One of the biggest struggles facing online tutors and teachers is knowing how much you should charge potential online students. Tutors will first need to establish what services they are offering online students before deciding how much their hourly rate is to be.

In this blog post, I will share some key points that you need to consider when charging students and how best to get paid for the online lessons that you are offering potential online learners.

Typical Online Tutoring Rates

One aspect that you need to consider, regardless the service or business, is determining who your target student that you envisage would be booking online lessons with you. For example, if you are offering English for business communication, then you are likely to charge more than general English. So, I would recommend that you review the niche that you wish to focus on with your online tutoring.

Another factor that you will have to consider when determining your hourly online tutoring rate is the experience that you have as an online tutor. Obviously, if you are a new tutor, I would suggest that you start at the lower rate. However, if you have a number of years experience as a tutor, then the rate would naturally be more. Here is a breakdown of the hourly rates in US Dollars that you could offer potential online students.

  • New Online Tutor: $15.00 – $20.00
  • 1-2 Years Experience: $25.00 – $30.00
  • Specialist Teaching (i.e. exam preparation, business communication, etc.): $35.00 – $40.00

All these suggested hourly rates above for online teaching is quite generic but you may need to also consider whether you have any recognised teaching qualifications that could also contribute. If you have a CELTA, an MA, or even an online teaching qualification, then all these would help boost your potential earnings.

One thing that you could do to see whether your rate is competitive enough based upon your background, qualifications, and experience is to do a little research and it is easier than you think.

Establishing Your Hourly Rate

The simplest market research any budding online teachers could do, regardless the target language, is to make a note of any publically available information. Thankfully, Preply promotes teachers on their platform and you are able to see how much online tutors are charging per hour. On top of that, profiles on Preply would include tutors’ headline, biography, experience, qualifications, as well as reviews.

Once you have found a profile that is broadly similar to you and based in the same country, you would be able to determine a rate for your services which are competitive and possibly attractive for potential online students. For example, I have searched on Preply for online IELTS tutors from the UK, with a similar background to mine and I discovered a tutor who holds an MA, has just over 20 years experience and is charging $50 per hour for their online lessons. Thus, I would market myself for a similar price per hour and write up a similar headline for my profile.

What you could do now then is look at profiles of teachers on Preply, make a note of the key information which is similar to your background and experience to teaching, and then decide on a competitive hourly rate.

Offering Packages for Online Students

The next step in deciding your hourly rate is to offer packages for potential online students. Rather than charging $40.00 per lesson, I would suggest that you decide on offering a block of lessons and the more lessons that students book, the greater the discount. So for example, you could consider the following:

  • 5 Lessons at $40.00 per hour: $175.00 (saving $25.00)
  • 10 Lessons at $40.00 per hour: $325.00 (saving $75.00)
  • 20 Lessons at $40.00 per hour: $600.00 (saving $200.00)

Essentially, you will need to decide how much you wish to charge and the offers that you wish to charge for packages. Work with what you wish to charge and then offer a reason for your online students to book more lessons. This will give them opportunity to have students having lessons over a longer period. Furthermore, Preply do not necessarily offer packages for students as they end up charging for the number of lessons every 28 days, adding in an administrative fee wrapped up as an EU VAT charge, and encouraging less loyalty to particular students. This would offer a more viable alternative to possible online learners for your own independent tutoring business.

Finally, you could consider offering a free lesson to any current students who recommend new learners with you. Explain that they may have a free lesson if they recommend you to another potential student but I would urge readers to consider the implications for this. Would you be providing free lessons to current students if they get new learners signing up for your services or would you limit to a select few? However, you could consider whether to give a further discount on a student’s next booking of packages if their recommendation leads to a successful new student sign up.

Charging Your Online Students

The final part of this guide is that you need to consider how students are to pay for your lessons. What I would recommend is that you consider signing up to either PayPal or Wise so that you can then raise invoices or payment requests to your students. It is relatively simple to do with either platform and then you can share the link via email.

Personally, I prefer Wise as their rates for sending or receiving payment is lower compared to PayPal. Furthermore, Wise is accessible in over 140 countries whereas PayPal is limited to over 100 countries. There is more information about Wise vs PayPal in the following article. You can also register with Wise and start connecting your bank account it.

What I would also recommend is to keep a spreadsheet of who you have charged, the number of lessons that they have taken, along with times and dates, as well as personal information. Keep this to hand as it will help you to avoid any potential issues when students are claiming that they have only had 4 lessons and not their full 5 lessons.

Additional Advice

I would always advise online tutors to register with an accountant if they are unfamiliar with paying tax on their freelance earnings, otherwise you may get a surprise when the tax man comes knocking. However, I would recommend online tutors to make a voluntary payment for your income tax (or National Insurance for those based in the UK). You may discover that your freelance and online tutoring could be below the threshold for tax on earnings and you may receive a remittance.

There are obviously some costs that you could write against your earnings as an independent online tutor which may or may not include (depending upon the country you are resident) computer equipment, mobile phone cost, internet, a percentage of your utilities (i.e., electricity, gas, or water) as well as a range of other aspects. However, always consult with an accountant when deciding what to offset your earnings against to see if it is actually possible.

Finally, I would suggest online tutors keep records of any invoices or monies received, as well as any potential costs that are directly related to your own online tutoring business. All this will make things a lot simpler to share should the tax office require it and should also make calculating your tax liability.

It would be interesting to hear from those that are currently teaching online and how they have decided on the rate that they are charging. Furthermore, if you are offering group lessons, what do you think might be best when charging groups of students?