Tutor Marketplace

Tutor Marketplace is a business tool for independent tutors, with an optional public directory attached. The site describes its job as "Helping independent tutors run and grow their tutoring business": the paid product, the Bookings Suite, handles booking, payment, messaging and the online classroom for a tutor's students, and the Directory Listing puts a verified tutor in front of families through a directory the company says it advertises to Australian families. Prices are in Australian dollars and the footer carries an Australian Business Number. Unlike a tutoring agency, the platform does not assign students to tutors or set lesson prices: tutors pay to be on it, set their own hourly rate, and keep their students. For families, it is a free place to browse verified tutors, message them and book.

For tutors: the Bookings Suite

The home page sums up the Suite as "You teach. We'll run the desk." It lists six core tools: an online booking calendar, card payments, a video classroom with whiteboard, student messaging, phone calendar sync, and automatic reminders. The pricing page fills in the detail. The planner shows every lesson in one calendar, online or in person, and each lesson opens in place so the tutor can move it, change where it happens, send the details or join it. Students book from the tutor's own availability calendar. Payments are taken by card at the rate the tutor sets, in the tutor's currency, and the help center says families pay through Stripe at the time they choose a slot.

Two features go beyond a basic calendar. Offers in the chat let a tutor send a time and a price straight into a message thread; the slot is held while the family decides and, in the page's words, "one tap pays for it. No invoices, no chasing." The same thread can carry lesson packages, and the planner example shows a student on lesson 4 of a 10-lesson package. Bring your own students lets a tutor add anyone they already teach, even someone who never makes an account: that student gets an email with the details and an add-to-calendar link, and the tutor gets, as the page puts it, one diary instead of three. The Suite also produces lesson write-ups, and the planner flags session summaries still to write.

The classroom is video with a whiteboard that handles equations, graphs and shapes, plus shared notes and files and a lesson workspace. A tutor who prefers their own Zoom link can use it instead, set per lesson rather than per account, and an in-person lesson simply takes an address. Each tutor also gets a shareable link and built-in chat.

What tutors pay

The Bookings Suite costs $25 AUD a month after a free first 30 days. On top of that the platform takes a flat 5% on lessons students pay for through it, so the tutor keeps 95% of every lesson paid that way; lessons the tutor takes payment for directly cost nothing. There are no setup or booking fees. The card is taken at sign-up and nothing is charged for 30 days; there is one trial per tutor, and the 5% still applies during the trial. Billing is monthly in AUD and renews automatically. A tutor can cancel at any time from the billing portal, and the subscription runs to the end of the period paid for, then stops. There are no lock-in contracts and no exit fees.

The Directory Listing is optional and only ever sold on top of the Suite: $15 AUD a month more, $40 all in. Once the tutor is verified, the profile appears in Find a tutor, on every relevant subject page, in the homepage carousel and in the sitemap, and is included in the advertising the company runs for the directory. Enquiries land in the tutor's inbox with no per-lead fees. A listing chosen at sign-up or added during the trial is also free until the trial ends, and it can be added or dropped at any time from the billing page. Without it, tutors still take bookings; they simply are not in the directory.

There is a referral scheme too: when a tutor who joined through another tutor's link makes a first payment, both get a month of the Suite as a credit on their next bill.

Verification

The site says every tutor is identity- and document-checked, and the pricing page says every tutor is verified before their listing goes live. The signup steps ask for subjects, availability, location, teaching approach and hourly rate, then photos, an intro video and academic details. The platform does not match students to tutors by algorithm; families choose from the directory themselves.

For families and students

The help center says browsing and messaging tutors "is free and always will be." No card is needed to message a tutor, and a family can message as many as it likes, with email and text notifications when a tutor replies. The help center suggests asking about experience, how the tutor teaches and what they would cover first, and notes that many tutors will set a shorter, cheaper first lesson, at their own rates.

Profiles show which of two kinds of tutor a family is dealing with. Some take bookings and payments through the platform, shown by a Book button; the family picks a time and pays for it securely through Stripe at the rate shown. Others prefer to be found and then arrange lessons directly. Either way, the platform never charges students or families a fee: they pay the tutor's lesson price and nothing else. The tutor search filters by subject, by year level from Kindergarten or Prep through Year 12, with subjects that include NAPLAN, selective and OC test preparation, UCAT and IELTS, and by online or in-person lessons.

Booked lessons take place in the built-in video room with no downloads or extra accounts: the student opens the booking in My Bookings and clicks Join Lesson, and camera and microphone permissions are requested automatically. Cancellations also go through My Bookings. Cancelling more than 24 hours ahead gives a full refund; within 24 hours, the lesson may not be refundable; if the tutor cancels, the student always gets a full refund. The policy covers only lessons booked and paid through the platform. The directory is young: the tutors page showed a single listed tutor, a maths tutor at $80 an hour.

Who it suits

For tutors, Tutor Marketplace suits an independent tutor who already has private students and wants bookings, payments, reminders and a classroom in one place for a fixed monthly fee instead of a large cut of every lesson. Being able to schedule existing students without forcing them to create accounts, and paying nothing on lessons paid directly, makes it practical to move an existing practice over gradually. The Directory Listing suits a tutor who also wants to be found by Australian families and is willing to pay $15 a month for it. It suits less well a tutor who expects the platform to deliver a steady flow of students by itself: the directory is small, and there is no matching.

For families, it suits parents who want to compare independent, verified tutors, message several without paying, and book and pay per lesson at the tutor's own rate. It suits less well a family looking for an agency that picks a tutor for them or runs a structured program, since the platform handles the logistics of lessons and leaves the teaching to the tutor.