Short answer
Most large online tutoring marketplaces take between 15% and 33% of each lesson. Several use a sliding scale that starts high and falls as the tutor accumulates teaching hours, so the advertised "as low as" rate is usually not the rate a new tutor pays. Some also charge full commission on introductory or trial lessons.
Commission is how nearly every online tutoring marketplace makes money: the platform takes a percentage of each lesson and pays the tutor the rest.
The number matters more than almost anything else in the tutor's economics, and it is the number platforms present least clearly.
The three structures you will meet
Flat commission. One percentage per plan, the same on every lesson, rather than a rate that decays with hours taught. Easy to check and easy to forecast. TutorBoost uses this, at 20% on its free plan and 10% on Pro.
Sliding commission. The rate starts high and falls as you accumulate taught hours on the platform. Preply is the best-known example: 33% at the start, 28% after 20 hours taught, and 18% only after 400 hours.
Subscription plus fee. A monthly charge for the listing, sometimes with a smaller per-lesson percentage on top.
Why a sliding scale is worth more to the platform than it looks
Two things happen under a decaying rate, and both favour the platform.
The first is arithmetic: you pay the highest rate during the period when you are earning least, and the discount arrives only after you have already handed over a great deal.
The second is lock-in, and it is the real product. Hours accumulated on one platform are worth nothing anywhere else. A tutor 300 hours into a 400-hour schedule has a concrete reason not to leave - one that grows the longer they stay. The falling rate is not only a discount, it is a switching cost the tutor builds for the platform out of their own labour.
What to check before you sign up
- The rate on your first lesson, not the "as low as" figure in the marketing.
- What it takes to reach the best rate, in hours, and what that is in months at your realistic load.
- Whether there is a floor, and what it is. A schedule that stops at 18% never reaches zero.
- What happens on trial or introductory lessons. This is where the worst rates hide - 100% is not unusual.
- Whether the rate can be changed, and with how much notice.
- Payout costs. A low commission with an expensive withdrawal is not a low commission.
The honest counter-argument
A high commission on a platform that brings you students can beat a low commission on one that does not. The percentage is only half the equation; the other half is whether anyone is searching. A new marketplace offering an excellent rate is offering you a share of demand it may not yet have.
Both numbers are worth asking about, and a platform that will tell you the first but not the second has told you something.
Last reviewed .