Two years on Preply 🎉🎊

Two years later, we are still here. Despite many ups and downs, a lot of complaining and praising, I am still committed to Preply, and I must say that it’s going better than I could have ever hoped for. Here is an annual report of Preply earnings, working hours and types of students who agreed to commit to me.

A lot of things have changed ever since I taught my first class. I have a set of trial lesson templates, and I don’t stress before them as much as I used to. It could be partially because I’m fully booked, and the stakes are low. If I don’t get a student, realistically nothing happens as someone else will come along and stick around. Another tactic that I have adopted is that each time I feel a bit overwhelmed with the number of students, I don’t close my profile – I raise my hourly rate, and much to my surprise, often end up with a new student. That being said, it was a busy year. Here is the rest of the Preply report, between 24th February 2023 and 23rd February 2024. If you are curious about my previous year, you should read the report One year on Preply 🎊.

A year in numbers

Just like last year, let’s start by looking at some stats. The total number of tutoring hours in 2024 is 927.8 (the number below reflects the hours taught from the beginning of teaching on Preply). On average, it gives about 3.63 contact hours per day, excluding weekends. Just like a year ago, all my classes were rated ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. As you can see, I don’t insist on writing reviews, but the 11 students who kindly agreed to write something, gave me also 5-star ratings. You can find all the testimonials at the bottom of the main page.

Preply has been constantly improving tutor conditions. The booking period for trial lessons stayed the same, 24 hours in advance (with the possibility to change it to 48 hours), and the regular classes can be booked with a 6-hour notice (it can be shortened or extended, depending on each tutor). This year Preply introduced a 12-hour cancellation policy, making the classes less chaotic and easier to control. Once again, I am proud to say that as a chronic napper, I didn’t miss any lessons last year (knock on wood!).

At the moment of writing, my position amongst other ESL tutors is 102, but this number varies. There are times when I’m booked for trial lessons daily, and there are also some slower periods, but I can’t complain. Right now, I am satisfied with the number of regular students. In the last 365 days, my profile was seen 11,140 times, and I was booked 33 times for trial lessons, giving me the conversion of viewers to trial 0.31%, slightly lower than the average (0.33%). Considering my hourly rate ($50), I am more than content with the number of bookings and later commitment to classes.

Trial lessons

As mentioned before, in the last 365 days, I taught 33 trial lessons – on average 2.6 trial lessons per month. From that 26 students came back, and 7 of them were never to be heard from again, meaning that I convinced 79% of students (last year my success rate was 75%). Since the trial lessons are still 100% free for tutors, I’m more than happy to have as few trial lessons as possible. Depending on the type of students, the trial lessons can be either 60 minutes long (for corporate students) or 25 or 50 minutes long for everyone else. Usually, students opt for 50-minute long trials, but I have had one 25-minute long class, and it was more than enough to convert this student into a regular. This year, Preply made $1069 only from trial lessons.

Student retention

When I think about my biggest achievement, I don’t think about successful trial lessons. I’ve had plenty of them, and there are times when students sign up for a few more classes, and then disappear after 2 hours, so it is meaningless. For me, student retention is the proper way of measuring teaching success. This year, I convinced 26 students to come back for more lessons. Additionally, I had 13 students sticking with me from the year before. This is a lot of students, and of course, some of them aren’t active anymore (luckily!). Below, you can see the students, the number of hours they committed to and how many are still active. For simplicity, I put students from the previous year and added their hours from the previous year, to see how long they have been really around.

Out of 39 students, whom I had the pleasure to teach in the last 12 months, 23 are still active, and 16 of them disappeared either without a trace or for some important reasons, such as giving birth or moving to another country!

Just like a year ago, there is a visible pattern. Students who clocked more than 26 hours, are usually here to stay. The most critical time to maintain students is between 11-25 hours. It surprised me, as I assumed that most students who dropped out, usually did so before hitting the 10-hour mark. As you can see, some troopers are committed to the lessons and attended more than 100 hours!

Another interesting fact is that out of all those students, only four take more than one class a week. The others attend classes once a week, or once every two weeks.

Types of students

Since I am a non-native teacher, I attract a certain group of students – usually from Poland, which I honestly love. I have students with whom I connect culturally and linguistically. It helps me understand the type of errors and problems they have and shortens my lesson preparation time. All students are adults, predominantly in their late 20s and early 30s, but I must say I also have a few gentlemen between 60-75 years old! The dynamic in these lessons is a bit different, but I enjoy them nonetheless.

I thought it could be interesting to look at the professions of students. As it turns out, with higher rates, come different types of students, for example, doctors, directors, lawyers, business owners and professional sportspeople! Selfishly, this diversity of students makes the classes more interesting for me and forces me to tailor lessons to each profession. This explains the abundance of medical and HR English lesson plans this year!

Let’s talk about money

Before getting to this part of the post, you could be interested in seeing how my earnings were changing as described in Preply – So…when does it get good?, talking about the first 5 months of teaching on Preply, and One year on Preply 🎊. Of course, read the articles and come up with your conclusions about whether you believe working for online platforms is beneficial for you. After writing my last year’s Preply report, Rachel Roberts made a video explaining why teaching on Preply isn’t worth it. Keep in mind that this platform isn’t for everyone, and there are other ways of becoming a successful online tutor!

The commissions on Preply are the same as before. Currently, I am in the last commission bracket (18% 😲), and unfortunately, I don’t think this is going to change anytime soon. Although the commissions are quite high, I accept them. Most importantly, I don’t need to search for students anymore. Also, some of the lessons were cut down by 10 minutes, which gives me some time to stretch my legs and get a snack without any rush.

Last year, I was also a Preply group teacher. I am not doing that anymore, as the Preply group lessons model changed, and it was not beneficial for me anymore, so I stopped offering these lessons. Eventually, I was removed from this programme. From my understanding, Preply doesn’t offer group lessons anymore. Instead, I was asked to teach decision-makers (a trial lesson for a lot of 💸, but with low chances of the student coming back for more classes). In the end, I was also removed from this programme, as these rates were lowered, and my hourly rate was higher than what they could propose. I also participated in a beta testing of AI features, for which I was paid, too.

Let’s look at the money earned on Preply, and how much of it was taken in commissions and trial lessons.

Overall, in the last 12 months, I earned $18,227.32, primarily by teaching 1:1 lessons, but also by teaching decision-makers and doing the beta testing behind the scenes. From that, the students paid $4,132.08 in commissions and $1,069 in trial lessons! This means that Preply kept 22% of earnings. Since I had fewer trial lessons this year, this number decreased by 3%. As always, let’s think about additional expenses, such as taxes, social security, MS Office, Zoom, Linguahouse, etc. I am also constantly upgrading my equipment to provide the best quality of lessons for all my students.

Working hours

I am currently teaching online full-time. Let’s see how many hours I worked and how they converted into income.

In general, it is easy to notice a growing tendency. As it usually is when you are self-employed, you may have good months, and you may have slow months. You can also easily spot when I took some time off (April, July, December and February). I decided to calculate the average earnings and working hours per month. Between March 2023 and February 2024, I worked 73 hours per month (about 3.65 hours per day, excluding weekends) and earned $1429.47, which doubles the income that you could earn working at a language academy in Spain. Now, let’s see how this income compares to a rate per hour.

Currently, I don’t teach too many trial lessons per month. Even though my rate per hour is $50, there are students with different rates, therefore my income varies. As seen above, the hourly rate has been increasing. Let me remind you that 2 years ago I started with $6.38 per hour! Between March 2023 and February 2024, this rate has increased to an average of $ 19.58 per hour. The increasing trend is very promising, and I hope it will keep growing.

So, what’s next?

At the moment, the Preply 1:1 classes are going great! I am fully booked and increased my rates to $50 per hour. It seems like a lot, but trust me some people are interested in expensive tutors and will be happy to book a class with you. Additionally, last year I started cooperating with a Spanish language academy, which offers Business English lessons for companies. It gives me more income, exposes me to other tutors, and provides me with other opportunities, such as looking for authentic material for corporate lessons.

Of course, more teaching hours mean that I have less time to work on my blog. I am trying my best, though. The blog also offers me some small income via adverts and donations. One thing is for sure – the blog is here to stay.

It’s hard to predict what will happen in the next 12 months, but seeing my progress on Preply, I think I will stick around for some more time. Now and then, the platform gives me some interesting projects, so time will tell!

I hope that you found this report somewhat useful. Whether it convinced you to try Preply or move on, I wish you all the best. I guess, I’ll see you next year, for another annual report!