My Journey as a Preply Tutor for the past 8 months

Imagine a scene, where you are in your flat, it is raining outside, you are staring at the screen of your work laptop and know there is no way you can continue your 9-5. Well, that was me a year or so ago.

To keep the story short, my partner and I both handed in our resignation letters on the same day and relocated to a sunny country in the following weeks.

We were certain we would never return to the corporate world. That is where for me Preply came in.

Tutoring has been part of my life for the past 12 years. I have a degree in teaching and have always had private students while studying or working.

Also, for several years after graduation, I worked at different offline and online schools as a teacher. 

Hence, when reflecting on what I loved doing the most, it was clear as day that tutoring was my true passion. Consequently, I decided it was time to make it my full-time activity.

Fast forward to now, I've been a Preply private tutor for 8 months and taught hundreds of hours on the platform.

I am writing this article to share my story with you and hopefully inspire you to follow your dreams as a tutor.

What is Preply?

Preply is an online education platform that matches online tutors from across the globe with learners.

The platform offers a wide range of subjects from languages to marketing for both teaching and learning.

When you register, you'll need to fill in your profile, record a short video, and set your hourly rate and your availability, basically when you want to work.  Afterward, you wait for a couple of days for review and approval. 

Once approved, learners can find you in the list of tutors, book a trial lesson with you, rate you, and leave comments as well as subscribe to learning with you by buying a package of lessons.

Why Did I Choose Preply? 

To be honest, I considered a couple of other very good platforms like Wyzant and Italki. But it turned out that for Wyzant I had to be a US resident and Italki did not accept applications for my subject at that moment. 

Preply, in its turn, quickly approved my application and to be honest, I did not need to wait long for my first student. I remember it took me only a few days to get a booking.

Finding Students on Preply

To start, you need to create your profile. Choose the subject you want to teach, upload a high-quality photo, list the languages you speak, write a description of yourself and your teaching experience, upload a video, and set your hourly rate.

You can also upload your diplomas, and certificates, and add work experience, but these are optional, if you don’t have them, don’t worry. 

When it comes to the subject, for the time being, you can choose only one subject and there is no option to add more.

However, there is a work around it. If you want to teach more than 1 subject, specify it in your profile description.

Setting Your Availability

You’ll need to specify your availability. Depending on your time zone, Preply will highlight for you the hours from least to most popular for bookings.

Also, time zones adjust automatically, so students book lessons in their time zone, which converts to yours. 

Don’t worry they will not be able to book outside of your availability or hours blocked by other bookings or time off.

You can also sync your Preply calendar with your Google calendar so all the bookings will match in both.

Now, mind it in here because Preply’s algorithm favors tutors with higher availability, ratings, etc. and it is advisable for Preply to have at least 30 hours a week.

But don’t go crazy about it, some tutors set their availability 24/7. A sure way to not respond on time, accidentally skip a lesson, get your profile hidden, and be constantly stressed.

Set the time frames, you are sure you will be available to work. 

Setting your rate 

Another thing that will affect finding students is the hourly rate. Of course, tutors set different rates according to the subject, specialization, experience, and self-evaluation. 

Some tutors charge as low as 3$ per lesson, but come on, don’t undervalue yourself.

It is normal to charge it if you are focused on a specific country, where your audience will not be able to pay more, as for them it is already a high price. 

Other tutors set prices as high as around 100$. However, the average rate of tutors starts from 10$ to 40$ per 50-minute lesson.

You can, obviously increase your rate at any time, but your existing students will continue to be charged the old price. Unless you formally agree with each student on the new price and then manually change it.

Preply Commission

When setting your rate consider that Preply charges a commission. The commission is progressive, meaning the more lessons you teach the lower it gets.

Initially, it’s 33%, but this reduces as you accumulate more teaching hours, down to 18% in perpetuity once you reach 400 lessons. 

Though 400 lessons sound like a lot, you will easily reach it. Even working 30 hours a week will take a little more than 3 months. 

Note that the commission for the trial lesson, which is the first lesson a student book with you, is 100%.

You won’t be paid for the trial lesson, and it can affect your profile position as it counts towards post-trial subscription rates. Make sure to make your trial lesson stand out. 

Becoming a Super Tutor

Now what also influences finding your students is a Super Tutor badge. The algorithm will display you at the top of the search when you earn it and you have additional benefits like teaching corporate students. 

The Super Tutor badge requires you to fulfill a set of relatively easy conditions, the data is based on the past 90 days and is reviewed monthly. 

Teaching on Preply

Preply offers a built-in video classroom, which can be very buggy sometimes, and not many students like it due to its complexity. But you are free to use other platforms with your students.

However, you’d prefer to use the internal platform for screenshots like your student didn’t attend a lesson or to confirm that you were in the classroom for 15 minutes and your student didn’t appear.

That’s in case your student decides to join a class 20 minutes later and complains you were not there. 

Lesson plans and material

Normally lessons including trial last for 50 minutes. That is done for tutors to have a break before the next lesson.

Before lessons lasted for 60 minutes which frequently led to tutors not having breaks for long periods. 

Preply provides you with lesson plans and lesson materials for different levels and student categories.

I like to prepare lesson plans for my students and choose the materials myself, I find Preply lessons quite good for the beginning.

Tech Support

Preply has very nice client support and they have always been very friendly and try to resolve any issue of mine immediately.

Also, their bot which picks up your request before the agent is very helpful and most of the time can handle it for you.

Receiving payments

When it comes to lessons other than trial, a student will be charged after each lesson once he confirms it, and you will see the payment immediately. 

One downside of the platform is that the payment is in USD currency only, therefore if you are not a US resident, expect conversions. You cannot change the currency. 

Experience withdrawing money from Preply

So far, I haven’t had any issues to withdraw money from Preply. You can withdraw funds at any time, but the minimum withdrawal should be 10$.

Though Preply doesn’t support direct bank withdrawals, you can still use other effective methods like PayPal, Wise, Payoneer, and Skrill. 

My favorite method is Wise, as it charges less commission, and you can easily convert to any other currency within the app and pay with the card you get from Wise upon registration. 

Usually, funds arrive within a day or two, though it says up to 7 days. If you withdraw on Friday afternoon, an upcoming weekend can delay the process.

My second favorite option is PayPal. PayPal is fast but comes with higher fees and less favorable conversion rates.

Overall, my experience as a tutor with Preply has been great.

While I’m not fond of the trial lesson policy or the commission rates, the benefits—such as working remotely, setting my schedule, and the supportive platform—far outweigh the drawbacks. 

Hopefully, my experience and insights have been helpful to you.

I am about to launch a course, specifically designed for new and existing tutors, where I'll share my 12 years of teaching experience, best practices, how to create a winner profile on a platform, and everything you need to become a successful tutor. You can learn more about the course and join the waiting list on our homepage.