On 24th February 2022, I had my very first Preply class. Now, a little over a month later, I’ve gathered some Preply experience and statistics that I’d like to share with you and think about my next steps on the platform.
Let me walk you through my humble beginnings and a successful month on Preply.
Becoming a tutor
I’d been thinking of becoming an online tutor for the longest time. When I finally mustered some energy and motivation to proceed, the first thing I did was head to the Preply – Become a tutor. I put all my credentials, wrote a short introduction, uploaded my certificates, and then hit the wall. The thought of recording a video made me delay my experience by a month. I finally managed to sit down, watch their video tutorials and write my own script. The good thing about their introductory video is that it has to be between 50 and 100 seconds long. You can find thousands of introduction videos that you can use for inspiration, and also some guidelines on how to create the perfect video in the Profile video advice section. After watching some of their videos, I noticed a pattern and divided my video into sections:
- Introduce myself
- My background
- My teaching experience + qualifications
- My teaching style
- Humblebrag about my current students and what they say about me
I wrote the script in about 15 minutes, but the recording took me a bit longer. I’m not going to lie – I was exhausted at the end of the recording, wanted to upload it and stop thinking about it immediately. Apart from the short length of the video, the other good thing about it is that you don’t have to edit it! I’ve tried recording a video on Italki before, but their video style scared me off, as it seemed to be quite complicated and required a lot of technical skills that I don’t think I have.
Once I hit upload the video I decided to forget about it. The standard video approval takes approximately 48 hours, but I’ve heard stories of people waiting well over a week or being ghosted completely. Much to my surprise, I received a positive message the very next day, in less than 24 hours and felt a sense of euphoria.
Preply courses
Before I completed my profile and made it live, I decided to go over the Preply internal courses to fully understand the platform and how it works. There are four courses that, in my opinion, you should go over to feel a bit more confident:
- How to create a profile that gets students
- How Preply works
- The Preply classroom
- Preply methodology
Preply has many options that I’m yet to discover and understand, but I thought that this would give me somewhat of an idea of what I’m expected to do. I sat down and completed all the courses in less than an hour. Most of them are short texts or videos that briefly explain the functions of different parts of the platform. I’d definitely recommend going over these courses as they take the initial shock and let you play around with the settings just a tiny bit.
Going live
Once I completed the courses, I revised my profile and wrote an additional description in my native language – Polish. I was wondering about the ideal price and decided to low-ball hard as I was a newbie and wanted to attract some students to get the ball rolling. After using many other websites I had very low expectations, so imagine my surprise when I got booked six times within the first 48 hours. During that time, I doubled my prices and still got new students.
I remember when I watched the video explaining the functions of Preply, I giggled when they mentioned that it’s possible to hide your profile in case you get overbooked. What I hadn’t anticipated was that I’d have to make myself invisible in the first week of teaching. I think that my success rate depended on my knowledge of other languages. Most of my students on Preply are from Poland, and all of them want me to understand them in their native language. I use English 99% of the time, but they want to feel safe and comfortable during this 1% of class when we may need to clarify things in Polish.
I believe that my success rate would be much lower if I hadn’t spoken any additional language other than English. I’ve communicated with some English native speakers who started more or less at the same time as I did, and they had a bit more problems finding new students. I’m not sure how the Preply algorithm works, but I got certainly lucky and was pushed up having a multi-language profile and being immediately booked on the first day.
Trial lessons
Once you go live, you need to organise your schedule. I decided to keep it simple and didn’t offer crazy hours. I thought that I can work 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the afternoon, with a 2 hours break in between for lunch. I wanted to work and get money, but I didn’t want to lose my mind and obsessively check my phone every 30 minutes to see if my calendar had changed.
Normally, students book a class before communicating with you, which is a blessing and somehow a curse at the same time. As I mentioned before, I completed the Preply courses and listened to their advice to set trial lesson notice for at least one day in advance. I don’t know about you, but I need some time to prepare mentally before teaching a new student.
Whenever I got booked, I messaged new students and thanked them for choosing me. I informed them about what I was going to do in the first lesson and asked about their preferences and their first lesson goals. Preply also offers placements tests, so you can get an idea of the level and plan accordingly. Before my very first trial lesson, I went above and beyond to deliver the best quality class I could imagine. If you are interested in reading more about my experience and some thoughts that I had afterwards, go to My very first trial lesson on Preply. The only disclaimer I have is that after having exactly 10 trial lessons, my approach has changed, I’m less stressed and I’d normally follow the lesson plan I’d prepared for the first trial lesson and adapt it depending on the level and needs of students.
I also mentioned the curse of being able to book a class with me without any prior communication. I decided to not teach children online anymore and focus on teaching teenagers and adults only. I mentioned it in my profile description, but as it turns out, not everyone reads that. I was booked one time for a child and needed to decline the offer. The class wasn’t actually cancelled, the mum of the child decided to take this opportunity, and we chatted for an hour in English. This was our first and last meeting as she wasn’t looking for a teacher for herself. So, I had a free trial lesson without actually getting a student.
Teaching on Preply
I must admit that at first, I didn’t like Preply that much. The platform is very useful and you don’t stress about not being paid, as the money appears on your profile 15 minutes after the class, but the classroom itself left a lot to desire. I enjoy getting emails notifying me about being booked, or a build-in chat that lets me communicate with students at any given time. It helps me stay organised and I have no difficulties keeping track of everything we do. However, there are many issues with screen and sound sharing, whiteboard appearing and disappearing, calendar blocking certain hours and also students not being able to reserve future times without paying upfront. I have mentioned all this and my solutions to these problems in Videoconferencing software.
Preply claims that they want to implement flipped classroom methodology. Students should choose a topic ahead of time, complete listening, reading and writing exercises and come in to check their homework and chat about the topic. I’m sure that it works for some teachers and I even gave it a go, but somehow it’s not it for me. I have a library of my resources, I prepare my lessons, and of course, focus on speaking for the main part of the class. So far so good! Students enjoy my teaching style and the topics I (and sometimes they) bring to the table. With some of them, I communicate ahead of time and let them know my lesson objectives, so they can prepare themselves and tell me about what they’d learnt. Of course, it depends on students and their preferences. It took me some time to understand their needs and see how well we work together. I use the library from time to time, but more as an inspiration rather than a lesson plan itself.
Cancelling lessons
I haven’t cancelled any classes yet, but I have rescheduled a few. Preply has the policy that students can reschedule up to four hours before the class. If they don’t and they can’t attend, you are allowed to claim this money for the class that didn’t happen. I had a few instances in which students messaged me two or three hours before, informing me about not being able to attend lessons for various reasons. I rescheduled and didn’t ask for payment. I do like money, but also I like working for it. If a student apologises for having an emergency, no internet or a meeting at work, I understand. After all, one day I may be in a similar situation and will ask for understanding, too.
Getting reviews
This is something I didn’t know and didn’t really think about – at the end of each class I’m being rated on my performance! I must say that when I realized that this was the case, I got slightly nervous. I taught 46 hours so far and got an average of 5/5! This makes me feel extremely motivated and happy, but at the same time, it makes me question the quality of other teachers on Preply. I understand that many people use this website as a way of getting some extra cash and probably don’t care too much about preparing interesting and engaging classes, but it’s not my case! No matter the hourly rate, each student gets the attention they deserve.
After teaching five hours to the student, you can ask them to leave a review. I didn’t ask for that, as I think it’s a bit annoying to beg for reviews. I believe that all of my students will leave an honest review whenever they feel like it.
Getting paid
This subject is a bit sensitive. On Preply you don’t get paid anything for trial lessons, so the beginnings require a lot of unpaid work. These classes are paid by students and 100% commission goes straight to the platform. This means that if you are a popular teacher and ask quite a bit per hour, Preply definitely enjoys having you around.
Preply is a free platform, and you don’t need to pay anything to be on it, but they work on lesson commissions. The more you teach, the lower the commissions. In a way, I do understand this model, as the platform is convenient and offers a wide range of functions that maybe you’d have to pay for if you worked on your own. However, the commission rates range from 33 to 18%, so even if you commit to Preply and work solely on their platform, you can’t get more than 82%.
The nice and definitely motivating thing about Preply is that you can see your balance increase after each class. You get a nice e-mail saying that your money has already been deposited and informed about the remaining hours until the lower commission. You can also withdraw your money at any given moment, using Paypal, Wise, Skrill or Payoneer. It is a very quick and sensible action, which lets you have your money within minutes.
End of a month statistics
Last month I taught 45 hours, including 10 trial lessons. From that, I got nine new students. Some of them became regulars, and others booked a class every other week. My average review rating, based on one (voluntarily written) review is 5/5, and an average lesson rating is also 5/5. I haven’t missed or cancelled any lessons.
Overall, despite some drawbacks, I’m satisfied with Preply. I didn’t know that I could be a successful teacher online. It allowed me to focus on my professional development and took most of the free time that now I spend teaching. I’m looking forward to my future on Preply and seeing how it helps me become a better teacher.
Have you ever tried online teaching platforms? Where do you teach, and what’s your experience with them? Would you ever consider teaching on Preply?
JoannaESL 