Preply is an online learning and teaching platform that connects students to tutors from all over the world. The subjects covered by the platform have been expanded from only Languages and College subjects to programming languages, Graphic Design and… wait, Dota 2?
I am not joking: there is a Dota 2 option in the subjects section, but unfortunately no tutors have yet been shown.
FYI: Dota 2 is an online competitive video game.
The idea behind the platform is simple yet very promising: you can create an account, choose your schedule and price, and wait for students to book lessons with you.
But is it really that easy? In this article I’ll share with you my opinion on Preply as a tutor with over 1000 hours done in 3 years. I’ll cover Preply’s business and commission model, pros and cons of the website, and the overall usability of the platform. Either you are just starting teaching online, or you are an experienced teacher searching for another platform, I hope you will find what you’re looking for in this article!
Preply Explained: Commissions, Subscriptions, and More
When you join Preply, the platform is quite clear to you about how it works and how it makes money out of you: commissions.
Each lesson that you are going to do, they get a cut out of it, and give the rest to you.
Commissions percentages are quite wild but will get lower the more hours you teach. Let’s make a table with an example set at 20$/hour to be as clear as possible:
| Hours Taught | Price per hour | Commission | Actual Income |
| 0 – 20 hours | 20$ | 33% | 13.40 $ |
| 21 – 50 hours | 20$ | 28% | 14.40 $ |
| 51 – 200 hours | 20$ | 25% | 15.00 $ |
| 201 – 400 hours | 20$ | 22% | 15.60 $ |
| 400+ hours | 20$ | 18% | 16.40 $ |
You start out with 1/3 of your profit taken by the platform. That is quite a bit.
Another thing to keep in mind is that, as stated by Jean from Preply, the platform keeps 100% of the commission of the first lesson with every new student (also called trial lesson). Lately, Preply has had several promotions offering trial lessons to students for free, so I would think about it as an opportunity for the tutor AND the platform to find a new student. If a trial lesson goes well, you can count on having a steady stream of income from the new student, so I would consider it worth it in the end.
Preply’s Changes for Students: from Bundle to Subscription Plans
There have been changes in these years, especially in the way students can buy new hours. Before, students had the opportunity to buy a number of hours from tutors, but now Preply changed to a subscription method, where students will buy several spots in the tutor’s weekly schedule.
While this helps tutors to obtain a steadier schedule, it can scare off a lot of people that want to try one or two more lessons before committing to a weekly plan.
I also understand that people committing to this model from the get-go are statistically more prone to use the platform more regularly, thus more money… but not for everyone.
Preply’s Cancellation Policy and How It Protects Tutors
Students may cancel a lesson because of personal reasons, and they may have no time to reschedule it in the week. They will nonetheless pay full price for their subscription, but it is not the tutor that will receive the money from this, but the platform itself.
The tutor is still defended by Preply’s cancellation policy, which states that students canceling a lesson up to 12 hours prior to the lesson time and date will pay the lesson in full to the tutor. The tutor can also choose to accommodate the student and not let them pay, if they wish to.
While I always followed the policy strictly, even because it’s a benefit from paying Preply’s commission, I have allowed exceptions to student with a clear medical reason for not attending.
This policy was recently updated to 12 hours, while before it was 4 hours only. This was a huge deal for tutors because it made their life and schedule incredibly better.
Preply gets their commission from a canceled lesson like a regular lesson, but it’s great, nonetheless.
Platform Usability and Resources for Tutors
The platform has evolved drastically since its inception in 2013 and has recently updated its graphics to a bolder but minimal style.
From the platform itself you now can manage your calendar, which already automatically updates each time a student schedules a new lesson, and you have a dedicated video-call application with which you can chat, share your screen, access a whiteboard, and take notes with your students.
I remember that when I started, the videocall part was recently release, and it was incredibly unstable. Now it is great most of the time, also quite intuitive. You even have the option to use AI to create assignments, and THAT was a game changer. I wish AI came sooner in my life as a teacher, not going to lie.
The website also offers tutors an “Academy” section, with an incredible number of tutorials and recurrent webinars covering topics like how to get started on the platform, to ways to increase your chances of getting new students. The remarkable thing about the “Academy” section is that they conducted paid usability tests with actual tutors from the platform (I happened to be one of them) to make this section better, and I really liked to see some of my ideas implemented in there!
My Personal Experience with Preply Support
What if you have trouble with something and want to talk with someone from Preply about it? If you are a student on the platform, you are good to go: customer support is going to be fast as lightning to keep your learning process as smooth as possible.
If you are a tutor, you are going to wait 2 to 3 days if you are lucky. In the years, I happened to struggle with their customer support over the stability of the platform’s connectivity and lost quite the number of lessons and money in the process. Connectivity issues are now mostly a problem of the past, but customer service times are the same up to present days.
The Verdict: Is Preply Right for You?
Teaching on Preply depends entirely on your attitude about it: if you don’t like a platform getting a commission on each lesson you teach, than you may want to switch to growing your teaching business on your own through marketing and social media: that raises another set of problems, but can be much more profitable in the long run if you know what you are doing.
From a teacher who has done both, let me tell you: that commission is well spent. I do not have enough time to manage dealing through chats and mails day and night to book or cancel lessons, and there is no Preply’s cancellation policy watching your back: people are going to cancel, and they are not going to pay. I also hate social media with all my heart; therefore, I lack any will for the required hustle to market myself. With Preply, the only thing that I need to do is to wake up and check my google calendar to see my schedule.
But do not ever think that once you are in Preply, you are going to make a salary out of it from the start. You will have to grind to get good reviews, and you will start making just a couple of dollars per hour to stay competitive with the other hundreds or thousands tutors in the same subject as yours. That can be quite challenging, considering that tutors come from different economic backgrounds, and will settle for as low as 3$/hour.
Conclusion
That’s it for now!
I hope you enjoyed this article, I tried to be as honest as possible and hopefully helped you learn a thing or two before considering Preply as a platform to teach.
If you want to succeed as a tutor in Preply, stay tuned for a tutoring guide I will post in the upcoming days!
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