How to make $100,000 Income Tutoring and Teaching Online in 2021
I wanted to be a High School Math teacher ever since I was little. In 2017, that dream became a reality when the bell rang signaling the start of 1st period in my very own classroom in North Carolina. That morning I saw 74 freshman eyes staring back at me, just as nervous as I was for their first day of Math 1. Yes, 74 eyes means I had 37 students in just one of my classes! Luckily, they were 37 of the most well behaved, sweetest students ever, and that class is still my favorite. My first year of teaching was full of ups and downs, mishaps, awards, and incredible advice from my amazing coworkers. I absolutely LOVED it! I felt like teaching was what I was put on this Earth to do. I found my calling. However, just a year later, I found myself living in Utah, not teaching in the classroom, but still loving my job. Running your own tutoring business full time or as a side hustle is not only a great way to earn extra money, but also encompasses everything I loved about teaching without any of the negative aspects.
To be honest, I loved teaching in the classroom, and each fall after I left the classroom (except the fall of 2020) I was a bit sad that I didn’t have 100+ new students to teach and help along their journey through high school. In 2018, I took my then part time tutoring business (5 hrs per week) on full time after moving to Salt Lake City, Utah. Luckily, I had some longtime clients in North Carolina that wanted to keep working with me online after I moved, which gave me enough of a cushion to work on getting in person clients in Utah. It didn’t take me long to grow the business. My husband and I moved to Utah in October 2018; by December I was hitting 40 hours per month, and by April (6 months in) I was working 110 hours per month and making the same amount I was making while teaching in North Carolina. Mind you, when I was teaching in the classroom I was putting in about 240 hours per month (60 hours per week)! I couldn’t believe it!
Every month my business grew, and I gave myself pay raises as I got more and more fully booked (supply and demand). In 2020, my tutoring business has grown exponentially! Right now (January 2021), I am working 50 hours a week with 45 students in 3 different countries (USA, Canada, and Kuwait) and making more than double what I made teaching in the classroom! I get to work from home, make a difference in students lives around the world and give back to needy students through my scholarship program. The best part is that I do not have to deal with school district hurdles, useless trainings, grading, never ending lesson planning (there is still some lesson planning but a fraction of what I used to do), classroom management, rude students, discipline, making copies, etc. Now that you know more about my story, here is how to create your own extremely profitable tutoring business, be your own boss, and set your own schedule.
Step 1: What subject and grade levels do you want to tutor?
It is very important to find a niche that is not too big but also not too small. I would suggest starting with content that you already know and can teach without having to spend time reviewing. For me, I started tutoring high school math and have since grown to teach anything math related from Grade 3 to Calculus 3, as well as do SAT/ACT test prep for the math section only. Also think about how much marketing you want to do. For instance, if I tutor only AP Calculus students, I will have to find new students much more often because as students get to college many stop scheduling tutoring sessions, as they can get free tutoring through their university. Since I tutor younger students as well, I can keep those clients for years and help them year after year as they get to middle and high school.
Step 2: Set your rates and schedule
It is difficult for some people to figure out how much they want to charge. The simplest way is to figure out how much you need or want to make, how many days a year you want to work, how many hours a day, and then work backwards. If you want to make $100,000 a year, work 208 days a year, 8 hours per day that ends up being about $60 per hour. That means you can work only 4 days a week each month or work 5 days a week only 10 months out of the year. That could give you most of the summer totally off or three day weekends all year round while still hitting $100,000 in revenue! A $60 an hour rate for tutoring is very doable and pretty typical for most qualified tutors. If you are just starting out, I would suggest working Monday through Thursday (Fridays are not as popular) or Sunday evening through Thursday working 5–6 hours per day while working up to those longer days. Think about where you are located and what time students need tutoring in various time zones. For me living in Utah, I can book tutoring 1pm to 8pm very easily since 1pm MST is 3pm EST (after school for east coast high schoolers) and 8pm MST is 7pm PST so I can tutor on the west coast at that time. Each day I can start on the east coast and work my way across the country. If you want to work mornings or earlier in the day you may need to look internationally or to homeschool students to fill daytime slots. If you are just starting out I would also suggest building in buffer time between appointments to give yourself time to do any administrative work that is needed during the day.
During the summer, I typically have about 60% of my high school students and 90% of my elementary students stick around for a regular summer tutoring schedule. You can do additional marketing to find new students over the summer or you can take the time off. That’s the best part, it is totally up to you! If you do want to have a consistent year round income, it is definitely possible through tutoring and teaching online. During the summer months, I have started offering group courses on Outschool to increase my summer income. Outschool does take a 30% commission, but it is a great way to get hours filled in your schedule with little to no marketing work. My highest ever monthly income was this past July (usually my worst month) thanks to my Outschool courses.
If you are still unsure how much to charge I would suggest looking at your credentials. If you have a teaching degree or any college degree I would suggest charging at least $50 per hour or more! Not to say you can not find good clients at a lower rate, but I have found that as I increased my rates I had more legitimate clients, more well behaved students, and more appreciative families. This $50 per hour threshold is where I started to see the most change. At this rate, families value your time and will pay for it. At the higher rates, I had less no shows, families took tutoring more seriously, and were more likely to keep tutoring over the summer. It doesn’t seem to make sense at first, but when you are charging more than competitors, clients think that there must be a reason, that you must be better, and they want only the best for their children. Of course, whatever you charge, you must live up to what you are selling and be able to back up that rate with experience, knowledge, or even better, results. I would also suggest raising your rates as you get more fully booked. If you have less available time slots, those time slots are more valuable, it’s simple supply and demand. Every school year or every semester, you can raise your rates for new incoming students. You can raise the rates for your current clients at the same time or just keep them at the same rate in order to value their loyalty. I personally only raise rates for new students, and when older students do not need my services anymore, they are replaced with higher paying clients effectively giving yourself a consistent raise. However, I will say that, from an administration perspective, it is much easier with all students at the same rate.
Step 3: Decide on a payment system and scheduling site
Popular payment options tutors use are Paypal, Stripe, Venmo, Square, and Zelle. I personally give parents the option to pay through Venmo or Paypal. I would suggest picking two and sticking with them. Paypal is a great option because it works internationally and is easy to use. If you are tutoring in the USA exclusively, Venmo is a great option to avoid transaction fees. If you do choose a payment platform with transaction fees, decide how you want that reflected in your rate as well as who will pay the fee, you or the client. Some tutors have their payment system built into their website or scheduling site. Popular scheduling services are Calendly, 10to8, Square, Acuity, Setmore, Timetap, Doodle, and ScheduleOnce. I personally use Calendly. One highly rated, all encompassing tutoring business platform worth checking out is Tutorbird. I highly suggest creating some sort of online scheduling site where parents can go and book appointments, reschedule or cancel appointments as needed, and receive a confirmation email and a reminder email before the lesson. This saves you hours of administrative time and provides a more streamlined business. Parents love the ease of seeing my availability and booking an open slot that works for their student’s schedule. Even if you do not build a website, at least have a schedule tool that parents can use. It will be the best thing you ever do for your business.
Step 4: Find students and/or find a way for students to find you
This can be as simple as having a profile on popular tutoring platforms such as Wyzant or Tutor.com, or putting up flyers or posting ads on Facebook, Marketplace, Craigslist, Thumbtack, Care.com, Fiver, Nextdoor, etc. I would suggest having your hands in as many baskets as possible to be able to find new students. You can contact schools, guidance counselors, teachers, or reach out to friends and family on social media. This part takes some hustling and some patience, but if you are creative, consistent, and diligent, you will be rewarded. If you are contacting education professionals (teachers, guidance counselors, etc), it is better to ask how you can help and provide value to them instead of asking to help you find students or to share their network with you. You are more likely to get a positive response if you provide value. You could be a guest speaker in a teacher’s class or offer technology resources to teachers. Get creative! Once you get a few students, word of mouth is the best way to get new students.
Just be mindful of how much each method of finding students will cost you. For example, Wyzant takes 25% as a commission on each lesson performed with a student you acquired on their platform. This really adds up! When I started tutoring part time, I made a profile on Wyzant. See my Wyzant profile here. It is very challenging running a business when you are restricted to a platform that you have no control over. When Wyzant increased their commission, I was out! If you work for a tutoring company such as Chegg, Sylvan, Mathnasium, or VIPKid, you usually only get a fraction of what parents are actually paying and you usually do not have as much control over your schedule. As a tutor, you will make considerably more money working for yourself!
When you are starting out on your own, I would first create a simple but professional looking website. You can do this completely on your own using website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, Googlesites, and Strikingly. I would also suggest making a facebook and/or instagram page for your business. Do not go overboard starting out; you do not need anything fancy to be able to start tutoring. You can create something simple to start out and update it as needed. Your website can be as simple as a bio, your contact information, what services you offer, and any reviews/testimonials. Whatever you create be sure to maintain it. If you create a social media page, be sure to post regularly.
Step 5: Tutor and grow your business
This is the final step! You have found students and now you are tutoring! Currently, I tutor exclusively online using Bitpaper. Bitpaper is a virtual collaborative whiteboard where both the student and I can write on the screen. It is very user friendly and also has a built-in call feature similar to Skype. Other popular online whiteboard platforms are Ziteboard, ExplainEverything, MURAL, Lucidspark, and Zoom. Some are free, while others require a subscription for the tutor and/or student. When tutoring online, be sure to have technology back up plans so that you can still meet with the student and conduct the lesson even if you encounter a technical issue.
Another valuable tip is to develop a cancelation policy. Some tutors even have parents and students sign a tutoring contract that includes their cancelation policy. It is important to have a cancelation policy and a no show policy; be sure to share them with each new client and most importantly stick to them! Your time is valuable and it is vital to have the security I personally have my cancelation/no show policy on each reminder email sent to parents as well as the confirmation email so my policy is visible and clear. My policy is the following:
Lessons canceled at least 24 hours before scheduled start time result in no cancelation fee.
Lessons canceled more than 1 hour but less than 24 hours before the scheduled start time will be charged 50% of the full lesson.
Lessons canceled less than 1 hour before scheduled start time or no shows will be charged for the full lesson.
Before each tutoring lesson, I ask the student/parent to send me a text or email with pictures of any worksheets and/or problems that they are struggling with or want to go over during the lesson. This also gives me a chance to preview any material that the student is struggling with and would like to go over. I then paste these problems into Bitpaper’s whiteboard so that it is ready to go come lesson time. I will also pull similar problems or materials around a particular concept to help fill gaps and provide students with extra practice. Before the lesson start time, I will send the student and/or parent a link to the Bitpaper virtual whiteboard that I will have set up ahead of time so they know where to meet me.
Once you have worked with a student/parent for a few weeks, ask them to provide a testimonial that you can add to your website to grow your business. You can also ask them if they have any one else they know of that would also benefit from your tutoring services. Parents love to brag about their student’s successes; let them know when you’re looking for new clients. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to grow your client base! If your clients see positive results, they will continue tutoring with you as long as needed, sometimes this will be years! If a student has siblings you may eventually be helping those students as well. The sky is the limit, and it will be less marketing for you to do going forward to get new students. Eventually, new students will come to you.
The pandemic turned the education system upside down in 2020, exposing just how vulnerable our public school systems are and just how little resources teachers have. Parents value teachers more than ever and realize how challenging mass online education can be without the necessary resources. Online school with 20–30 students in a zoom call is challenging not only for teachers to create engaging collaborative opportunities for students to learn, but also for students to focus, pay attention, and master the material. More students than ever are behind and need help! Parents now more than ever are looking for additional outside help in the form of tutoring, making 2021 is the best year yet to develop an online tutoring business.
