percentage of student revenue, a flat amount per student, an amount per certified student, or an amount per session. Summit Ski School pays $40 per student on the Beginner Ski Lesson, the example shop's own figure, so a full session of 8 shows $320 in commission. Ribbe totals it; payroll stays with you.
Instructor report with sessions, students, pass rate, revenue and commission per instructor
The instructor report for a date range, one row per instructor with sessions, students, pass rate, revenue and commission
Rental shop counter with ski boots on a fitting bench and a tablet beside them
You do not have to build a course from a blank page. The course library holds ready-made templates by industry. The ski and snowboard set includes Beginner Ski Week (5 mornings, Level 1 - Green runs), Intermediate Parallel Clinic (3 days, Level 2 - Blue runs), Kids Ski School (5 days, age 4 and up, maximum 6 per instructor, game-based with the magic carpet, the "pizza" stop, the "french fries" intro and a badge per level), Snowboard Beginner (3 days), Freestyle Park Intro (1 day) and Avalanche Awareness (AIARE 1, 3 days). Import a template as-is, or choose Edit and import to adjust it first.
Course library filtered to ski and snowboard templates including Beginner Ski Week and Kids Ski School
The course library filtered to Ski and snowboard, from Beginner Ski Week to AIARE 1 Avalanche Awareness
Each course records a name, a code, the school or agency, the certification name, a description, prerequisites, minimum age, maximum students per instructor, duration in days, certification validity and a picture. Minimum age and prerequisites are recorded for staff; Ribbe does not block a booking on them. Every course also comes with printables: a course info sheet, a brochure designed in the brochure designer inside Ribbe, and a per-student printable sheet.
The same course engine runs dive course management for dive shops. For the rest of a ski shop's day, see how Ribbe works for ski rental shops. There is no upfront software cost, and online booking fees are paid by your customers; for anything else about pricing, talk to us.
Yes. Lessons sell on the same booking site as rentals, lift tickets and tours, and a lesson can sit in the same order as the gear, so the family pays once.
Not yet. Minimum age and prerequisites are recorded on the course so staff can check them at the counter or when reviewing the roster, but Ribbe does not block a booking on them. Staff move a 10-year-old who lands on the ages 13 and up session to Kids Ski School by hand.
The Students page filters by instructor, so an instructor picks their own name and works from that list. What each staff member can see and do is set by their permissions in Ribbe, as with the rest of the system.
No. The instructor report totals commission per instructor under the rule set on each course and exports to CSV. Payroll itself stays with you and your payroll provider.
Yes. A private lesson is a ticket product with a session cap of 1, or a small cap for a family group. It gets the same roster, curriculum, quiz and certification as a group lesson, with its own commission rule.
Run your ski school in the same system as the counter Sell lesson seats with the gear, fill rosters from bookings, sign off the progression on snow and hand every student a level card that is still there next season. Start a free trial