Preply vs italki vs Wyzant for Tutors: Which Platform Fits Which Tutor (and What to Do Instead)

Preply, italki and Wyzant are not three versions of the same business. Preply and italki sell language lessons first, and Wyzant sells school and professional subjects, mostly to students in the United States. Which one suits you depends on what you teach, how regular your hours are, whether you hold a teaching qualification and how much you want to control your own rules. This guide goes through the three from the tutor's side, using what each platform's own help pages said on 31 October 2026. We make Tutafy, a tool for tutors who run their own business, so we also say where an independent tutor fits.

The three platforms side by side

The table below puts the questions that matter once you are accepted in one place. Where a platform's pages did not say, we write "not confirmed" and do not guess.

Preply: a good fit for regular weekly hours

Preply's model rewards a tutor who can offer the same slot every week. Its pages describe weekly lessons as a fixed time held for one student, so the slot is unavailable to anyone else. Students pay in 28-day cycles, and a weekly setup keeps running until the student cancels or you are unavailable at that time three weeks in a row. For a tutor with stable hours, that is close to a retained student.

The first lesson earns nothing

Preply keeps the whole first lesson with each new student. Its commission page says the 100% is what lets it give a student a free replacement if the trial was not a good fit. Trial lessons still count toward your teaching hours, and those hours move you down the scale: 33% at the start, 28% after 20 hours, and 18% from 400 hours (its example pays $8.20 on a $10 lesson at the top). If many of your trials do not turn into regulars, you work for nothing, so our guide to running a trial lesson goes through it minute by minute.

Finding students, and getting paid

Students find you by search. Preply also runs free, optional ads for your profile, and says it cannot report how many students came from them. Earnings reach your balance when a lesson is confirmed, about 15 minutes after it ends in Preply Classroom, or 72 hours after it ends outside it unless the student confirms sooner. You withdraw through Wise, PayPal (a 2% fee, up to $20), Payoneer or Skrill, up to $3,000 a transaction.

Rules that can hide your profile

The Tutoring Standards Policy, in force since 6 October 2025, looks at a rolling 90 days. To stay visible in search you need fewer than 5 absences, short-notice reschedules on under 40% of your lessons and cancellations on under 20%. Changes your students ask for do not count. A profile outside those limits is hidden from search, but your existing students and anyone with your direct link can still book you.

Missed trial lessons are treated more harshly. The profile is hidden for longer after each one, and after a fifth it is hidden from new students for two years. Super Tutor criteria, from 1 August 2026, include at least 80% of trial lessons inside the Preply Classroom and a reply to 80% of messages within 24 hours.

Who it suits

• Language tutors who can hold the same weekly hours for months and accept an unpaid first lesson.
• Tutors with no teaching qualification: the Preply registration page we read for our jobs guide says none is required.

It suits less well a tutor with changeable hours, since reschedules and cancellations feed the visibility rules.

italki: a good fit for language teachers who sell packages

italki sells language lessons only, and it splits its teachers into two kinds. A Professional Teacher uploads proof of training or experience as an educator and can show work experience, education and certificates on the profile. A Community Tutor, as italki describes the role, can show work experience and certificates only. The official table lists a lesson price range of $10 to $120 for Professional Teachers and $5 to $120 for Community Tutors. Your price is yours to set, not italki's.

The commission falls as students commit

The structure that makes italki different for a tutor is the sliding cut by lesson type. A trial lesson carries 0% and a single lesson 21%. A package of 5 lessons carries 19%, a package of 10 carries 17% and a package of 15 or 20 carries 15%. A group class carries 30%. It is taken when the lesson or package is completed, from the price you listed. The effect is a reason to sell packages: a student who commits to fifteen lessons costs you six points less than one who buys a single lesson.

Trial lessons and getting paid

A trial on italki is paid. The lowest price you can set is $5 in italki Credits, so you cannot offer a free one. A student gets 3 trial chances, each with a different teacher, and can ask for a refund under the 100% Satisfaction Guarantee within 48 hours if the teacher did not show or the trial fell short. Turn up early and keep a note of what you covered.

You withdraw from a minimum of $30 in Credits. italki takes no withdrawal fee, but the provider may: 2% for PayPal, 1.5% for Hyperwallet, $3 for a Payoneer transfer. Standard payment runs twice a month, and an express payment costs $10 in Credits after three successful withdrawals by the same method.

Who it suits

• A language teacher with a qualification who wants the Professional Teacher label, or a native speaker starting as a Community Tutor.
• Tutors who can sell lesson blocks, because the cut falls as the package grows.

One thing we could not confirm is italki's rule on contacting a student outside the platform. Read its Teacher Terms of Service before you move a student.

Wyzant: a good fit for school subjects and for tutors who set their own rules

Wyzant is built for academic and professional subjects and mostly for students in the US. It gives a tutor more control than the other two. You set your hourly rate and may change it. You choose your cancellation policy, with a window of up to 36 hours and an optional fee that must be on your profile and may not exceed the cost of the session. If you turn on Instant Book, a fixed 24-hour policy applies, and after that window you are paid for the full hour once you submit the lesson summary, whether or not the student shows up. If no-shows cost you money, Wyzant lets you write the rule, and our guide to stopping tutoring no-shows covers wording.

Students find you through your profile, and Wyzant sends daily notices of new jobs in your area. Its tutor page says it does not sell premium listings or top placement, though that page is old.

The fee, and one way to avoid it

Wyzant keeps 25% of every lesson, so you keep 75% of your hourly rate, before tax. This has applied since 15 January 2019, when it replaced a sliding scale of 40% down to 20%. Students pay a separate 9% on top, which does not come out of your share. The exception is a student you refer: when a new student creates an account and takes lessons with the tutor who referred them, the tutor keeps 100% of their rate. That is the clearest platform-approved way to bring in students of your own.

Getting paid, and what a first lesson costs

You submit each lesson within 14 days. Direct deposit goes out on the 1st and 15th, and a lesson must be entered at least 5 days before the date to make that payout. Above $50 earned you must give a valid Social Security number, so the platform assumes a US taxpayer. Its older registration FAQ lists a US-resident condition, so outside the US, confirm with Wyzant before you apply.

A first lesson is up to you: Wyzant's tutor page says you decide whether to offer a free one. Students must put a card on file before they meet a tutor, and a student can ask for the first hour to be refunded under its Good Fit guarantee. Wyzant does not require a tutor to pass a background check, but any student or guardian can pay $15.99 for one, and a tutor who passes gets an icon on the profile.

Who it suits

• Maths, science, writing, test-prep and professional-skills tutors who teach US students and are US taxpayers.
• Tutors who want a say in their rate and cancellation rules, or who can use the referral rule on students they already have.

It suits less well a tutor outside the US, or one who needs payment inside a few days: the payout runs twice a month.

What you keep from the same $30 lesson

A headline price tells you little. Here is one invented $30 lesson on each platform, with the cut taken from the pages above. None of these is a quote, and tax and payment fees are not taken off.

Take one new student who has ten lessons with you on Preply at $30, the first being the trial. You earn nothing from the first and $20.10 from each of the other nine: 9 × $20.10 = $180.90. The same ten lessons with a student you referred to Wyzant leave you $300. The sums are invented, but they show why the first-lesson and referral rules matter as much as a few points of commission. The table also leaves out what the marketplaces sell, which is the student: a tutor with no network may find the fee cheaper than weeks without one. Our real math guide runs a full year.

Rules that can cost you a profile or a student

The contact rules are where new tutors get into trouble. The table gives each platform's wording as we read it, not legal advice.

Do not solicit a student you only know through a trial lesson the platform kept. Invite a student you already know well, and let them choose. Our guide to leaving Preply is clear about the line.

Which platform fits which tutor

This is a starting point, not a ranking. It uses only what the pages above say.

Can you use more than one?

Yes, and many tutors do, with two cautions. Each platform has its own calendar, so a slot open on one is not blocked on the others, and a booking you have to cancel counts on Preply as a cancellation. And each trial lesson takes preparation, so if a platform keeps that lesson your real hourly rate drops, as our guide to your real hourly rate shows. Give each platform a fixed part of the week and check one calendar before you accept anything.

The fourth option: students who book you directly

None of the three platforms writes about running your own booking page, since each earns from lessons that go through it. It removes the commission, and it removes the supply of students. For a tutor with no network and no reviews, that second half is the whole difficulty. It needs an offer ("I help Year 10 students move from a 5 to a 7 in GCSE maths", not "maths tutor"), a price you can defend, a booking page that takes payment before the lesson, and a few places to find the first students. Our playbook for your first ten clients lists the channels.

A sensible plan for many tutors is to use one platform for its search and to meet students, while running a booking page beside it from the first week. Students who ask to book you directly can be invited to, within the platform's rules. The jobs guide sets out the other kinds of tutoring work.

What Tutafy is, and what it is not

Tutafy is a tool for tutors who run their own business: a public booking page that shows your hours in the student's time zone, a video classroom that opens in the browser, email reminders, student records, and payment through your own PayPal or Stripe account. It takes 0% commission on every plan. The Free plan is $0 for up to 10 students, Pro is $12 a month and Academy is $29 a month. Here is what it does not do:

• It does not send you students. It is not a marketplace and promises no bookings.
• It has a public tutor directory, but the directory is not open yet. It opens once six tutors have set free hours, an introduction and a language, and on 31 October 2026 the page said "The tutor directory opens soon" with no tutors listed.
• It does not check qualifications or run background checks, and it does not hire or pay you. Payment goes from your student to your own account.

If you want a place where students already look, the platforms above do that and Tutafy does not. If you have students, or will find them, and want to keep what they pay, Tutafy removes the admin. Our Tutafy review is the honest overview.

Official pages used here, read on 31 Oct 2026. Our script could not read the Preply, italki and Wyzant help pages (each answered 403), so their figures come from the search results of those official pages. Terms change often: read the current page before you decide. Sources: Preply: commission · Preply: payouts · Preply: standards policy · Preply: rules · Preply: profile ads · Preply: weekly lessons · italki: commission · italki: teacher types · italki: trial lessons · italki: withdrawals · Wyzant: fees · Wyzant: payments · Wyzant: cancellations · Wyzant: free first lesson · Wyzant: contact details.