Paid to DriveBooked
£49 Booking Agent Fee, or £149 Course Management Fee for an intensive course. This pays for the search, the verified network, the booking record and support. It is not a deposit against lessons.
Matching method
How DriveBooked matches you with an instructor
The full method, in order, with the limits stated plainly. This is what the fee buys and what it does not.
Step by step
What happens, in order
Every stage below is a real state your booking moves through, and you are told when it does.
- Step 1
You describe the booking
Your postcode, transmission, the DVSA test centre you want covered (if you have one), the hours or course you want, and the days and times you can drive. Nothing is charged until you have seen the fee and the terms.
- Step 2
You pay the DriveBooked fee only
£49 for Find an Instructor, or £149 for an intensive course. This is the fee for arranging and managing the booking. No tuition money passes through DriveBooked at any point.
- Step 3
The search starts
Your booking becomes an opportunity for verified instructors whose recorded coverage includes your test centre or postcode area and whose recorded transmission matches your choice. Instructors who do not meet both conditions never see it.
- Step 4
Instructors are contacted in stages
The search widens over the search window: closest coverage first, then priority and extended stages, and driving schools in the network where a school covers your area. Your contact details are not released to anyone until an instructor accepts.
- Step 5
An instructor accepts
The first suitable verified instructor to accept takes the booking, and it locks immediately so nobody can double-accept. You are told who they are, and introductions are made so you can agree lesson times directly.
- Step 6
Tuition is arranged directly
Lessons are a separate agreement between you and your instructor at £45 per hour, paid directly to them. DriveBooked stays available for the booking record and support.
Money
Fee and tuition are separate, always
Two different payments, to two different parties, for two different things.
Paid to your instructor
Tuition at £45 per hour, paid directly to the independent instructor for the lessons they deliver. The DVSA test fee is separate again and is paid by you to the DVSA.
Read the cancellation and refund policy for what happens if the search is unsuccessful or you cancel.
FAQs
Questions about matching
Answered from how the platform actually works, not from marketing copy.
Three recorded facts: the instructor's verified status, the DVSA test centres and postcode areas they have chosen to cover, and the transmission they teach. Availability the instructor has set is used to order who is contacted first. We do not guess coverage from a town name.
Up to 28 days from the day the search starts. Most bookings are matched well before that. You are told at each stage: search started, instructors contacted, instructor matched and introduction completed.
The booking moves to a refund review at the end of the 28-day search and the cancellation and refund policy applies to the DriveBooked fee. You are never left waiting without a decision, and you never pay tuition for lessons that did not happen.
No. Every instructor is independent and self-employed. DriveBooked is a booking and matching agent: we verify instructors, arrange the booking and support it. The tuition contract is between you and your instructor.
No, and we never say otherwise. Payment starts a search. No instructor is held for you until one accepts your booking, and we tell you the moment that happens.
Yes. If the match is not right, contact us with your booking reference and we will look at the options for your area under the terms that applied to your booking.