Affiliate Disclosure: This blog post may contain affiliate links. If you click on these links and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. I am committed to endorsing only products or services that I believe will benefit my audience. Your support through these links helps maintain the operation of this blog, and I appreciate your trust in my recommendations.

Introduction:

Welcome to The Tutor Trainer! We’re so excited to help you grow your tutoring business. To get us going, I’d love to share how I went from searching for a way to earn some income on the side to owning a consistent side hustle that generates six figures annually.

Figuring Out What Business to Pursue:

Growing up, I was always drawn to the idea of starting my own business. In college, I majored in business and joined an entrepreneurial program. Despite these interests, I took the “traditional” path and dove into the corporate world after graduation. While I still fantasized about working for myself and creating my own future, I had hesitations with giving up the security of my full-time job. I also wondered if the time, effort, and expense of starting a net new business would pay off. As a result, I found myself searching for a quicker, safer path to entrepreneurial success while still enjoying the benefits and security of working a full time corporate job.

Outside of the income security, the time, effort, and expense of starting a net new business was a significant roadblock for myself. Hats off to folks that do that, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that path; in fact, you could argue that it carries even more potential financial upside. Starting a venture from scratch was certainly something that I still thought about regularly, but I searched for an option that would provide for a quicker road to success while still enjoying many of the same benefits as entrepreneurship.

Thinking from this lens, I began scouring lists of “best online side hustles” and scanning through the options. While researching these potential income streams, I naturally began to consider my strengths (and weaknesses) and where I could actually add value for clients.

Online tutoring through an established platform was the main opportunity that jumped out at me given my past academic background (4.00 GPA in high school and college), my teaching experience (I tutored students in college and was a TA for a statistics class), and my passion for helping others.

Outside of the alignment with my background and interests, online tutoring had other more “boring” but attractive features. The startup costs and compliance efforts associated with joining a tutoring platform were considerably lower than starting other potential ventures such as a consulting company, a franchise, or even starting my own standalone tutoring business. With this strategy in mind, I began to perform more targeted side hustle efforts.

Trimming the List of Platforms:

After narrowing my pursuits to online tutoring, it was time to research potential platforms and tutoring marketplaces that I could use to host my services. When performing this research, a few factors were paramount to me. First, the size of the platform’s customer base was a critical screener for me.

Without a lot of students on a particular platform, even if you are an amazing tutor, it will be hard to succeed. Many tutoring platforms publish figures (typically for sales and marketing purposes) that can speak to their size and scale, such as number of students on the site, how many lessons the site has hosted to date, etc. I used these statistics and figures as comparison points to better quantify the size and attractiveness of each platform’s customer base.

The second main criterion I applied was flexibility surrounding hourly pay. There are many tutoring programs that offer set rates of $25 or $30 per hour, which can certainly be a steady hourly rate to make some side cash. That being said, I was looking for more financial upside and didn’t want to be locked into a fixed hourly rate. Making the decision that I wanted to be able to set my own rate helped me to significantly trim the potential platform list as many tutoring marketplaces do not allow you to set your own rate.

Strategy for Utilizing Tutoring Platforms:

After applying these two criteria to the tutoring platforms I found online, I narrowed my search to Wyzant and Chegg Tutors. Wyzant fit the bill perfectly for both criteria as it had a multi-million sized student base and also allowed tutors to set their own hourly rate.

On the other hand, while Chegg Tutors did have a large student population, it had hourly pay capped at $20-30 per hour depending on the current level of student demand. Despite failing to pass the flexible hourly pay criterion, I didn’t want to put all of my eggs in one basket, so I decided to make a profile on Chegg Tutors in addition to Wyzant. I was eager to get some sessions under my belt and figured that using multiple platforms would accelerate my ability to land students early on.

Put another way, Wyzant was my primary choice and my long-term preferred option, but I wanted to get experience quickly and start earning money in the short term. Chegg Tutors seemed like the best platform of the fixed rate options, so I kept it as a temporary option. As an aside, it is important to note that Chegg Tutors unfortunately closed its doors in 2021.

To get students more quickly, I set my rate on Wyzant low at the beginning, at a level where my initial rates on Wyzant and Chegg Tutors were similar. I was willing to take this approach in the short term because I knew that Wyzant had considerably more upside and growth potential. As I quickly saw growth in my book of business, my focus began to shift more and more towards Wyzant.

Growth in Demand (and Hourly Rate):

As I booked more lessons and received positive reviews from students, I was able to rapidly increase my hourly rate due to significant demand. I quickly moved from charging $20-$25 per hour up to $60 per hour. I remained in the $60-$70 per hour range for a few months before increasing again to $90 per hour and $120 per hour after that.

Demand and positive reviews continued to grow, so I continued to increase my price. I was pleasantly surprised how quickly I was able to grow my business completely organically. I started receiving so many requests that there weren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with demand, especially considering my rigorous full-time job. Demand management via price increases became a core part of my strategy.

With Wyzant’s flexible pricing model, tutors can change their price for new (not existing) students instantly with just a couple of clicks – it’s really that easy. Soon, I was charging $297 per hour, which is where I remain most of the time today. This earning potential is a testament to my tutoring approach (which I am itching to share with you!) and a lot of hard work, but I majorly benefited from Wyzant’s student base, business model, and superior technology when growing my business too.

Conclusion:

This experience has been life changing for me not only financially but also has given me the opportunity to meet tons of new clients, many of whom I consider to be friends to this day. As such, I wanted to share my knowledge with others who were looking to start their own venture or pursue additional income streams while helping students to accomplish their dreams. Here at The Tutor Trainer, we’re so excited to work with you and help you with your online tutoring pursuits! If you are interested in learning more, please check out our comprehensive online courses and/or our individualized coaching sessions.