vice president of finance

public relations manager

language arts teacher

director of partnerships

Preply

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part about working at this company is that they provide a flexible schedule that allows you to work whenever you want based on the student that you have. Another thing they do is give you some motivating emails that will help you learn more about the student. Because this company does not require many qualifications, anyone, regardless of status, can work as a tutor. However, the commission fee is not favorable.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
There are many things I dislike about this company, and after teaching here for about 10 months, I've begun to realize how things change. First and foremost, they charge a commission fee of 33% for new tutors; however, if you work 400 hours, your commission fee is reduced to 18%, which is inconvenient for us tutors. Second, trial lessons are not paid; they are intended to be free for tutors while students must get to know their tutors; moreover, the trial lesson lasts an hour, which is inconvenient. Third, students will not leave a review for you if you do not meet their expectations for simply 5 stars. For example, if I worked for 289 hours and only 6 students gave 5 stars, my tutor's profile will suffer. What I don't like about Preply is that they care more for their students than they do about tutors; we don't receive as many benefits from them since they have taken all of our commission; I worked so hard simply to get students, and it's unlikely that you'll get them if you're new. After I finish my first year at Preply, I'm thinking about changing jobs.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The working atmosphere here is ideal for both tutors and students; we get to know one another and can communicate with one another.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
For the past ten months, since I began working at Preply. It may appear challenging at first, but as I progress in my profession, I am finding it simpler to manage students and prepare their classes. Not only the students, but also the tutors, are learning.

You can set your own availability and price, but your hours might not fill up or fill up with unpaid trial lessons, and for normal lessons, they take a decent cut of your price per lesson. With over 4 years on the site, it has been delightful to see it grow but it really is a site built for the students, not the teachers. A prospective student could book a trial lesson without having talked to you, not respond to any messages you send before the trial lesson, and then demand large asks during the unpaid trial lesson. Some students are absolutely great as well, but you don't get much information beforehand so it's a gamble. You can choose who you continue to teach after the trial lesson, they've also added a block button against students (finally after two years). They penalize you if you cancel a lesson, especially trial lessons. You can attempt to contact the student to change the time but if they don't respond you're stuck.  Once you have some established students you can make your account unavailable to new students, which is a great feature otherwise half your day could be trial lessons. I have some students that I've seen weekly for 3+ years and the site is great for the longstanding student-tutor relations. The support staff is international, the company is Ukrainian, and they respond fairly quickly depending on your time zone. The site has its own video platform, which is always being developed. It provides a virtual whiteboard, notecards, and prepared lessons. You cannot choose a virtual background. 

I've been using Preply to tutor art online for about 3 and a half years now, and I've absolutely loved it.
It's not for everyone, it takes getting used to and trying to figure out how much to charge and how to promote and market yourself to have students choose you out of all the other hundreds of other tutors. Remember to be patient when first trying it out. Don't expect a lot of income and students right away, its building your reputation that will bring you students in the long run. 

The page to have lessons on can be a little buggy at times, but Preply allows you to use other platforms, so have skype, zoom, or even discord ready as a backup if the lesson page isn't working for some reason that day.

Whenever there is an issue with the Preply site, the help chat is always available and they're always on top on trying to fix any issues. They get it done right then and there which I really appreciate.

They do take a little chunk of the income.
Especially when you first start out, the 33% percent out of your income can hurt at first.
But its only temporary, and when you build up your time working in Preply it drops all the way to 18%. Which can still be a lot, which is why it's a lot of figuring out how much to charge without scarring the students away with too high of a pricing.

If you play it right and stick around long enough, you can get some very good income.
Beware though, the end of the year with the holidays can get very scarce, so be prepared for low student counts during that season.

Hope this helps :)

1. The typical day involves checking my insights, my schedule, and responding to all messages. Before I start classes, I check to see which each student is covering that day. I document this offsite as Preply does not have a centralized system to manage students. 
2. I have learned quite a lot about pitching sales to buyers. Preply has no curriculum and nebulous scaffolded promises to students - I have to figure out what Preply has marketed to that trial student and hope I can align to that. It has not improved my skill as a teacher. 
3. Management, support, and communications teams are passive, indirect, and arbitrary. The communications, when they become difficult, have always simply stopped. That includes, but isn't limited to harassment from students, technical issues and errors, poor platform functions, working without pay, high commissions, shadow bans, surprise student demographics,  subversive ads against trial tutors to seek out another tutor, predatory pricing and unclear final totals....
4. This has translated into the hardest part of the job for me - it has, effectively, become one of the most micro-managed jobs I have ever had. The illusion of autonomy or independence is just that; an illusion. There is no flexibility but a necessity to be:
- available for 20 hours a week
- have consistent sales targets despite Preply's campaigns against its own tutors
- inability to reschedule or cancel without 5 days' notice (it doesn't matter if you are sick, have tech issues, or an emergency)


I've been working in the field for 18+ years. Been a director of studies and exam manager. During the pandemic I left my job and started cycling through online tutoring websites in search of work. 
Preply was one of the first I tried and also the worst: I was scheduled a lesson suddenly and without my consultancy, I accepted and gave the hour lesson, the student then disappeared and I didn't get payed. 
I therefore took part in one of their "online workshops" and was tutored on how to "retain students" after their first lesson. Essentially, the company makes it the teachers' responsibility to sell courses and to keep the students loyal to the platform. On top of this, they don't even pay these first lessons. 
The reason is clear: all over the web you can find free first Preply lessons being offered as a way to lure students into the platform. The strategy is then to get desperate teachers to do the rest of the job for them (thus, the "retaining"). If the teachers do succeed, they'll have the "privilege" of teaching at less than €10.00 an hour. This is unsustainable for living expenses, and wastes time that can be dedicated to searching out better opportunities. 
In the end I gave up after one hour and started searching out students on my own instead; six months later I'm making up to €60.00 an hour with company courses. 
If you're an experienced teacher like me, let this website go. If you aren't, don't get into the teaching racket at all, this is a pretty bad company but most of what you'll find in the industry is similarly dehumanizing. 

I share the view of a lot of the other teachers on this site - Preply take far too much of your earnings. They take 100% of your first lesson with each new students. Some students are only on there to have a few lessons of conversion. After your first lesson, Preply take 33% and then after 19 lessons they take 28% which is still far more than other teaching sites. iTalki doesn't take one penny from any of your trial lessons and then 15% thereafter. Fiverr takes 20% 

Preply said in their defense: "As for the commission, the 100% commission from the trial lesson enables Preply to offer students a refund or a replacement if they aren't satisfied with the trial." 

Surely if the student is happy with their trial lesson then the teacher should receive the money for this lesson. I would understand maybe offering a refund for a trial if the student is unhappy but considering the majority of students continue lessons after their trial lessons, they must have been fairly happy with them, no?

If you are a complete beginner who just wants to try out teaching then maybe it's ok. You can use Preply to train yourself as a teacher. There is also the advantage that you can set your own rates so if you are willing to do a lot of free lessons and build a strong profile with good ratings, then if all goes well you can set your prices higher to compensate for the commission taken by Preply.

Preply is the worst company for online tutors out there.I have been trying to use this website as a tutor for about 2 months. The way their platform is set-up takes more from tutors then they get and also does nothing to protect their tutors. Preply takes a 100% commission on the first lesson you have with students and students can say they disliked the lessons and reschedule for free with another tutor. As a tutor, you are left doing tons and tons of trial lessons for no money. They make you agree to this and claim it is is the agreement, but what they don't take into account is all the people taking advantage of this model to stretch their dollar and how it leads to tutors making unethically low amount of money for hour long lessons. Their customer support team does nothing to assist when students contact you with weird suggestions or seem like they are trying to scam you. Every encounter I have had with a customer service rep has been awful. I reached out to them several times for help and they did nothing. On top of this, preply then takes a 33% commission from you until you reach a certain number of hours taught, so you make next to nothing. Students can book lessons with you and you don't even have to confirm with them first or approve the lesson. Preply is a disappointing and absolutely atrocious company to work for.


I ended up choosing to teach on Preply during the pandemic when I was stuck at home and have continued to do so, primarily because the extra teaching (teaching is my primary job as well) has improved my own knowledge of the subject matter greatly. Preply has one plus - there are lots of people there and it is easy to find students. Everything else is a minus. The support from the site is awful. Currently my profile has been made invisible to students for some unknown reason and they won't respond as to why or how to fix it. This being despite the fact that the most you can make from your lessons is 82%, and that only after 200 lessons! Additionally, you are not paid for the first lesson with every new student (Preply takes 100% of the profit). I have no idea where the money goes, because the technical support is terrible and their video platform only works if both people have very fast internet, so I end up hosting all of my lessons on Zoom, because of the terrible lag on Preply. So in summation:

Pros: lots of students

Cons: terrible support, they take a big cut (that I would be OK with for services provided, but see previous point), useless platform

I'm a qualified ESL teacher with over 10 years' experience. I can say that I know what I'm doing and that students are usually very happy with my classes. One month into teaching on Preply, and having a very free schedule, I've taught 17 lessons and earned less than $7 USD for each. You see, Preply takes 33% commission (but which later falls to 28%!!), and takes 100% commission for trail lessons. It considers every first lesson a 'trial lesson' - even though the student pays and you teach a full 60 minutes. But the student can decide to be refunded and try out other teachers, who knows how many. Then you have to convert the derisory amount of money you've earned, always in USD, to your own currency, if it isn't already USD. Moreover, the platform itself is useless, slow (many teach on Zoom etc. and confirm on Preply after) and very glitchy. The 'Support' are clearly not trained and don't solve any issues, or even know basic things abut the site. So in conclusion, they just make an app, sit back and collect vast amounts of money, some of which they put into marketing, and very little of which into anything else. Not happy at all with it, and definitely won't continue for long. 

I hadn't read any of the reviews before I joined Preply and I wish I'd had. The only good thing about it is the "work-life balance" because I set up my own schedule. The rest is just... well... It's for those who have too much free time, love teaching (as in "I can do it fo free because I love it so much), students who seek some side jobs and don't want to leave their houses. It's not a good place for professionals because Preply offers you nothing but takes money from you as if they offered you a contract and lots of benefits. 33%?! The language school I work at doesn't even take this much. Also, getting students at Preply isn't easy either. I've had 13 trial lessons (they don't pay for those) so far and all of the students said "I'll let you know if I'm interested" And they never texted me again. So 13 hours of charity work. To actually earn some money, you have to set the rate for a session really high and, ultimately, it makes education unaffordable for some people. Also, this thing called "Preply space"  doesn't work as it should. I've had so many issues with it... UGH. Yeah... I'm still on the platform because I've got nothing better to do...

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Vice president of finance 1 salary reported	$315,000 per year
Public relations manager 1 salary reported	$175,500 per year
Language arts teacher 1 salary reported	$125,000 per year
Director of partnerships 1 salary reported	$250,000 per year

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