Everyone knows marketplaces take a commission. It's baked into the small print, mentioned briefly during onboarding, and then quietly ignored while you get on with teaching. The cut feels abstract — until you do the maths.
Most tutors on Preply and iTalki have never actually sat down and calculated what they hand over to the platform in a year. Not because they're bad with numbers. Because the number, when you see it written down, is genuinely uncomfortable.
This post is about making that number impossible to ignore. We're going to run through the real commission structures, build out a proper year-one and year-three comparison, and figure out exactly when marketplace teaching makes sense — and when it's costing you more than your rent.
Buckle up. This is the maths nobody wants to do. But it's the maths every tutor should.
Preply's Commission Structure (The Actual Numbers)
Preply uses a sliding scale commission model. Your commission rate starts high and decreases as you accumulate teaching hours on the platform. Here's how it works:
| Hours Taught on Preply | Commission Rate | Your Take |
|---|---|---|
| 0 – 199 hrs | 33% | 67% |
| 200 – 399 hrs | 27% | 73% |
| 400 – 799 hrs | 22% | 78% |
| 800+ hrs | 18% | 82% |
So you start by giving Preply a third of every lesson. A full third. If you charge $25/hour, $8.25 goes straight to Preply before you've made a cup of tea.
The commission structure is publicly available on Preply's website — they're transparent about it, which is fair. What they're less vocal about is how long it takes most tutors to reach the lower tiers.
To get to 27% commission, you need 200 hours taught. At 20 hours per month, that's ten months. And during those ten months, you're paying 33 cents on every dollar.
To reach 22%, you need 400 hours — nearly two years of 20 hours/month teaching.
The coveted 18%? 800 hours. That's three years and four months at 20 hours per month. The carrot exists. It just takes a while to reach.
Here's the quiet truth: most Preply tutors never meaningfully escape the 27% tier. Many churn before they get there. Many reduce their hours. Some find students elsewhere. Preply's bottom rate of 18% is real — but statistically, it applies to a small fraction of their active tutor base.
iTalki's Commission Structure
iTalki's model is simpler, and lower. They charge:
- **15%** for Community Tutors
- **20%** for Professional Tutors (who have verified teaching credentials)
That's it. No sliding scale, no 800-hour grind. Every session, the same rate.
The distinction between Community Tutor and Professional Tutor is iTalki's own classification — Professional Tutors pay more for the credential badge. Which is a bit ironic, but there it is.
At 15%, iTalki is meaningfully cheaper than Preply's starting rate (33%) and still cheaper than Preply's 800-hour rate (18%). If you're going to teach on a marketplace, iTalki's commission structure is less punishing.
That said, the platforms are different in character. Preply is more corporate-client focused with subscription students; iTalki is more of a global open marketplace. Both take their cut. One takes considerably more.
The Year 1 Maths
Let's get specific. Assume a tutor teaching 20 hours per month at $25/hour. That's $500 gross revenue per month, $6,000 per year. Not a full-time income, but a solid side income — or the start of something bigger.
Here's what each platform actually pays out in Year 1:
| Preply (33%) | iTalki — Community (15%) | Independent + Tuton ($29/mo) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly gross | $500 | $500 | $500 |
| Platform cut | $165 | $75 | $0 |
| Platform fee | — | — | $29 |
| Monthly net | $335 | $425 | $471 |
| **Annual gross** | **$6,000** | **$6,000** | **$6,000** |
| **Annual platform cost** | **$1,980** | **$900** | **$348** |
| **Annual net** | **$4,020** | **$5,100** | **$5,652** |
Preply costs you $1,980 per year on this scenario. Nearly two grand for the privilege of using their platform.
iTalki is better — $900/year. Still real money, but not eye-watering.
Independent with Tuton? $348/year — that's just the $29/month subscription. Nothing else. You keep everything you charge.
The difference between Preply and independent: $1,632 per year. On a modest 20-hour teaching load. That's a flight somewhere. A good laptop upgrade. Or just… money you actually earned.
The Year 3 Maths
Three years in. You've been grinding on Preply. Accumulated hours. Things get better, right?
Let's be generous. Assume you hit 200 hours in Year 1 (you probably didn't, but let's say you did — maybe you taught more hours early on). By Year 2, you're at 27%. By Year 3, you've crossed 400 hours and dropped to 22%.
Here's the three-year comparison:
| Preply (mixed tiers) | iTalki (15%) | Independent + Tuton | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 net | $4,020 (33%) | $5,100 | $5,652 |
| Year 2 net | $4,380 (27%) | $5,100 | $5,652 |
| Year 3 net | $4,680 (22%) | $5,100 | $5,652 |
| **3-Year Total Net** | **$13,080** | **$15,300** | **$16,956** |
| **3-Year Lost vs Independent** | **$3,876** | **$1,656** | — |
Even at 22% — having taught 400+ hours and hit a tier most tutors never reach — Preply is still costing you nearly $4,000 over three years compared to going independent.
And the 18% tier? That requires 800 hours. At our 20 hours/month pace, you'd reach it midway through Year 4. By which point you've already handed Preply roughly $5,000 more than you'd have paid running independently.
The math does not get friendlier over time. It just gets less catastrophic.
The Non-Commission Costs Nobody Talks About
The commission is the obvious cost. But there's a cluster of invisible costs that marketplace tutors absorb without realising it.
The race to the bottom on pricing. On any marketplace, you're listed alongside hundreds of other tutors. Students filter by price. There's constant pressure to keep rates competitive — meaning low. On Preply, you can see what other tutors charge. If you price above the median, you get fewer enquiries. Marketplaces structurally depress your hourly rate. That $25/hour might be $35/hour if you weren't on a platform.
No upsell, no packages, no bundles. On Preply, you sell hours. That's it. You can't offer a 10-lesson grammar intensive. You can't create a conversation practice bundle. You can't sell a pronunciation course alongside your lessons. The platform determines your product catalogue: one lesson at a time, at whatever rate you set. The ability to sell packages and courses is one of the highest-margin moves a tutor can make — and marketplaces remove it from you entirely.
You don't own your students. This is the one that hurts most. A student you've taught for two years on Preply is not your student. They are Preply's student. You cannot email them. You cannot message them outside the platform. You cannot give them your number, invite them to your newsletter, or maintain any contact if they leave the app. If Preply shuts down tomorrow, that entire relationship history disappears. Your client list — which should be a professional asset you build over years — is owned by someone else.
Deactivation risk. Marketplace accounts get suspended. It happens. Tutors report being locked out with no warning, no clear reason, and no meaningful appeals process. If your income depends on a marketplace account, it depends on the platform not deciding to deactivate you. That's a risk with no premium, no notice period, and no exit package.
These aren't theoretical concerns. They're the texture of marketplace dependency. They don't show up in the commission calculations, but they compound the financial cost with something harder to quantify: a ceiling on your professional growth.
When Does the Commission Actually Make Sense?
Here's the honest answer, because this isn't a hit piece.
If you're a new tutor with zero students, no online presence, and no idea how to find clients — a marketplace is a reasonable starting point. You're essentially buying student supply. Preply and iTalki spend significant money on marketing and SEO to attract students. That infrastructure has value when you have nothing.
The commission, in those early months, is the price of a lead generation service. If you're new, uncertain about your niche, and still figuring out your teaching style, paying 33% for a stream of ready-made students is defensible.
The problem isn't starting on a marketplace. The problem is staying there indefinitely — past the point where the commission is buying you anything you couldn't acquire yourself.
Once you have 10–15 regular students, a sense of your niche, and a basic understanding of how to retain clients, the marketplace is no longer a growth tool. It's a tax.
The Breakeven Point
How many students do you actually need before going independent makes financial sense?
Tuton costs $29/month. That's your total overhead as an independent tutor.
At $25/hour, a single student doing one lesson per week generates roughly $100/month in revenue. With a 33% Preply commission, that student is netting you $67/month. With Tuton ($29/mo, no commission), that same student nets you $71/month — even with the subscription cost.
With just two students, the comparison looks like this:
| Preply (33%) | Tuton ($29/mo) | |
|---|---|---|
| 2 students × 4 hrs/mo × $25 | $200 gross | $200 gross |
| Platform cost | $66 | $29 |
| Net | **$134/month** | **$171/month** |
Two students. Two regular weekly lessons. And Tuton already wins.
At five students, you're pocketing roughly $185 more per month going independent. At ten students — $370 more per month. Per year, that's $4,440 you're not giving to a marketplace.
The breakeven isn't some distant milestone. It's reachable almost immediately for any tutor with a handful of regulars.
The Bottom Line
Marketplaces are a starting point, not a destination. They're scaffolding — useful while you're building, expensive once you're standing.
The numbers in this post aren't cherry-picked edge cases. They're conservative assumptions on a modest teaching load. And they show clearly that for any tutor with regular students, marketplace commissions are the single biggest drag on earnings — larger than taxes in many jurisdictions.
Preply isn't a scam. iTalki isn't a villain. They provide a service, and that service has a price. The question is whether you're still getting value for that price — or just paying out of habit.
If you have students, a teaching style that works, and any ambition to grow beyond selling hours one at a time: the maths points one way.
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Keep what you earn. You taught for it.