tutor

test preparation tutor

Tutor.com


what is good:
* help students that want to learn
* work remote and for most part when you want to

what is bad:
* they must charge colleges a ton for this, because a lot of people in the company don't really do anything more than the absolute-absolute minimum (and there are a ton of these people).  
* pretty much everything about their product and support resources feels unloved.   
* the software feels like it hasn't changed much in 20 years (in fairness, they're testing an update now but it feels about 10 years ago).  it's full of quality issues and bugs.
* their intranets are spread over like 5 websites and have no central organization.   people will link to a page for a specific question that has 20 pdfs on it and they won't know what the title of the document they're talking about is.   and maybe that document isn't called the same thing when they used it last time.
* they've got a lot of people sitting around to critique minor things (i spent a week formatting white spacing of a profile for somebody) but who are mostly unhelpful if you actually have a real problem.
* to a far lesser extent (and as anyone might expect) some of the students experiences are not fun- especially the ones who didn't prepare or who just want answers.   however overall the good students make up for this.  only criticism here is that tutor doesn't really want to help these students in the way they say- if somebody has a learning disability it's possible that they should not be on tutor.   or there should be special tutors for these people.   but they just want to get paid and the easiest way to do that is make tutors into an assembly line, so it is what it is.  
* the whole company is basically designed to minimize meaningful reactions within itself so it's sort of an emptiness you get interacting with their employees overtime.   it's not any one person's fault, it's just their culture.
* this is even less important than occasional lazy students.... but I still think it's a little weird that nobody emphasizes with having breakthroughs with bad students.   you will not get even a pat on the back or a nice rating from tutor for that usually- which on it's own is fine because that is it's own reward.  but you will get criticized for anything less than this, even in the same student review, so it's a bit disingenuous.  on the flip side.. luckily you can for the most part ignore this! nobody cares- they're just going through the motions.   so the culture is teaching this, I get it... but it's still weird sometimes.
* they do send out regular feedback surveys, but again the culture isn't one that embraces actual problems encountered during it's mission and how to improve, so this is mostly cya.  to this point, you could point out really significant things wrong and the best you might get is "oh yeah i hear other people saying a lot about that".  and they will send an email and cc somebody, but there will be no follow up much less any accountability.

As examples of this, it took me a month after I added a certification level to get students for it   (people are nice and say they will do it... but they don't follow through or add extra meaningless confirmation stages that even if you do them right away, they will still ignore).   
Likewise it took several months to get frequent matches, because all the advice they gave didn't work.   They would send a report where they could see that I was doing what was recommended already and going far beyond, but then they would drop the same advice even though they could see that was already done.   It turned out to be something else.   But things like this are never ending.

Overall if you are somebody who just wants to work remote, you are comforted by rules and bureaucracy, you like helping people learn AND you have very low expectations, this could be a not horrible situation.    

For other people, it might be more fun (and long-term probably more rewarding) to just start a competing company because there is a lot of room for improvement here in pretty much every respect of how they do things.

I have been working with Tutor.com for a few years now as a College Essay writing Tutor. As long as I have been with the company, I'm just now getting to $13/hr. Many days, I want to quit, but I have bills to pay and the flexibility of hours is really nice and allows me to work around my fulltime job schedule. 

Pros: Flexible hours; sometimes you get great students who want to learn

Cons: 
-Sessions are not long enough; Management doesn't like when you go over time with a student even when the student clearly needs more help; 
For example, a student will have a 20 min session but need help with a 3-4 page paper. Tutor.com's policy is that you work with student for 20 mins and transfer them to another tutor to continue. I have had students get really upset about this policy because they want to finish the paper with one tutor, which is understandable. Also, it wastes time,bc if you get a student who was working with a previous tutor, it takes a while to figure out where the previous tutor was going with the paper corrections, and the student loses time bc the new tutor has to reread the entire paper.

-Also while you are in a session you get a message that 'time is almost up for the session.' I have gotten emails when I go over time or a "watch your time from my mentor" when I went 5 mins over the limit. The worse are the 20 min sessions. Often a kid is just getting the concept after 20 mins and needs a few mins to make sure they got it before you tell them "times up." I really think they need to increase the shortest session for English and Writing to at least 30 mins.

-Some students want you to give them the answer and give you low rating if you don't; Management does nothing about it. It's Tutor.com's policy that a tutor not give a student the answer, but when a student writes a horrible review bc of said policy, Tutor.com says they can't remove it. 

-Also as a Writing tutor some students will drop off their paper and want you to simply make corrections for them. I have students request this all the time and Tutor.com has a service for students to drop off papers called Async. Yet they tell me as a tutor "we are not a proofreading service. You should guide the student to the correct answer." That is impossible to do because Async sessions do not include the student?? Async sessions are just the tutor on a timer reviewing the paper. All the tutor can do is leave comments on the student's paper. And the times are not long enough. Often there is only 20 mins for papers that are 5-6 pages long. 20 mins is not enough time to highlight every mistake, comment on every error and explain why it is incorrect, check citations, check references, review the flow and content and complete an in-depth Summary form. Also, the tutor has to include helpful resources in the Summary form. It's way to much to do in 20 mins for $4.33 ($13/hr / 60 mins X 20 mins). 

-Pay is low. Tutor.com pays by the min and wait time is $5.50 an hour. Using the example above, with a pay of $13/hr, a 20 mins session would only pay $4.33. Also, the pay is once a month with direct deposit.

-The Mentor reviews are depressing. They always find something negative to say even when all your students are giving you great reviews. I have requested a new mentor, and I got the impression from him that Tutor.com requires mentors to find something wrong with each tutoring session and include it in the review. The good news is after you have been with Tutor.com for a while you hear from your mentor less and less. Now, I get a review every few months. When first starting out, reviews are about every 2 weeks or so. Also if you get a terrible mentor, like I had for a while, you can request a new one through tech support.

Overall, I would only recommend Tutor.com as a Writing tutor to some one who really needs the money or the flexibility. Other subjects for Tutor.com may be better. I'm not sure, because I only do English and Writing. 
Tutor.com asks way to much of the tutor for the little pay. There is a reason that this company is ALWAYS hiring for tutors especially Writing tutors.


I worked as an outsourced employee for Outsourcing Company for four years, from 2019 until recently. While the experience had its advantages, there are several aspects that require improvement. If you are considering working for this company, here are some key points to keep in mind:

Pay and Hour Limitations:
Currently, "advanced" tutors can earn a maximum of $8.5 per hour. However, starting this year (2023), the company has imposed a restriction on the hours foreign tutors can work, allowing a maximum of only 10 hours per week. This limitation applies regardless of the workload, including mid-term exams and final exams. Previously, tutors could work between 70 and 100 hours per month. This change significantly affects earning potential and work flexibility.

Recommendation: The company should reassess the hour limitations and offer more competitive compensation to retain talented tutors.

Scheduling Challenges:
Booking available hours has become increasingly challenging. Even if you log in precisely at 12 pm (Eastern Time) on Wednesdays, many hours are already blocked by the system and cannot be scheduled, even on non-holiday days. On Saturdays, when the company advertises the possibility of scheduling "up to" 56 hours, these hours are often unavailable.

Recommendation: Enhance the scheduling system to ensure fair access to available hours for tutors, particularly during high-demand periods.

Fingerprinting Requirement:
Tutor.com now mandates fingerprinting for tutors to receive more session requests. However, this requirement can only be met by native workers or those with a green card. The company claims that schools and clients requested this change, but based on conversations with friends working in various school districts, this information appears to be false.

Recommendation: If the company is hiring outsourced employees make the fingerprinting process accessible to all qualified tutors.

Changes to Floating Hours:
Until December 2022, tutors had the opportunity to accumulate additional hours per month during unbooked (floating) hours, which was beneficial for those willing to work extra hours. However, starting in January 2023, floating tutors no longer receive any requests. Instead, tutors are encouraged to accept concurrent sessions, resulting in double the workload for only a meager 30% increase in pay (before it was 15%).

Recommendation: The company should consider reinstating floating hours or provide fair compensation for tutors accepting concurrent sessions to account for the increased workload.

Session Time Constraints:
While Tutor.com offers students unlimited session time, tutors are advised not to exceed one hour per session. Going beyond this limit can result in account deactivation. Tutors must inform students of this limit without explicitly mentioning the time constraint. However, some students may react negatively if they require more time, accusing the tutor of inadequate service.

Recommendation: Review the session time constraints to better accommodate the needs of students and tutors, ensuring a positive learning experience.

Short Version: A decent side job that can be a main source of income during the school year, but which is held back by management and very low availability during school breaks. 

Compared to other tutoring sites like Wyzant, Tutor.com has a much higher consistency, at least during the school year, but some problems with upper management that can make actually doing your job difficult. Hour are fairly flexible, with options to freely take sessions that are available or schedule time in advance when available, but both options feel like they're set up more for the sake of saving the company money rather than help their employees or indeed their students. 

These policies also extend to the tutoring sessions themselves. Tutor.com maintains some very strict policies about the length of sessions, the way tutors should hold lessons, and the way tutors are expected to work within the company. Some of these policies make sense, such as the policy to keep most session under an hour to avoid overwhelming students. Others, however, seem to come from either managerial ideas of how tutoring should function or corner-cutting systems to maximize profits. Tutors are expected to accept almost all sessions that are requested of them, regardless of context, must make sure they're available for a certain number of hours per week regardless of how many sessions are available, and must teach in a very specific way based on how the managers believe tutoring should be done. Not abiding by these standards doesn't necessarily lead to negative consequences, but anything less than perfect adherence to these policies is required for any amount of advancement. 

The pay is far below what should be expected for tutoring, but is decent outside the context of tutoring. The trade-off of lower pay for more consistent sessions is usually worth it, with the one caveat that time is competitive especially during school breaks. The entire pool of scheduled hours is open to the entire tutor population, with higher ranking tutors getting first pick. During the school year this isn't necessarily a problem, it just means that lower rank tutors have less flexibility if they want to schedule in advance, but during the summers, when availability slows down, this means that most tutors get very few sessions and very little pay. What this creates is a workplace environment in which tutors are competing for hours, an especially gross environment with Tutor.com also brags regularly about surpassing customer landmarks. 

I’ve been with Tutor.com for half a year. The application and hiring process was straight-forward and I was able to start tutoring from home right away. You’re immediately assigned a mentor who periodically gives you feedback  and comments on your sessions. I’ve been lucky to have a very helpful and instructive mentor, but I’ve heard about other tutors having less than ideal experiences with their mentors. The pay is somewhat decent, but heavily depends on what subjects you tutor; rates can vary anywhere from $10 to $19 an hour. 

Scheduling is pretty flexible, depending on the time of year. Obviously, less students are in school over the summer and winter breaks, so it’s pretty difficult to get enough hours during those times. How many hours you can work also depends on what state you live in and whether or not the company classifies you as an independent contractor or not. Generally speaking, trying to get the hours you want each week is a mad scramble with the other tutors, since there are only so many slots.

Don’t expect any fancy benefits or compensations. There’s no PTO or sick leave or anything like that. You work when you can, and don’t get paid when you can’t. If you get enough 5-star ratings in a given month, you’ll receive a payout bonus at the end of the month, but it’s usually not much. As far as advancement, there are different tutor levels that you can reach if you do well enough. These usually come with a small pay increase and the freedom to select more hours per week.

90% of my sessions have been really positive. The students are generally respectful and willing to learn, but like any educational environment with teenagers, children, and even some cantankerous adults, you will inevitably run into students who are difficult, to say the least. This comes with the territory and if you have a good mentor, they will guide you through any missteps you have. 

Overall, I wish the pay was better and and the scheduling wasn’t as frenetic as it currently is. This kind of job may or may not pay your bills, but it’s a good side gig if you’re in between work or still in school. 

For starters the pay for is ridiculously low for everything you're required to do. You can get paid way more to tutor almost anywhere else. The software they use to facilitate tutoring is woefully out of date, not at all user friendly, and frequently drops either you or your student mid-session. When you first start out you're given a "mentor" who reviews all of your session and provides feedback. Very quickly though it was obvious my "mentor" was not knowledgeable. Someone had clearly taught them some education terms without explaining what they meant or how they worked. I used to teach for a living so I know what I'm doing but my "mentor" frequently gave me bad reviews even though I received 5 stars from all of my clients. They also couldn't decided what exactly they thought I was doing wrong - one day they'd say I spent too much time with the client, the next I wasn't spending enough, and they were obsessed with the term "leading questions" even though they clearly had no idea what that meant or where it was applicable. And while the fact that you can choose when you work is fantastic, there's problems with that too. My main problem was that you'd sign up for a shift, but the system didn't mark you as "unavailable" or "offline" when your shift was over. So you'd often get caught in a session that went past your shift time and when you finally get off that session you have to try and quickly log off the system before another call comes in. If a call comes in before you get logged off, even if your shift is over, and you don't take the call it counts against your "acceptance rate" and if that goes to low they get you for that too. I was only there for a little over a month - tutoring pretty much every other day - before I just quit because it was not worth dealing with. If you're in a bind then it's not the worst place you could work, but there are much, much better places to tutor.

Tutor.com in general is very unfair. Let me start with the mentor. My mentor is the worst. They do not carrie about no one. It seems like they have fun writing bad and useless reviews which do nothing but discourage tutors. They act like they know everything whereas what they say is all garbage. They craft a trap for tutors: if you go overtime, you will be penalized and if you end the session within the time limit, it is not educationally sound. Also, they say "first ask the student what they know", later they change it to "the student might find it rude if you ask them that". They contradict themselves every review when their previous recommendations do not work for a student. If you are a tutor, do not expect respect from your mentors as well as the organization because you won't get any rather you will be criticized and humiliated for even the rules you are following. The mentor does not do a good job reviewing the sessions either because they are very lazy and since they have a lot of sessions to review, they are sloppy. They are the worst part of this job. 

Next are the students. Some students are nice and willing to participate. However, some are rude and are either unwilling to participate or are not very determined to learn and give up when they don't understand one simple concept. 

The organization also has the worst set of rules. They would rather stand by rude customers and blame their tutors for a session than to understand the challenges the tutor had to face trying to manage a session with a mean student. They paid me $13 per hour and they charged students far more than that which is why they take the sides of the students even if they are rude. 

I think all tutors should write their honest experiences with tutor.com so that tutors cannot be bullied by this organization. I would not recommend this tutoring facility for any tutor in the future.  

I worked with Tutor.com for three months. During that time, I received minimal support from management, experienced significant delays on communication from management’s end, and noted management’s extreme tendency to avoid actual interpersonal communication like it was the plague.

The service absolutely is teeming with abusive students who are rude and disrespectful. Tutor.com’s management and so-called “mentors” will evade your grievances regarding aberrant student behavior, and chastise the tutor for not be able to “meet the student’s needs” even when it’s blatantly apparent that the student is getting a sophomoric enjoyment out of harassing and “trolling” the tutors.

I was terminated from Tutor.com for essentially no other reason than Tutor.com’s management and “mentors” being incompetent and completely unresponsive to concerns and feedback provided by their tutors.

The only way I expect anyone could succeed with Tutor.com long-term is if one:
A. Has no life, no self-esteem or self-respect, and takes no pride in their work
B. Doesn’t mind being abused by students who go out of their way to waste the tutor’s time, and,
C. Doesn’t mind when management ignores your concerns and then blames you for their inadequacies.

In other words, if you value your skills and expertise as a tutor, and take pride in your work, and expect the people you work for to be equally-invested and equally-responsive as you are … then Tutor.com is NOT for you; don’t waste your time.
If on the other hand, you’re callous or ambivalent enough to not care when students abuse you, and you’ve got plenty of time to burn (no spouse, no kids, no pets, no responsibilities), and you don’t mind a below-average paycheck while your organization reaps money hand-over-fist, then sure, give working for Tutor.com a try. Just don’t come back and say I didn’t warn you.

Tutor.com is an absolute travesty of a company that hires people at below livable wages, does not offer much opportunity for advancement, and has little to no legitimate support from supervising staff. You're expected to know as much as a college professor and to accommodate  students who are often lazy and extremely rude, and who just want you to do their work for them, for pay that's a joke. 

If you don't know something, IE, about a book that you've never read or even heard of, management expects you to read a quick Wikipedia summary of the topic and to just make guesses for the student's sake, instead of simply passing the request off to another tutor who might know the subject better. The few times that I got genuine guidance were to reprimand me for not accepting requests for books that I had never even heard of in hopes that another tutor might have read them and could genuinely help students.

This would all be forgivable if there were genuine opportunities for advancement, but in my experience, the company would tease potential raises and then rarely follow through. 

I tried to make it all viable by working as much as I could manage with the very limited hours that you're assigned and to simply do my best, but after being teased with a raise for a long period and still being horribly undervalued and never getting respect from either the students or the management despite consistently performing above the par, I finally had enough and moved on.

My advice? Do not accept a job with this company. If you're qualified for this position, you're qualified for something so much better. Trust in yourself and don't keep getting strung along in hopes that you can make it work. You won't. The position is set up to pay the least amount of money possible for talent that's ultimately disposable. Avoid at all costs.

There was probably a time this was a much better place to work. That has changed drastically. My advice is simple. If you are trying to get your foot in the door for teaching experience, especially online, this is worth a shot. If you can actually manage to get started tutoring in the first place. Keep it going for a little while but constantly look for something else. This could be a good thing to put on your resume but that is about all it is good for. If you find yourself in my situation without a job, it can help you bring in a very small amount of money when you learn their little tricks. Again, move on. Be prepared for constant headaches. This could be a fantastic gig for a lot of people and they could really help a lot of students out with quality tutors if they weren't so bad at the very basic job functions administration has. 

We thought we finally had this figured out and things were going okay. It was an easy way to make a little extra money for not really having to do anything. My wife and I travel a lot so we could set our phones at hotspots and connect the laptop from there to gain some hours and tutors. We had to make a move out of state and I was unemployed for quite a while so I started logging in all day every day and scheduling hours so I was making something finally. If you get high ratings and things like that you get small bonuses per session. I think the most I made was about $450 one month, but I was working it like a full-time job. This works if you have literally no other income but it is not worth it if you're already making money elsewhere. 



Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Tutor 7 salaries reported	$28.64 per hour
Test preparation tutor 1 salary reported	$18.00 per hour

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