Blog ›

5 Tips to Being a Successful Online Tutor

If you are new to the online tutoring world, Helppo’s team has put together 5 tips to establish yourself and to have success. Whether you are a freelancer working with private students or collaborating with other tutoring companies and professionals, these tips will help you to set clear goals and expectations for your online tutoring business.

1 Tip #1: Don’t undervalue your time and expertise 2 Tip #2: Set policies and follow them 3 Tip #3 Say goodbye to free trials 4 Tip #4 Get paid in advance, when possible 5 Tip #5 Get creative and original with your tutoring content

Tip #1: Don’t undervalue your time and expertise

Online tutoring is a great job affording flexibility and you often get to teach subjects you love, but don’t undervalue your time and expertise. While it’s fun to meet people from all over the United States or even the world, your time is valuable. Make sure to set your rate based on the competitive landscape, but also don’t undervalue yourself and your time.

As you develop your skill set, you can increase your rate in small increments, but it’s tough to raise your rate significantly. So, make sure to set a rate that is in keeping with your expertise, the competition, and what your students can afford. Also, remember that you can help students off the clock once in a while or offer discounts, but don’t undervalue your time. It’s precious!

Tip #2: Set policies and follow them

Even if you are a freelance online tutor, you need to consider your cancellation, refund, payment, and discount policies. It’s common for the big guns in the tutoring industry to have strict policies and there is a reason for that. It helps set expectations and makes business management seamless.

Cancellation policies are one of the main areas of contention for online tutors and online tutoring businesses. Common cancellation policies include, full refund within 48 hours, 50% refund within 24 hours, or no refund at all within less than 24 hours. If you are a small business or freelancer tutor you might decide to allow students to have 1 to 2 last minute cancellations, if they have purchased a set number of classes in advance or are regular, loyal customers.

Regardless of your policies, you must make these crystal clear on your website and remind students or parents about these policies upon payment for services. On Helppo, you can clearly establish your policies and also get automated notifications to remind students and tutors about their classes and courses.

#3 Say goodbye to free trials

In our experience, free trials are a waste of time and money, especially if you are a small online education business or freelance tutor. A better option might be to organize a short 30-min call to get to know the student and their needs, or send a questionnaire to get a sense of their level, difficulties, and/or concerns

On Helppo, you can create a student intake form, and students can upload questions or assignments and send them to their teachers. You can also create quizzes to assess a student’s level or their expertise in a subject.

#4 Get paid in advance, when possible

If you have a tutoring business or are an independent tutor with private students, always request payment in advance. By requesting payment in advance you reduce the likelihood of last minute cancellations, and you foster a greater commitment to your tutoring company

If it is not possible to get paid in advance, make sure to use a time tracker to ensure reliable records and invoicing; having a time tracker will ensure students or parents do not contest the number of hours or classes given.

The Helppo platform allows you to receive payments up front in packages or immediately before the class by requesting paypal or credit card information. The Helppo wallet can also easily deduct classes or courses from packages or facilitate one-time payments.

#5 Get creative and original with your tutoring content

The tutoring landscape is competitive to say the least. To make yourself stand out from the crowd of hustling teachers, you must offer creative and original content. Anyone can go online and find content from a plethora of websites, but it’s up to you to bring it together or create unique curriculums for your students.

With Helppo, you can use our innovative LMS to create quizzes and evaluate students, as well as upload videos, documents and other content.

If you follow these 5 tips to success in the online tutoring industry, you’ll see the results! Helppo is built by tutors for tutors. If you’re interested in streamlining your workflow so you can focus on what you do best, teaching, please contact us and our highly dedicated team will be glad to help!