Nobody told you that becoming a language tutor also meant becoming a small business owner. One day you're explaining the subjunctive, the next you're Googling "how to send an invoice" at 11pm while your student's payment sits unpaid in the void.
Welcome to the glamorous side of freelance tutoring. The side that involves spreadsheets, payment terms, and learning what "net 30" means (it means they plan to pay you in a month, and you should probably push back on that).
The good news: invoicing doesn't have to be painful. Once you have a system, it takes maybe five minutes per student per month — or less, if you use the right tools. This guide covers everything: what goes on an invoice, the best free and paid tools, and how to stop chasing late payments like you're their parent.
Do You Actually Need to Invoice?
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: especially yes.
If you're tutoring more than a handful of students, invoicing isn't optional — it's how you run a proper business. Here's why it matters:
- Tax records.** When tax season arrives, "I think I earned about £2,400 last year" won't cut it with your accountant (or HMRC, or the IRS). Invoices give you a clear paper trail of exactly what you earned, when, and from whom.
- Professionalism.** A proper invoice signals that you're a professional tutor, not someone doing a favour for a friend. Students take you more seriously, treat sessions more seriously, and — crucially — pay more reliably.
- Cashflow clarity.** When you have ten students at different rates, on different schedules, paying at different times, keeping track of who owes what gets messy fast. Invoices give you a clear record of what's outstanding.
- Students pay faster.** This one surprises people, but it's true. When someone receives a formal invoice — even a simple one — they're more likely to pay promptly than if you just mention "oh, that'll be £40" at the end of the lesson. The invoice makes it feel official and expected. Which it is.
If you're just doing the occasional favour session for a neighbour's kid, sure, skip it. But if tutoring is your income (or part of it), invoicing is non-negotiable.
What Goes on a Tutor Invoice
Good news: a tutor invoice doesn't need to be complicated. Here's what you need:
- Your details**
- Your name (or business name)
- Your email address
- Your location (city/country is fine — you don't need your home address)
- Student details**
- Their name
- Their email address
- Invoice specifics**
- Invoice number (even just #001 — helps with record-keeping)
- Invoice date
- Due date (e.g., "Due on receipt" or "Due within 7 days")
- Services provided**
- Description (e.g., "Spanish lessons — November 2025")
- Number of sessions × rate per session
- Subtotal (and tax if applicable)
- Total due
- Payment instructions**
- How you want to be paid (bank transfer, PayPal, Stripe, etc.)
- Account details or payment link
Here's what a simple example might look like:
| Invoice # | 0042 |
| Date | 1 November 2025 |
| Due | 8 November 2025 |
| Description | Sessions | Rate | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish lessons — October 2025 | 4 | £35/hr | £140.00 |
- Total due: £140.00**
- ayment by bank transfer. Sort code: XX-XX-XX, Account: XXXXXXXX*
Clean, professional, and leaves zero ambiguity. That's the goal.
Free Invoice Tools
If you're just starting out or working with a handful of students, there are solid free options available. Here's the honest breakdown:
- Wave (wave.com)**
- PayPal Invoicing**
- Google Docs / Sheets template**
- Summary:**
| Tool | Cost | Best for | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wave | Free | Serious freelancers | Slight learning curve |
| PayPal Invoicing | Free (fees on payment) | Students already on PayPal | 2.9% payment fee |
| Google Docs | Free | Occasional invoicing | Fully manual |
Paid Invoice Tools Worth Considering
If your tutoring business is growing and you want something more powerful, there are paid options that justify their cost — depending on your situation.
- FreshBooks ($17/mo and up)**
- QuickBooks ($30/mo and up)**
The honest take: both of these are solid tools. But they're built for general freelancers and small businesses, not specifically for tutors. Which brings us to the actual problem.
The Problem With Generic Invoice Tools
Here's what none of these tools do: they don't know anything about your students.
Every time you open Wave or FreshBooks to create an invoice, you're starting from scratch:
- Type in the student's name. Again.
- Type in their email. Again.
- Remember what rate you charge them (is María on the £35 plan or the £40 plan?).
- Count how many sessions you had this month (was it three or four? Let me check my calendar).
- Type in the description. Again.
- Calculate the total. Hope you got the maths right.
- Send it.
Then, next month: repeat. Every. Single. Time.
And this is the easy part. Now track who's actually paid. Which students have outstanding balances. Whether that payment from three weeks ago was for October or November. Whether you've sent a reminder to the student who always pays late (you know the one).
Generic invoicing tools are built for businesses that make widgets or do consulting projects. They're not built for the rhythm of tutoring — weekly sessions, monthly invoices, multiple students at varying rates, an ongoing relationship that blurs the line between "this month's invoice" and "total owed."
The result: you end up maintaining a separate spreadsheet alongside your invoicing tool. One for the invoices, one for tracking who paid, one for session counts. Three systems doing the job that one should do.
How to Get Paid Faster
Late payments are the tutoring equivalent of a student who always cancels last minute. Annoying, disruptive, and entirely preventable with the right policies. Here's what actually works:
Set payment terms upfront — in writing
Before you start with a new student, tell them exactly how invoicing works. When you send invoices (e.g., first of the month), when payment is due (e.g., within 7 days), and what happens if it's late. Put this in your welcome email or student agreement. When it's written down, there's no "oh, I didn't know it was due so soon."
Require payment before the next lesson
This is the most effective policy you can adopt. Once a student gets behind on payment, it tends to stay that way. A simple rule — "payment for the previous month is due before we continue lessons" — removes any ambiguity and gives you a natural, non-awkward enforcement moment.
Send invoices promptly
If you wait three weeks to send the invoice, you'll wait three more weeks to get paid. Invoice on the same day each month, ideally with an automatic payment reminder that follows up if the due date passes. Consistency makes payment feel like a normal part of the process, not an awkward request.
Have a follow-up template ready
When someone doesn't pay, you need to follow up. Having a pre-written message removes the friction and the awkwardness:
"Hi [Name], just a quick reminder that invoice #0042 for £140 is now overdue. Could you arrange payment by [date]? Let me know if you have any questions."
Firm, professional, not aggressive. Send it the day after the due date, not two weeks later.
Know when to cut ties
If a student is persistently late, routinely disputes amounts, or simply ignores your invoices — that's information. Your time is worth more than the stress of chasing unpaid lessons. Some students simply aren't worth keeping on your books, and recognising that early saves you a lot of frustration.
Integrated Invoicing — What It Actually Saves You
Here's the version of invoicing that most tutors don't know exists: invoicing that's connected to your students, your sessions, and your rates from the start.
When your invoicing tool knows who your students are, what rate you charge each of them, and how many sessions you've completed this month, creating an invoice goes from a 15-minute manual task to a 15-second one. Student name: already there. Sessions this month: pulled automatically. Rate: stored from when you set up the student. Total: calculated. Invoice: sent.
No spreadsheet cross-referencing. No "wait, did I log that Thursday session." No typing anyone's name into a blank template.
This is what Tuton does. Invoicing is built into the platform — not bolted on as an afterthought, but designed around the tutoring workflow from the ground up. When you complete a lesson with a student, the system knows. When you send an invoice at the end of the month, it already has everything it needs. Your student's name, the sessions, the rate, the total — all auto-populated, all accurate.
Tuton also handles your video lessons, scheduling, student CRM, vocabulary tracking, and an AI teaching assistant. All in one place, all connected. So when you go to invoice María for her four October sessions at £35 per session, you don't have to remember any of it — the platform already does.
The result is invoicing that takes seconds rather than minutes, with a much lower chance of mistakes, missed sessions, or forgotten follow-ups.
Stop Treating Invoicing Like a Chore
The tutors who dread invoicing are usually the ones doing it badly — manually, inconsistently, and with too many disconnected tools. When you have a proper system, it stops being a chore and becomes just another part of running your business. A small, easy, 30-second part.
Whether you're just getting started with a free Wave account or ready for something built specifically for tutors, the important thing is to have something that works — and to use it consistently.
If you want invoicing that actually understands your tutoring business, Tuton includes it as part of the full platform, alongside everything else you need to run professional language lessons. No manual entry. No spreadsheets. No chasing payments through a tool that was built for someone else.
Try Tuton free at tuton.io/register.