What is expert.band?

Most working bands run on a spreadsheet, a group chat, a folder of PDFs and one person's memory. It works until the person with the memory is on holiday, or the chat has 300 unread messages the week of a wedding. expert.band is a web app that puts the operational side of a band in one place: songs, setlists, gigs, rehearsals, quotes and gear.

This is the overview. What the product does, who it is for, what it costs, and what it deliberately does not try to be.

Who it is for

expert.band is built for bands that play for money or seriously intend to: wedding and function bands, cover bands, jazz and party trios, original acts with a booking calendar, and the managers and agencies that run several of them. It was built by a band leader who got tired of spreadsheets and group chats, and the feature list reflects that: nothing for fans, nothing for streaming, no social feed. It is the tools you use before, during and after a gig.

It is less useful for a band that plays twice a year with no repertoire changes, or for a solo artist with no one to coordinate. A shared calendar covers those.

What it does

Six areas, each with its own documentation:

Repertoire. Every song with key, tempo, structure (intro, verse, chorus and so on), length and notes. Songs carry attachments: chords or lyrics typed as text, links to recordings, or uploaded files such as PDF charts and backing tracks. Coloured labels (Wedding, First set, Needs work) make filtering fast. Each member can rate every song on three scales: audience appeal, how well the band plays it, how much they enjoy it. Songs can be pasted in as a list, one per line.

Setlists. Drag songs from the repertoire into order, insert breaks with a label, add a note per item (who counts in, a segue, a tuning change). The running time is calculated from song lengths, so you see whether the set fits the slot. Print gives a large-type stage version with key, tempo and notes, optionally with the chords after each song; one page per set where possible.

Gigs. A gig has a date, times, a location with a map link, a fee, a description and a status: request, confirmed or cancelled. From a gig you send an availability request to members; each gets a personal link by email and, if they have a phone number, by SMS, and answers with one tap, no login. The gig page shows who is available, who is not and who has not replied. You mark the participants, attach a setlist, build a packing checklist and print one gig sheet with everything on it.

Rehearsals. Members paint the hours they are free over the coming weeks on a grid. The leader sees a heat map (darker means more people free), taps a slot and schedules it. Reminders go out by email and SMS a set number of hours before, 12 by default.

Quotes. A reusable service catalog (Live set 45 min, Ceremony music, Sound system for 150 guests) with names and descriptions in several languages. Quotes have sections for schedule, services, coverage, pricing and free text, a VAT rate, a validity date and a status (draft, sent, accepted, declined). Every quote has a private link; the client sees a clean page in their language with a Download PDF button, never the app.

Gear and packing. An inventory of what the band owns, reusable kits per show type (Acoustic duo, Full band with own PA), and a packing checklist per gig that says what is needed and who brings it. Tick items off in the van.

Two smaller features sit alongside: song proposals (anyone proposes, members vote, the leader can veto, winners are promoted to the repertoire when a threshold is reached) and rating rounds (every member rates every song from a personal link, then the results rank the repertoire with averages, vote counts and medals for the top songs).

The three roles

• Band leader. One per band. Everything, including billing, band settings, deleting the band and transferring it to someone else. The leader's account is the one that pays.
• Manager. Everything except billing, deletion and transfer. Meant for the person who books gigs or writes quotes; an agency can hold this role in many bands.
• Member. Sees everything, marks availability, rates songs, votes on proposals, ticks off the packing list, and can edit songs and setlists.

Roles are per band, so the same person can lead one band and be a member of another. Details are in members and roles.

What it costs

• A 30-day free trial with everything switched on, including SMS. No card needed.
• After that, 3.90 € or $ a month for one band, billed to the band leader's account. Each additional band you own costs 2.00 a month.
• Yearly billing is 30% cheaper: 32.76 a year for the first band.
• Members are free. Only the leader's account is billed, however many people are in the band.
• 50 SMS a month are included per account; emails are unlimited. When the SMS allowance is used up, the app says so and falls back to email until the first of the next month.
• Cancel any time from the billing page. Access continues to the end of the paid period, then the bands become read-only: nothing is deleted, everything can still be read and printed, and subscribing again restores full access.

More detail in expert.band pricing explained and on the pricing page.

Languages, phones and hosting

The app, the emails and the SMS come in six languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian. Each member picks their own language; the band has a default for people who have not chosen. Quotes are written in the client's language, which can differ from the band's.

Everything works on a phone: reading a chart on stage, answering an availability request from a bus, ticking off the packing list in the van. There is no separate app to install; it is a web app.

Data is hosted on servers in the European Union, files are encrypted at rest, and backups are made daily. See your data at expert.band.

What it deliberately is not

• Not a booking marketplace. It does not find you gigs; it helps you run the ones you get.
• Not an accounting tool. Fees on gigs and totals on quotes are for your records; invoicing and tax live elsewhere.
• Not a chat. Communication happens through specific requests (availability, ratings, reminders) that need a specific answer, which is the point.
• Not a music player or a chart editor. Charts are attachments you make elsewhere and store here.
• No AI features. It is deliberately a plain tool.

Knowing the limits matters more than the feature list when you decide whether to move a band onto it.

A typical week on expert.band

Monday: an enquiry arrives for a wedding in June. The leader creates the gig as a request and sends an availability request; by evening five of six members have tapped "available". Tuesday: a quote goes out from the catalog with a link in the couple's language. Thursday: the couple accept, the quote is linked to the gig, the gig is confirmed, the standard wedding setlist is attached. Two weeks before: a rehearsal is scheduled from the heat map, reminders go out on their own. The day before: the Full band kit is applied to the packing checklist and items are assigned. On the day: the printed gig sheet has the times, the address, the line-up and the setlist with chords.

None of this is complicated. It is the same work bands already do, without the 40 messages.

Do this today

• Start the free trial and create your band: name, time zone, currency.
• Paste in your song list, one line per song.
• Invite the members by email; they join with one tap and pay nothing.
• Create your next gig and send an availability request.

A day-by-day plan is in your first week on expert.band.