For two decades, Charms Office Assistant was the default answer to "how does a school music program keep track of everything?" Then, in 2023, the platform was sold to CutTime, and in September 2024 Charms shut down for good. Every program that ran on it had to move — and because there was no automatic migration, most directors spent real hours exporting data and rebuilding it somewhere else.
Two years on, the dust has mostly settled, and the honest picture is that no single tool replaced Charms. Programs split up its jobs. This roundup is organized the same way: by what you actually used Charms for. (Full disclosure up front: I'm a choir director and I built MusicLib, which appears in exactly one of these categories. The rest of this is as even-handed as I can make it.)
If you used Charms for everything: CutTime
CutTime is the official successor — it acquired the Charms platform and inherited its users. It's a genuinely broad tool: communications and SMS, finances and fundraising, forms and e-signatures, enrollment, and inventory (instruments, uniforms, and the music library) with QR codes. It claims over a million students across all fifty states.
What to know going in: pricing is quote-based and per school (legacy public pricing was around $395/year, and reviewers report higher), the sales process is demo-driven, and directors who migrated during the 2024 wave described a real learning curve and some early bugs. If your program genuinely uses the full toolkit — especially finances and parent communication — CutTime is the closest thing to a one-to-one replacement.
If your booster club ran Charms: BoosterHub
BoosterHub has aggressively courted Charms refugees on the parent/booster side: volunteer scheduling, fundraising, concessions, communication, and money handling. It is booster-club software first — the music library is not its concern. Many programs pair it with something else for the musical side.
If you want modern all-in-one program management: Presto Assistant
Presto Assistant is the newer, cleaner entrant in the Charms mold: student records, inventory, music library, finances, forms, and communication, at a published $325/year per organization. It's a smaller company with a reputation for responsive support. Like Charms and CutTime, the library is one module among many — fine for basic cataloging, lighter on library-specific workflows.
If you only need the library: MusicLib
This is the category I built MusicLib for, because it's the piece I actually missed as a director. A lot of programs used Charms mostly — or only — as the sheet music catalog: selection numbers, copy counts, storage locations, who has folder 12. If that's you, paying a per-school platform price for one module is backwards.
MusicLib makes the library the whole product: every title with its PDF attached, physical copy counts and checkout tracking, setlists and concert programs, and OCR search that reads the text inside scanned scores. It imports a Charms or CutTime CSV export directly — the import wizard recognizes headers like "Selection Number," "Sleeve," and "Qty" automatically — and there's a free concierge migration if you'd rather send us the export and check the result. Individual directors start free (50 scores) and pay $9.99/month or $99/year; school plans with roles for librarians and students start at $49/month.
What MusicLib deliberately doesn't do: fundraising, uniforms, finances, or parent communication. If you need those, pair it with one of the tools above — several programs run BoosterHub for the boosters and MusicLib for the library and spend less than one platform license.
If the budget is zero: the spreadsheet, done properly
Plenty of programs went back to Google Sheets after Charms — and honestly, a well-structured spreadsheet beats a badly-used platform. The failure mode isn't the tool; it's cataloging title-by-title, perfectly, until the project dies at 20%. If you go this route, use one row per title (not per copy), a copy-count column, short shelf-location codes, and a last-performed column. We publish a free template with exactly those columns — no strings attached, and it imports into MusicLib later if you outgrow it.
How to decide in one paragraph
Count what you actually used in Charms. Used everything, especially money and messaging? CutTime (or Presto if you want modern and cheaper). Boosters ran it? BoosterHub. Mostly the library? MusicLib — you'll get a far deeper library tool for a fraction of a platform price. No budget at all? The template, with discipline. And whatever you choose: export your data once a year, everywhere. Charms taught us all that platforms end.