Wyzant Fees for Tutors: What Wyzant Keeps, What Students Pay and What You Take Home

Wyzant takes 25% of a tutor's posted hourly rate and charges the student a further 9% service fee on top. Those are the two numbers on its own help pages, read on 31 October 2026. They are easy to find. What is harder to find is what they add up to for a real lesson, how the fee got to 25%, how to avoid it on students you bring yourself, and when the money reaches your bank.

This guide is for tutors deciding whether to join Wyzant or to stay. It has a worked table, the formula for the rate to post, the referral exception, the payout calendar, the contractor tax rules and a comparison with working for yourself. Wyzant's pages answered 403 to our script, so each Wyzant figure comes from the search result of the official page, as the source note says. The names and sums in our examples are invented. Fees change, so read the current page before you decide.

What Wyzant keeps from a lesson

Wyzant's fee page for tutors says that all tutors keep 75% of their posted hourly rate for lessons with students, minus any applicable taxes, and that Wyzant keeps a 25% Platform Fee. Tutors who are approved to list agree to the Independent Tutor Agreement, which covers the payment policies and the fee. The current wording has no sliding scale: the same 25% applies to a new tutor and to one with ten thousand lessons.

The student pays differently. Wyzant's help page says it charges students a 9% service fee each time they have a lesson, worked out on the total lesson cost, which is your rate multiplied by the length. So a lesson has two fees on it. The table shows what they do to three invented rates.

Two things follow. The share is the same at every rate, because both fees are percentages: 25% plus 9% of the rate is 34% of the rate, and 34 divided by 109 is 31.2% of what the student pays. And you are paid 75% of the rate you posted. The 9% is a charge on top that the student sees and you do not receive. A tutor who says "Wyzant takes 25%" is right, and a student who says "Wyzant costs me 9% more" is right too.

How the fee got to a flat 25%

Older blog posts and a few answers on the web describe percentages that fall as a tutor teaches more hours. That was true until 2019. Wyzant announced in December 2018 that from 15 January 2019 it would replace a graduated scale, which ran from 40% down to 20%, with a flat 25% on lessons submitted on or after that day.

The announcement set out what happened to each group. Tutors on higher tiers moved to 25% for all students. Tutors already at 25% stayed there, unless they crossed 400 lesson hours before 15 January 2019, in which case they went to 20%. Tutors at 20% kept that rate for students they had taught before the cut-off until 1 July 2019, after which the flat 25% applied to everyone. The referral programme did not change. Wyzant described the change as not an increase in its take rate. That is its own account, and we report it as that.

The effect depended on who you were: a tutor on the highest fee tier paid less after the change, and one who had worked down to 20% paid more. Nobody joining today lives with the old scale. If a page gives you a percentage that moves with your hours, it describes the time before 2019, or another platform. The help center says flat, and the help center is the page to trust.

The 9% student fee: not your money, still your price

The service fee is charged to the student after each lesson. Wyzant says it helps vet tutors, so that only tutors with the most experience and subject expertise are listed, and that it pays for the US-based support team. New students are told about it when they add payment information. It also applies to a cancellation, on top of whatever fee your own cancellation policy charges.

For you it has three effects. Your lesson costs more than the number on your profile, so a student comparing you with a tutor elsewhere sees your rate and then, at checkout, a higher figure. It is paid on every lesson, including one with a student you referred. And it is not yours to waive, discount or absorb. If you compete on price, set your rate with the extra 9% in mind. If students choose you on evidence and fit, it will matter less than your profile.

Work the sum backwards: what to post to take home what you want

Most tutors pick a rate they like and then discover what it leaves. Start from the number you want in your hand. Divide it by 0.75 to find the rate to post, then multiply by 1.09 to see what the student pays.

The student pays $58.13 for a tutor who clears $40. That gap, $18.13, is the price of being found. The question for every tutor is whether the student would have found you without it.

A month makes the same point. Take an invented tutor, Maya, who teaches 20 one-hour lessons a month at a posted $50. Wyzant keeps $250 and she takes home $750, not the $1,000 on her profile. Our guide to your real hourly rate takes it further: divide by every hour you work, not only the hours you teach.

Students you refer: the route to 100%

Wyzant has one sanctioned way to avoid the 25%. Its referral page says that when a new student creates a Wyzant account and takes lessons with the tutor who referred them, that tutor receives 100% of their rate and the Platform Fee is not assessed on those lessons. The student still pays the 9% and any taxes. The table's last row shows it: on a $50 lesson, Wyzant keeps $4.50 and you keep $50.

To send a referral, open Wyzant Rewards from the Toolkit menu, choose Invite Students and invite by email, through your network or by text. The page says the rule also covers a student you know from outside Wyzant: the student needs a free Wyzant account, and you submit the lesson on Wyzant. After the first lesson, look for a green check under "Referred Student" on your Student Connections page and check the Pay column on your Lessons page. If the referral was not applied, contact support.

Run Maya's month again. If six of her 20 lessons are with students she referred, she takes home $300 on those six and $525 on the other fourteen: $825, which is $75 more. That is small for one tutor, but it grows with each student who stays, and it is Wyzant's clearest answer to "how do I stop paying 25% on students I brought myself".

When the money reaches your bank

Wyzant pays tutors by direct deposit and, in the pages we saw, by no other method. Direct deposit is free. Since 1 July 2025 every tutor is paid semimonthly: on the 1st and the 15th of each month, or the next business day when that falls on a weekend or a bank holiday. A payment covers lessons submitted five days before the payment date.

Two more limits apply. A lesson has to be submitted within 14 days of the day it was taught, and an older lesson cannot be submitted at all. And once a payment leaves Wyzant, your bank may take one to three more business days to show it. The table shows four invented lessons in November 2026. It is our reading of the page, not a promise, so read your own Payments page for the real date.

Two details catch tutors out. A returned deposit is reissued on the 10th and 25th, and you must update your bank details at least two business days before a payment date to make the next run. And once your payments pass $50 in total, Wyzant needs a valid Social Security Number: payments are withheld until you give it, then released with the next scheduled payment. An EIN can be used instead for reporting, with an IRS Form W-9. If you teach from outside the US, the pages we read did not say what applies to you, so ask Wyzant support first.

What the fee does not cover, and what else the rules say

The rules around a flat share are where tutors get surprised. These are the ones on Wyzant's pages that touch your income.

• Listing is free. Wyzant's page for tutors says listing costs nothing and that Wyzant does not accept payment for premium listings or top placement. We found no monthly subscription for tutors.
• Background checks. Whoever orders the check pays $15.99. Wyzant does not require one at sign-up, but a student or parent can order one on a tutor, and then the tutor must complete and pass it to keep using the platform.
• Payment outside Wyzant is not allowed. The agreement says a tutor will not seek or receive payment for services directly from students, and the payment help page names cash, cheques, money-sharing apps and PayPal invoices. A student may tip you after a lesson, outside Wyzant.
• Cancellation fees have limits. A policy is optional. The page says it may cover notice of up to 36 hours, that a fee cannot be assessed earlier than 30 minutes before the scheduled end of a lesson or more than 14 days after it, and that charging more than the cost of the session or demanding more than 36 hours' notice counts as abusive. Tell students the policy before you start.
• Rate changes. You set your own rate and may change it at any time. A student who contacted you at the old rate keeps it for three months unless they agree to the new one.
• The Good Fit Guarantee. For a first lesson with a new tutor, a student can ask support for a refund of the first hour. The pages we saw do not say how that changes your payment, so ask before you assume you are paid for a first lesson.

That last point decides whether a fee is fair, and it is not on the fee page. When you compare platforms, ask what happens to your pay on a refunded first lesson, a no-show and a dispute, not only what percentage is taken on a normal lesson.

Taxes: you are a contractor

Wyzant's agreement makes tutors independent contractors. It says Wyzant will not hold back any part of your fees for income tax or payroll tax, and that you are responsible for the taxes due. Wyzant's tax page says it issues a Form 1099 whenever a tutor makes $600 or more in a calendar year, and that your yearly total is on the Earnings page even when no form is produced. It cannot help with filing questions and tells you to ask a tax professional.

Tax thresholds change and a help page can lag the law, so check the IRS before you rely on the $600 figure. We do not say how the 25% is treated on your return, which depends on your situation. Our guide to tutor taxes explains the US forms, the UK trading allowance and the records to keep. It is general information, not tax advice.

Wyzant beside Preply, italki and your own business

A fee only means something next to its alternatives. We keep the Preply and italki figures in one place, our Preply commission guide, with the day they were checked. Here the comparison is how each route charges, not only how much.

The row to look at is the third. Wyzant publishes a rule for keeping your whole rate on a student you bring. We did not look for an equivalent on the other platforms, so we do not say whether one exists. On a student Wyzant finds for you, the 25% is fixed. Our Preply commission guide and our piece on marketplaces against independent work do the same sums for those routes.

Is 25% worth it? Two invented tutors

Whether the fee is worth paying depends on what you would do without it. These two tutors are invented, and the point is the reasoning, not the numbers.

Sam has no students and a degree in chemistry

Sam has taught nobody for money and has no website, no audience and no budget for advertising. A marketplace gives Sam what is hard to build alone: people searching for a chemistry tutor today. Paying 25% to be found is a fair price while the alternative is no lessons. Sam should treat the fee as a cost of getting started, set a rate that still pays at 75%, and invite friends and classmates through the referral link, so that the second year costs less than the first.

Dev has twelve students and a waiting list

Dev has built a name locally and takes students by word of mouth. On Wyzant, every lesson with a new student costs a quarter of Dev's rate. Dev's choice is not "Wyzant or nothing". It is whether Wyzant still brings students Dev could not get otherwise. If Dev does not need new students, the fee buys nothing. If Dev does, the referral rule lowers the cost on the ones Dev brings to Wyzant, and students Dev finds elsewhere can book on Dev's own page, where no percentage is taken.

The test is the same for both. Count the students you could not have found yourself and price those at 75% of your rate. For every other student, ask whether they would have come to you anyway, and bring them through a route that costs less. Our guides to getting your first ten students and to leaving a marketplace give the steps.

Working for yourself, and what Tutafy does and does not do

If you already have students, or will find them, you can teach with no platform percentage. The trade is that you do the finding, booking, reminding and collecting yourself. Tutafy is a set of tools for that: a public booking page that shows your free hours in the student's time zone, a video classroom in the browser, email reminders, student records and payment through your own Stripe or PayPal account, with 0% commission. The Free plan is $0 for up to 10 students, Pro is $12 a month and Academy is $29.

• Your payment processor still charges its own fee, so read the Stripe or PayPal page for the current figure before you work out your take-home.
• Tutafy does not find you students. The tutor directory is not open yet: its page says it opens once six tutors are ready, and it lists none today.
• Tutafy has no referral programme that pays tutors, does not check qualifications and does not guarantee that a student pays, shows up or stays.
• If you teach on Wyzant, follow its rules. Read the Independent Tutor Agreement before you point a Wyzant student at a booking page. We do not give legal advice and we do not suggest breaking an agreement.

A sensible pattern for many tutors is both: use a marketplace to find first students while you are new, and bring the students you find elsewhere to your own page.

Mistakes tutors make with the Wyzant fee

• Quoting the 25% and forgetting the 9%. A student sees $54.50 for your $50, and you must be able to explain it.
• Setting a rate from what you want on the profile instead of what you want in your bank. Divide by 0.75 first.
• Expecting weekly pay. Pay is twice a month, with a cut-off and a bank delay.
• Leaving the Social Security Number or EIN step until a payment is held.
• Taking payment outside Wyzant from a student you met there. The agreement forbids it, and Wyzant's safety page warns it can end in the closure of your account.

Wyzant pages used here, read on 31 Oct 2026. They answered 403 to our script, so each figure comes from the search result of the official page, not the page opened in a browser. Read the current page before you decide. Sources: Wyzant: fee structure for tutors · Wyzant: service fee charged to students · Wyzant blog: fee changes from 15 January 2019 · Wyzant: tutor payment policies · Wyzant: payment schedule update, July 2025 · Wyzant: direct deposit · Wyzant: tutor referrals FAQs · Wyzant: Independent Tutor Agreement · Wyzant: tax information · Wyzant: cancellation policy · Wyzant: changing your hourly rate · Wyzant: background check policy · Wyzant: Good Fit Guarantee · Wyzant: how it works for tutors · Wyzant: tutor safety.