Preply just hit unicorn status — a $150M Series D and a $1.2B valuation, on the back of 100,000+ tutors teaching in more than 90 languages. Tutors funded a meaningful share of that. Here's exactly how much, and what it means for how you build your teaching income.
Quick answer: Preply charges tutors a sliding commission of 18–33% depending on total hours taught on the platform, and takes 100% of every trial lesson with a new student. The rate drops as you teach more hours, but it never goes away. For a tutor charging $35/hour, that's roughly $8,000+ a year handed to the platform before you see a cent — money that buys you student acquisition, but nothing else. Below is the full breakdown, plus what the tutors earning $5-10K/month are doing that a marketplace profile alone can't give them.
How Preply's commission actually works
Preply uses a tiered commission model tied to how many hours you've taught on the platform, total — not per student. Here's the current structure:
Hours taught on PreplyCommission rateYou keep (on a $35/hr lesson)Trial lesson (every new student)100%$0.000–20 hours33%$23.4520–50 hours28%$25.2050–200 hours~25%$26.25200–400 hours~22%$27.30400+ hours (floor rate)18%$28.70
A few details that catch new tutors off guard:
- The trial lesson is free to you, every time. Every new student's first lesson pays Preply 100% of the fee. If a student books a $35 trial, you receive $0 for teaching it.
- Hours are cumulative across the platform, not per student. Trial lessons count toward your total, so they at least move you toward the next tier.
- The 18% floor takes a while to reach. At 400+ hours, teaching around 20 hours a week, that's roughly five months of full-time-ish teaching before you hit the best rate — and you're still giving up nearly a fifth of everything.
(Rates current as of Preply's published commission model as of mid-2026 — commission structures can change, so confirm the latest tiers directly with Preply before making decisions based on this table.)
What that commission actually buys you
To be fair to Preply: 33% of something is better than 100% of nothing. If you're a new tutor with no audience of your own, Preply's commission is the price of access to a marketplace of students actively looking for lessons, plus the tooling — booking, payments, video classroom, dispute handling — that would otherwise take real time and money to build yourself.
For a tutor just starting out, that trade is often worth it. The question isn't whether Preply's cut is "fair" in the abstract — it's whether the commission is still buying you something once you're not new anymore.
The real math
Let's run the numbers for a tutor charging $35/hour with 4 regular students, each taking one lesson a week — about 16 lessons a month, $560 in gross bookings.
New tutor (33%)Veteran (18%, 400+ hrs)Preply's cut$184.80/month$100.80/monthYou keep$375.20/month$459.20/monthAnnual cost of commission~$2,218~$1,210
And that's without counting the free trial lesson each new student costs you — at this rate, roughly $140 in unpaid teaching time to land each new regular student.
For comparison, running the same teaching business through your own storefront (Pensight Pro, $29/month flat, plus a roughly 3% Stripe processing fee) looks like this:
Preply (new tutor)Preply (veteran)Your own storefrontPlatform cost$184.80/mo$100.80/mo$29/mo + ~$16.80 processingYou keep$375.20$459.20~$514.20
The honest caveat: Preply found those four students for you. On your own storefront, you bring your own audience — the platform doesn't hunt for you. That's the actual trade you're making, and it's why the answer usually isn't "leave Preply," it's "don't let Preply be the only place your income can come from."
The ceiling a marketplace profile can't remove
Even at the best commission tier, a marketplace caps your income at hours × rate. There's a hard ceiling on how many hours you can personally teach in a week, and no version of Preply lets you sell a self-paced course, run a group cohort, open a membership, or build an email list of your own students. Every dollar you earn there is still tied to a lesson you personally show up for.
That's the real gap between tutors earning a comfortable side income and the ones running $5,000–$10,000/month teaching businesses. It's rarely a higher hourly rate. It's a second revenue layer — courses, group programs, community — that doesn't require trading another hour for another dollar.
[Placeholder: insert stat from Pensight's "Anatomy of a $10K Language Coach" report — e.g., "Among the top-earning coaches on our platform, marketplace teaching accounts for only X% of monthly revenue; the rest comes from courses, group programs, and memberships they run themselves."]
A dual-track model, not a switch
The most sustainable setup we see isn't "quit Preply" — it's running two tracks at once:
- Marketplace-only. All income depends on hours taught and Preply's acquisition engine. Fine for starting out; a ceiling long-term.
- Marketplace + owned products. Keep teaching on Preply for steady student flow, while building a course, a group program, or a membership on a platform you control. This is where most full-time coaches land.
- Owned-first. The marketplace becomes optional — a top-of-funnel channel, if you use it at all — because your own audience and products carry most of the revenue.
You don't need to leave Preply to start stage two. You need somewhere to put the parts of your business a marketplace was never built to hold.
What one coach's numbers actually look like
[Placeholder: insert 2–3 paragraph story from a WORLDBUILDERS-tier coach, in their own words — e.g., "I still teach a few hours a week on [marketplace] because it's steady, but [X]% of my income now comes from my own group program and course." Use real figures if the coach has approved sharing them.]
Marketplace vs. your own platform, side by side
Marketplace (e.g. Preply)Your own storefront (Pensight)Finds students for youYesNo — you bring your audienceOngoing cost18–33% of every lesson, forever, plus 100% of trial lessons$29/month flatWho owns the student relationshipThe platformYouSell coursesNoYesSell group programs or membershipsNoYesBuild an email listNoYesIncome modelHours × rate, cappedProducts + programs, uncapped
FAQ
How much commission does Preply take from tutors?Preply's commission runs from 33% for new tutors down to 18% for tutors with 400+ hours taught on the platform, plus 100% of every trial lesson with a new student.
Does Preply really keep 100% of the first lesson?Yes. Every trial lesson with a new student pays the tutor $0, regardless of commission tier. This applies to every new student pairing, not just your first ever trial.
How long does it take to reach Preply's lowest commission tier?Reaching the 18% floor requires 400+ cumulative hours taught, which takes roughly five months at 20 hours a week.
Can I sell courses or group programs through Preply?No — Preply's platform is built around 1:1 lesson bookings. Courses, group programs, memberships, and email marketing require a separate platform.
Is it against Preply's rules to have my own website or storefront?No. Running your own teaching business alongside your marketplace profile is fine — the line is taking students Preply brought you off-platform to avoid paying commission on lessons you owe them for. Courses and programs for your own audience are a separate business.
What do full-time language coaches typically use alongside a marketplace?Most combine marketplace teaching (for steady student flow) with their own storefront for courses, group coaching, memberships, and email marketing — the parts of the business a marketplace doesn't support.
Want to build the layer a marketplace can't hold? Start Here
A note on accuracy: commission rates and tier thresholds are set by each marketplace and can change. The figures above reflect Preply's publicly available commission policy as of mid-2026 — confirm current rates directly with Preply before making financial decisions.
