A teacher's guide to setting your tutoring rate

New tutors — especially excellent teachers — consistently make the same pricing mistake: they anchor on modesty rather than value. Parents aren't buying an hour of your time; they're buying the ten thousand hours behind it. Here's a practical way to choose a number.

Start from what actually justifies a higher rate

• Level. A-Level commands more than GCSE, which commands more than KS2 — the stakes and the scarcity of confident subject specialists both rise.
• Subject scarcity. Maths, physics, chemistry and languages tutors are chronically outnumbered by demand; specialists in them should price accordingly.
• Exam-board fluency. Teaching the specification your student sits — with its mark schemes and examiner reports — is worth visibly more than teaching "the subject".
• Track record. Years in the classroom, exam-season experience, results you can talk about. Reviews compound this over time.
• Format. Face-to-face carries travel time; many tutors price it above online for that reason.

Why we set a £40 floor

On Teachers Delivered you set your own rate with no cap and a £40/hour minimum. The floor is deliberate: we only list qualified, experienced teachers, and a race to the bottom helps nobody — it underpays professionals and quietly tells parents that expertise is interchangeable. It isn't. The floor is the starting point; experienced specialists at A-Level commonly sit well above it. For what different rates mean in take-home terms after the platform's 20% fee, the arithmetic is in how much can a qualified teacher earn?

Three practical rules

1. Don't price to fill every hour. Fewer students at the right rate beats a packed diary at the wrong one — tutoring quality is an energy game, and resentment-pricing leaks into lessons.
2. Raise with demand, at natural boundaries. When your weekly slots are full and enquiries keep coming, your rate is too low. Move it for new students at term boundaries; existing families appreciate a term's notice.
3. Never discount your way into a family. A parent who chose you on price will leave on price. Compete on the thing they can't get elsewhere — your experience — and let the platform's vetting make the case that it's real.

See what parents see

Your rate appears on your profile next to your qualifications, DBS status and reviews — the full context that makes a professional rate look like what it is. Create your profile, set a number using the framework above, and adjust it from your dashboard whenever you like.