Tutor HuntBlog

How much should I charge for tutoring?

Tuition
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One of the most common questions we get asked by new tutors is how much should they be charging their students. The answer we always give is a simple one: the tutor should decide how much they think their time is worth, and also attempt to remain financially competitive.

Your time is of course valuable, and your erudition should command a high price - but you will need to make sure you don`t price yourself out of the market. Many parents and students looking to book a tutor will be on a limited budget, and when selecting a suitable teacher on our site they will make a decision in part based on their hourly rate.

If you have recently signed up with us and are trying to decide what to charge, your fist step should be to ascertain the average hourly rate for the subjects you are offering to teach. This can easily be achieved by navigating to the Tutor Hunt homepage, selecting the subject and level you yourself offer, and clicking the green search button. This will effectively display a list of your `competitors,` those tutors offering the same subject as you to potential clients.

The range of hourly rates on offer may be rather large, but after taking a little time to study some of the profiles, and read what experience and qualifications these tutors possess, you will come to  an understanding of what will be reasonable for you to charge. A basic rule of thumb is that tuition  in a GCSE subject typically costs around £25 - £30 an hour. For A-Level subjects the average hourly rate is around £10 an hour more.

If your subject is more specialised - perhaps on the fringes of the curriculum, such as philosophy or an ancient language - or if you are a teacher or professor offering help with degree, or obtaining a PostDoc working position, you will certainly be able to command higher rates. Once again you should check to see what other tutors are charging before making a decision.

A possible tactic here would be for you to undercut your competitors. By offering a rate below the average you will be more likely to secure bookings from parents and students. Most people will be looking for long term tuition, and if you can entice customers in at a lower rate, you may be able to secure a more lucrative arrangement. Ongoing tuition will also enable you to provide more help to your student, guiding them from the basics, to more advanced concepts.

Online tuition has become increasingly popular over the last few years, and there are no signs that demand will taper off. The advantages offered by online tuition have helped boost the whole industry, and with no travel constraints, tutors and students from around the world are able to connect. Should there be a price difference between online and face to face tuition? At the moment there seems to be no general consensus, no definitive trend for one form of tuition to cost more than the other. Naturally some subjects offer themselves better to an online format than others, so you should bear this in mind - it may be harder to teach subjects like dance or drama through an online medium, and so prices may have to reflect this. Generally though the hourly rates for online and face to face tuition are roughly the same.

The bottom line is that you should pick an hourly rate that you are happy with. Your time is valuable, and the knowledge you will be imparting has been acquired by through much time and effort. If you charge too little you may well be inundated with requests for teaching, but may become disgruntled and fatigued by the work. Tuition is not a sinecure - it is a demanding occupation, with each lesson requiring preparation. Unlike a schoolteacher, you will have no colleagues to offer support - though The Tutors` Association is an excellent resource for help - and you will be working alone. It is however hugely rewarding, and perhaps no other profession can install such a sense of accomplishment as when a student, through your guidance and their hard work, passes an exam or is granted a place at their university of choice.

2 years ago
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