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How much does a tutor cost?

Work out what a tutor will actually cost from the rate, the length of the session, how many sessions a week, and how many weeks it runs, then see what it works out at per week and per session you actually attend. An hourly rate is a small number that gets multiplied by a term, and the sessions that get missed are usually billed anyway. The calculator does both sums.

§ 01 Your numbers

Change anything. The answer updates as you type.

The headline figure on the quote, per hour of tutoring. The default is ours and editable, and your tutor's figure is the one that matters.
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The rate moves with things worth asking about before you compare two of them. A subject specialist preparing a student for a specific exam is priced differently from general homework support. A session on a screen is priced differently from one that involves a car and forty minutes of driving. And an agency rate and an independent tutor's rate are not the same kind of number, because the agency's covers vetting, matching, cover when your tutor is ill, and a replacement if the match is wrong.
A session is not always an hour. Forty-five and ninety are both common, and the length changes the arithmetic more than people expect.
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This is where a rate quietly stops being comparable. A tutor quoting an hourly rate and running fifty-minute sessions is charging a fifth more per session than the sticker implies, and a tutor running ninety-minute sessions is asking for half as much again per visit. Ask what the session actually runs to and whether the rate is per hour or per session, because those are two different questions and the answers do not always agree.
How often you are booking. This is the multiplier that turns a modest rate into a real line in the household budget.
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Worth deciding on purpose rather than by drift. Two sessions a week is twice the bill of one, which is obvious, and it is also twice the homework, the travel and the fatigue, which is less obvious and is the reason arrangements quietly lapse in week five. If the goal has a date on it, count the sessions between here and the date first and let that decide the frequency.
The number people leave out of the sum and then meet at the end of the term. A school term is roughly twelve weeks, which is where the default sits.
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This is the figure that decides the size of the decision, and it is the one nobody puts in the same sentence as the rate. An hourly rate reads as a small commitment. The same rate, twice a week, until the exam in June, is a different order of thing entirely, and it is the identical decision made once. Put the real number of weeks in, look at the total, and then decide about the rate.
Sessions cancelled inside the notice window, which are charged anyway. Zero is the optimistic answer rather than the usual one.
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Nearly every tutor works to a notice period, and a session cancelled inside it is billed in full. This is a reasonable policy rather than a sharp one: the hour was reserved, it was not sold to anybody else, and the tutor cannot fill it at short notice. But over a term it is real money for an empty table, and it is the line that separates what you spend from what you get. Illness, a fixture, a school trip and a family weekend all land in it. Ask what the notice period is when you agree the rate, and if the calendar is genuinely unpredictable, ask whether sessions can be rescheduled inside the week rather than simply forfeited, because some tutors will and it is worth knowing which.
A one-off charge at the start, common with agencies and centres and less common with independent tutors: an intake test to work out the level, a report, and the matching. Zero if you were not charged one. Worth asking whether it is refundable if the match turns out to be wrong, since that is the moment it matters.
Workbooks, past papers, a subscription to a practice platform. Zero if your tutor brings everything or works from the school's material. It is a small line beside the tuition, and it belongs in the total because it is spent for the same reason.
Estimated cost
$1,200

Typical range $0 – $0

  • Tuition (sessions booked × price per session)$1,200
  • Assessment or registration fee$0
  • Books, materials and exam papers$0
  • Total$1,200
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$600 to $2,400 is the ordinary shape of a tutoring arrangement: once or twice a week, running a term. Compare this total against your other quotes rather than the headline rates, and use the per-attended-session figure above, since that is the comparison that holds the missed sessions still.

What this assumes, and where it could be wrong

Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.

THE HOURLY RATE IS THE NUMBER YOU COMPARE AND THE TERM IS THE NUMBER THAT DECIDES THE BILL.
A rate is a small figure and it reads like a small commitment. It is then multiplied by the sessions in a week and the weeks in a term, and those two multipliers are almost never spoken about in the same breath as the rate, even though they are chosen at the same moment and they move the total far harder. This is why the page asks for the weeks before it shows you anything. Decide the shape of the arrangement, look at what it comes to, and then argue about the rate.
A session is not always an hour, and the rate is quoted per hour.
Fifty minutes at an hourly rate is a fifth dearer per session than the sticker suggests, and ninety minutes is half as much again per visit. Ask whether the quote is per hour or per session. It is the quickest way two rates that looked identical turn out not to be, and the calculator does the division for you before it does anything else.
Sessions missed inside the notice window are billed, so what you spend and what you get are two different numbers.
This is the line the page exists to surface. The hour was reserved and could not be resold at short notice, so charging for it is fair rather than sharp. It is still money for an empty table, and over a term the illnesses, the fixtures and the school trips add up to a figure worth seeing. That is why the page divides the finished total by the sessions actually attended: the rate describes an hour that went to plan, and the effective figure describes the term you actually had.

An agency rate and an independent tutor's rate are not the same kind of number, and comparing them as though they were is how a decision gets made on the wrong basis. The agency rate carries vetting, a match, cover when your tutor is ill, and a replacement if the match is wrong. The independent rate carries the tutor. Whether that difference is worth what it costs depends on how much of it you would otherwise be doing yourself, and this page cannot answer that for you. It can make sure you are looking at both totals rather than both rates.

What the tutor charges is not what the tutor keeps. The hour you buy is preceded by planning, by marking whatever came back from last week, and by the reading a subject specialist does to stay current with an exam board that changes its mind. Around it are the travel, the empty weeks between terms, the students who leave in October, the insurance and the tax. This page does not model any of that and it is not suggesting a quote is unfair. It is showing you what you are buying, so the number you carry to the next tutor is a number about the same thing.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a tutor cost?
It depends on the rate, and then on three things that move the bill harder than the rate does: how long the session actually runs, how many sessions a week you book, and how many weeks it goes on for. A tutor sets their own fee privately, and this page leaves that to your tutor rather than inventing a figure to stand in for it. Put your own quote in the form above, add the assessment fee and the materials if you were charged for them, and the calculator gives you the total, what it comes to per week, and what it works out at per session you actually attend. That last figure is the one worth carrying to the next quote.
Why does a tutor's hourly rate matter less than people think?
Because it is the smallest number in the sum. The rate gets multiplied by the sessions in a week and then by the weeks in a term, and those two multipliers are chosen at the same moment as the rate but discussed nowhere near it. Two sessions a week for a school term is roughly two dozen sessions, so a difference of a few dollars an hour between two tutors is worth a fraction of what the frequency decision is worth, and a fraction of what a run of billed cancellations is worth. Get the shape of the arrangement right first. Then compare rates, with the calculator's per-attended-session figure rather than the sticker.
Do I pay for a tutoring session I cancel?
Usually, if you cancel inside the notice window, and the policy is more reasonable than it first looks: the hour was set aside for you and it cannot be sold to someone else at a day's notice. What matters is that you know the window before you agree the rate rather than after the first invoice with a line on it for a session nobody attended. Ask two things. How much notice, and can a missed session be rescheduled inside the same week instead of forfeited? Some tutors will, some will not, and over a term with a couple of illnesses in it that answer is worth more than a small difference in the rate. Put the sessions you realistically expect to miss into the box above and watch what it does to the per-attended figure.
Is online tutoring cheaper than in person?
Often, and the reason is in the arithmetic rather than in the quality of the teaching. A tutor who drives to your table is paid for the hour and spends closer to two, and the rate has to carry the difference. A tutor on a screen has the travel back and can teach a student in another city, which widens who they can reach and what they can specialise in. What you give up is the part that is hard to price: a younger student is easier to keep in the room in person, and some subjects want a shared sheet of paper. Neither of those is a cost line, which is exactly why they should be decided separately from the rate. Price both with the calculator, then choose on the teaching.

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