Let's talk about the number you typed into your profile and immediately felt a little sick about. Too high? Too low? Did you Google "how much do tutors charge" and then pick something that felt vaguely inoffensive? Yeah. Most tutors do this. It's not a strategy — it's a guess with anxiety baked in.
Here's the good news: pricing is a skill, and you can learn it. Here's the bad news: you're almost certainly undercharging, and this post is going to make that uncomfortable before it makes it fixable.
Worth it. Let's go.
Why Tutors Undercharge
The reasons tutors set low rates have almost nothing to do with market forces. They're psychological. And they're embarrassingly universal.
Imposter syndrome is doing most of the damage. You've got years of teaching experience, real qualifications, and a track record of students actually improving — but $55/hr still feels like you're being cheeky. So you charge $30. You tell yourself it's competitive. It's not competitive. It's the price of self-doubt, and your students are getting a bargain they don't deserve.
Marketplaces trained you to race to the bottom. If you've ever listed on a tutoring platform, you've seen it: profile after profile, sorted by cheapest. Someone's charging $8/hr. Someone else just undercut them at $7.50. Congratulations, you're now competing with a person who needs to teach 400 hours a month to pay rent. These platforms are not your peers. They're a trap. Get out (or at minimum, stop letting them set your mental anchor for what's "normal").
You're pricing for your hometown, not your market. Your cost of living is yours. Your student in Singapore or Zurich doesn't know or care what things cost where you live. Online tutoring is a global market, and global rates are considerably more interesting than local ones.
The bottom line: you set your rate based on what felt safe, not what the market would pay. Time to fix that.
What the Market Actually Pays
Here's a reality check, based on what independent (not marketplace) tutors actually charge for online English lessons:
| Niche | Typical Hourly Rate |
|---|---|
| General English — beginner/intermediate | $20–$35/hr |
| Conversation practice | $25–$45/hr |
| Academic English / essay coaching | $35–$55/hr |
| IELTS / TOEFL exam prep | $45–$75/hr |
| Business English | $50–$80/hr |
| English for specific industries (legal, medical, tech) | $60–$100/hr |
| Young learners (ages 5–12) | $30–$55/hr |
If you're sitting at the bottom of one of these ranges — or below it — ask yourself what's actually keeping you there. Because "I'm not experienced enough" is rarely the real answer. It's usually "I never tested anything higher."
A quick note on these numbers: the upper end of each range isn't reserved for tutors with PhDs and 20 years of experience. It's for tutors who have niched down, positioned well, and stopped apologizing for existing.
How to Calculate Your Minimum Rate
Here's a radical idea: instead of picking a number that feels okay, do math.
The formula:
> Minimum hourly rate = (Desired monthly income + monthly overhead) ÷ billable hours per month
Let's run it:
- Desired monthly take-home: $3,000
- Monthly overhead (subscriptions, equipment, internet, materials): $150
- Payment/platform fees (~3%): $95
- Total you need to gross: $3,245
- Realistic billable teaching hours (5 lessons/day × 4 days × 4 weeks): 80 hours
Your minimum: $3,245 ÷ 80 = ~$40.50/hr
That's the floor. Not a great rate — just the rate at which you don't go backwards. Now add:
- Experience premium (3+ years): +$5–10
- Niche premium (exam prep, Business English): +$10–20
- Professionalism premium (structured lessons, clean invoicing, proper platform): +$5–10
Your real target rate is somewhere above $40.50. If yours is currently below $40.50, you now know why the numbers never quite work out.
The "billable hours" trap
Here's where tutors fool themselves: you're not working 80 hours of lessons. You're also prepping materials, chasing invoices, shuffling your calendar, answering WhatsApp messages at 11pm, and doing all the invisible admin that quietly eats 30–40% of your working week.
If you're spending 10 hours a day working but only teaching 5, your real effective rate is half what you think. Cutting admin time — with better tools — directly improves your hourly rate without changing what you charge.
How to Raise Your Rates Without Losing Students
Good news: the fear of raising rates is significantly worse than the reality. Here's what actually works.
Start with new students. Your existing students don't need a memo. Just quote new enquiries at your new rate — today, right now, before you finish reading this. Most tutors discover that new students at a higher rate arrive faster than expected. The rate filter you thought was there mostly isn't.
Grandfather your existing students — temporarily. Tell your long-term students their rate is locked in for the next 3–6 months. After that, everyone moves to the new rate. This is professional, it's fair, and it's how real service businesses handle pricing changes.
Frame it like a person, not a corporation. You don't need a three-paragraph disclaimer. Something like: "I'm updating my rates starting [date]. Your current rate stays the same until [date] — after that it moves to [new rate]. I've loved working with you and I'm looking forward to continuing." Send it. Don't elaborate. Don't apologise. Done.
Raise gradually if that feels better. Going from $25 to $65 overnight is a bit of a shock. Going from $25 → $35 → $45 → $55 over a year is barely noticeable, and by the end you've more than doubled your income without a single dramatic conversation.
Expect some attrition. Do the math anyway. If you raise your rate by $10 and one student out of ten leaves, you've probably broken even or come out ahead. Two new students at your new rate replaces three students at your old rate. The math almost always works in your favour.
Premium Niches That Command Higher Rates
The fastest way to earn more without working more hours is to specialise. Here are the niches where tutors consistently charge premium rates — and why:
Business English is probably the highest-value niche available to most English tutors. Professionals need English for meetings, emails, presentations, negotiations. Their employers often pay for it. They're outcome-focused and results-oriented. A Business English student who improves their performance at work doesn't think twice about paying $70/hr. It's cheaper than the alternative.
Exam prep (IELTS, TOEFL, Cambridge) commands serious rates because students have a specific goal, a deadline, and real stakes. Score improvements are measurable. If you have a track record of results, you can charge considerably more than a general tutor — and students will prioritise you over cheaper alternatives because the cost of failure is higher than the cost of a good tutor.
Young learners (ages 5–12) is a stable, sticky niche where parents — not students — make the purchasing decision. Parents of young children treat English lessons as educational investment, not personal expense. They pay more, they stay longer, and if you're good, they refer their entire parent WhatsApp group to you.
English for specific industries (legal, medical, tech, finance) is low-competition, high-pay, and genuinely interesting. A lawyer who needs to draft contracts in English or argue cases before an international tribunal will pay $80–$100/hr without blinking. The niche is small but the willingness to pay is extraordinary.
Academic writing and university prep is in strong demand from international students applying to English-language institutions. It's intensive, time-limited, and high-value — exactly the combination that justifies premium pricing.
Why Your Tools Affect Your Rates
This one surprises people, but it's real: the tools you use signal your professionalism, and your professionalism is a pricing signal.
Picture two tutors. Same qualifications. Same years of experience. Same outcomes for students.
Tutor A takes bookings via WhatsApp, collects payment through PayPal with a message that says "please send £30," teaches over a generic Zoom call with no structure, and tracks student progress in a notebook they've definitely lost twice.
Tutor B has a proper booking page where students can see availability, book, and get automatic reminders. Lessons happen in a dedicated classroom. After each session, a clean invoice arrives. Student vocabulary progress is tracked. Everything feels deliberate.
Who charges $30/hr? Who charges $65/hr?
The content of the lessons might be identical. But one of these tutors is operating like a freelancer with a side hustle, and the other is operating like a professional. Students perceive the difference immediately — even if they can't articulate why — and they price accordingly in their heads.
This is one of the under-discussed reasons why tutors who invest in proper infrastructure tend to both charge more and retain students longer. It's not just convenience. It's positioning. A clean invoice doesn't just help with accounting. It tells the student: this is a real business, and I'm paying a professional.
Platforms like Tuton are built for exactly this. Instead of Frankenstein-ing together Zoom + Calendly + Stripe + a spreadsheet, you get a Video Classroom, AI Teaching Assistant, Student CRM, Vocabulary Tracking, Invoicing, Scheduling, and a public tutor profile — in one place, built for language tutors. The result doesn't just feel more professional. It is more professional.
You've Earned the Right to Charge More
Setting your rate isn't a personality test. It's arithmetic plus positioning plus a bit of courage.
Most tutors undercharge because they've never done the math, haven't picked a niche, and haven't built the kind of professional presence that makes higher rates feel natural to students. Fix those three things and the rate will follow.
If you're ready to stop looking like a side hustle and start looking like the professional you actually are, Tuton is built for that. From your first booking to your hundredth invoice — one platform, no duct tape.