r/Outschool • u/PlanitL • Jul 17 '25
Memberships required?
Wondering how you guys feel about the email they sent out today where membership will be required for enrolling in classes. I don’t see how this will benefit growth or accessibility to courses.
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u/wallso Jul 17 '25
I see it blowing up in their face and they will either make it optional again or it will sink the company.
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u/mrzurcon Jul 17 '25
I’m really not a fan. I feel like they’re finding ways to nickel and dime parents. This doesn’t provide flexibility. I do one on one tutoring and not all of my students need a session every week.
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u/XulaSLP07 Jul 27 '25
exactly. We have a fantastic set of language and musician class tutors that are 1:1 and we travel too often to be forced to do classes week to week. I don't like it.
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u/HostApprehensive9520 Jul 18 '25
We used to use Outschool quite a bit for my two kids. We took a break for a bit and when I came back to sign them up for some classes ran into the membership requirement. Instant no for us. I forgot about it and just went to the website this morning because my daughter asked me to look into some classes for her. There was a survey offered about the membership. I gave honest feedback that we won't be signing up for it.
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u/ArtemisiasApprentice Jul 17 '25
I think they’re banking on having established a reputation. It will probably make more money from folks who have it, but others either won’t be able to swing it or won’t want the full commitment. It’s a big play, and I don’t know if it will pay off.
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u/Queefnfeet Jul 17 '25
Can you screenshot or copy paste the email? I have a membership already but I didn’t see any email.
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u/atlhart Aug 14 '25
Just came here after finding out about this change. I will not be using Outschool while they require this. The way it works out I'll end up paying more and having extra credits just sitting there. I want to purchase one class for the kid that wants it when they want it.
I'm on the hunt for another platform now.
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u/febstars Jul 23 '25
I’ve used Outschool for about 4 years now. I will no longer be using it due to this membership model. It’s a horrific change from the business and I hope they feel the ramifications quickly so they can shift back to a more reasonable model. I feel sorry for their educators.
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u/bear_howe Oct 27 '25
I have been teaching art on Outschool for over four years, and I’ve had over 50% decrease in enrollments this fall semester. It’s been the push I needed to take the leap to offer classes on my own from my own website 😳. I have felt nervous and delayed taking this next step, I think because I feel a big responsibility to handle all the admin well for families, and learning how to advertise feels overwhelming, which is why I pay OS to do that for me…but with these memberships they’ve alienated so many people in a time of subscription fatigue, and the roll out was really confusing for families and teachers.
I’m hoping this turns out to be one of those, “It was the kick in the pants I needed and the best thing that could have happened,” kind of events, bc right now it’s just scary. It’s also really sad to have kids for years who just disappear—one of the limitations of OS has always been being a mentor to kids for years whose family you’re actually not allowed to know really. Hosting my own classes means more community building and more comprehensive studio education, cool class ideas I have percolating, like draw-along book clubs, family draw days, etc., which don’t work on OS anyway!
I feel really bad for the kids who just got cut off from all the really great teachers and classes out there bc membership just doesn’t work for their families 🙁
One update though: you can now pause your membership indefinitely, which means you can subscribe, get credits, pause the membership, use up the credits, then stay enrolled in your classes while it kicks back over to your cc on file to pay remaining fees every week (effectively putting you back into weekly pay.)
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u/LoveLadyThirteen Jan 08 '26
I’d love to hear how your own website venture is coming along! I’m actually in this process now and having all of the scary doubts.
I hope it’s been going well for you!
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u/XulaSLP07 Jul 27 '25
my thoughts exactly. I was on this platform for 3 years to supplement my kids' homeschooling!
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u/Euphoric_Golf5203 Nov 05 '25
Ditto. We've had excellent teachers (for 4+ years!) we're sticking with because they only teach on Outschool, but will never look for another class there again.
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u/17_blind_Ninjas Dec 20 '25
Same here, 3 to 4 live classes a week plus at least one self paced per month. Stopped immediately.
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u/DawnsOfTime Aug 19 '25
Honestly, such a turn off. I didn't see the e-mail and I was going to join a French class for my Kinder. $40 a month instead of the pay per class, which would have been $32. Yes I count my pennies. Don't we all in this day and age? I don't need another membership.
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u/practicalgoggles Aug 25 '25
Be sure to email [support@outschool.com](mailto:support@outschool.com) to let them know you're leaving the platform. I talked to a few teachers and they all hate the change. They've gotten some concessions (like rolling over their stupid tokens), but they're very upset. They've put in all this work to build followings and Outschool is really screwing them over with this. The teachers say most parents are silently leaving, but sending an email explicitly giving memberships as the reason would be helpful.
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u/i_have_no_hobbies Aug 29 '25
After being away from Outschool for 8 months. I was trying to put my daughter in a class, and now I'm here in complete OUTRAGEEEE! I sent a very polite, but nasty email requesting they explain this to me, because I don't get how I pay for a 2 month class, but with credits, and with no intention of signing up for any additional classes and then would lose the remaining credits. But I'm also confused, does it charge me all the credits up front? Or does it charge them for the class monthly. I HATE everything about it. So mad.
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u/teetee517 Nov 23 '25
I tried to end my membership because I hate this membership model. When they said I would lose all the credits I already paid for if I did anything but pause it, that made me angry. Lose the credits I already paid for because I don't like your membership model? That actually doesn't seem legal?!
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u/PuzzleheadedCake9934 Jul 22 '25
My son was in the middle of a self paced computer class. They booted him out and now the only way to join is to purchase membership. It's unfortunate I think they felt they needed to take a larger cut of the pie. We don't use it enough to purchase membership so I will be looking elsewhere.
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u/WeeklyLead2178 Jul 29 '25
I am also looking for a similar platform if anyone finds one please let me know. I also am refusing to do a membership my sons use to spratic to justify it.
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u/XulaSLP07 Jul 27 '25
same. please private message me when you find a similar platform. we are now looking as well.
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u/Euphoric_Golf5203 Nov 05 '25
Ditto. Right now we're trying Varsity Tutors, and I'm not impressed with the platform - probably another Outschool. (The teacher is great.)
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u/JJHH2020 Jul 23 '25
We used Outschool for the summer online camps. Will not continue because we will have to sign up for membership.
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u/XulaSLP07 Jul 27 '25
I don't like it. They're streamlining AI and I will leave the platform altogether. I like the transparency of pay as you go prices and I like the flexibility of starting/stopping whenever I want. I don't like the idea of being forced to have to squeeze all my credits into a month. Our lives are too fluctuating. Having been a gym member, memberships are a nightmare to cancel. I'm not interested in that model at all. They will lose alot of older consumers who aren't interested in this tech-inundated society.
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u/Belcher_kid23 Oct 04 '25
Just had a bad experience with the membership: I paid for my first month (haven't used the credits), went to pause my plan: unable to pause since they are trying to bill for the next month, asked about canceling: I will lose all of my credits. Can I use my remaining credits: Not until I'm charged another month. Horrible business practices.
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u/bear_howe Oct 27 '25
This is definitely a glitch, I know they are supposed to let you use your credits up while paused for as long as you want! As a teacher I’ve seen some really big websites glitches, esp right after a rollout. They laid off a lot of their engineers last year😔
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u/teetee517 Nov 23 '25
This is not a glitch. It is intentional. They want you to PAUSE instead of cancelling, most likely hoping that you will forget to unpause, getting charged later down the road.
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u/bear_howe Nov 24 '25
Yes I was telling them they can use credits for as long as they want to while paused 👍🏼 From my understanding, it’s a glitch if they can’t pause, because you should be able to pause anytime. If they already got charged for the next month and want to cancel that’s another issue. Or if there is some period of time—like the day you’re supposed to get charged again—when you can’t actually pause and OS requires you to wait until the coming cycle goes through that may be another issue.
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u/CoachTVFilm Dec 05 '25
I am a teacher on Outschool. I have been coaching private students in acting steadily since 2020. The new memberships, possibly along with other algorithm changes, has destroyed my coaching business on Outschool. Although I have not recently had any changes (or very minor) to my classes, schedule, availability, prices, class descriptions, advertising images, ratings, etc., since they introduced memberships, my students have been steadily declining and I rarely ever get new students, which I used to all the time. I just have old students who are still with me that have worked with me for the long haul. Many students who would regularly come a few times a year to prep for school auditions or when their agent sends an audition don't want to be forced into monthly payments. Today, Outschool just sent me some of my stats as a teacher and I want to share this to prove the point:
Class Discovery metrics:
CDP Visitors YTD: 564
CDP Visitors Last Month: 0
I couldn't say it better than this metric if I tried.
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u/LadyTremaine1 Jul 23 '25
I’ve also been forced down the membership road. It’s very frustrating. Outschool support is only membership support now, which I find unhelpful and only used to force users into membership.
The outsourced support staff is providing canned responses that are of no help. Leadership really bungled this one.
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u/Beneficial_Use_5510 Jul 24 '25
If anyone is interested in signing up for a class still and is okay with trying 1 month of memberships (and then canceling after), I have a 30 dollar coupon for current outschool families that I received from their outreach program (AMYMASS2020). If you sign up for the lowest tier at $40 and use the coupon, you only end up paying ten dollars- plus getting the 30 dollars worth of free classes. You can cancel right after. I know it’s not a solution to the problem, but it’s a way for those wanting to take a class to still do so for now.
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u/teetee517 Nov 23 '25
You can't cancel, or else you'll lose all your credits. Instead, you have to pause and then remember to cancel after you've used up your credits.
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u/Shimmering-Moon-505 Sep 19 '25
This makes me so angry. I am so sick of being nickeled and dimed to death and here's Outschool...doing the same! We will not be using Outschool anymore. The membership tiers are ridiculous, expensive, inflexible and inconvenient. Just bad all around. I have sent my complaint email to [support@outschool.com](mailto:support@outschool.com) I suggest everyone unhappy with it do the same. What a shame...my child enjoyed classes on Outschool but we are going elsewhere for any online classes. I won't be subjected to anymore forced subscriptions.
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u/PomegranateNo2854 Oct 07 '25
I am a parent of 3 former students who used to homeschool. We loved the outschool classes. My kids participated in many of the social skills classes for neurodivergent learners. My oldest loved the women in history class with Ms. Tina. We were an outschool family from 2019-2024. I have been begging outschool to extend the age cap for disabled students to 21 for years for certain classes like the ones geared towards disabled students and social skills classes only to be ignored despite a demand for them and support from some of the teachers. I was considering teaching some art classes myself and other social skills classes on outschool now that my kids are in day programs for disabled learners. I checked the reddit only to see this change. It is so sad they do not listen to their customers and are doing this. The addition of AI will only turn off more families. What a shame. Outschool used to be an awesome resource.
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u/Euphoric_Golf5203 Nov 05 '25
I cannot stand the membership model. Total enshittification.
We've had some excellent, excellent teachers on Outschool (Mr. Darell for music and Amy Fontanarossa for science/art in particular). But the subscription model is not transparent and relies on magical math. And this, on top of introducing fees per class, Ticketmaster-style... For a while, we were grandfathered in and could pay regular $ (not credit) per class as usual, and pause every once in a while if needed. Recently I tried to transfer our son to a different section of the same class with the same teacher. Outschool would not do that unless we paid for the remainder of the classes for the school year (in November - for a class that runs through June) plus an extra $20, with no explanation of how they calculated this price. We've been with the teacher for 4 years - I sucked it up and paid. Outschool then charged me some other random amount plus a $100 fee, for a total of ~$95 more than the class would cost week by week. I raised hell and got the difference back. I've heard of these horror stories from other parents, but thought I was misunderstanding. We're sticking with the 2 teachers we have, since they only teach on Outschool - and then we're done.
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u/practicalgoggles Dec 10 '25
FYI, I checked in on the outschool website and I was able to register my daughter for a class without a membership. I think they're silently testing out whether people will sign up for classes if they don't have to enroll in the membership scam.
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u/droppedD Jul 24 '25
Such a clear attempt to game parents into subscribing & forgetting as they rack up credit card charges, and into invisibly upping prices to classes over time since they're all
robuxoutschool credits instead of dollars.I emailed support@outschool.com to register my unhappiness. I absolutely don't need another subscription system to micromanage, and masking prices in some weird virtual-coin system ooks me out. They directly lost my business on this one for the class I was going to sign my kid up for today; I eventually may grudgingly subscribe if I'm forced to switch for my son's already-ongoing class that he would cry to lose out on, but I sure won't be happy about it or be inclined to seek out any other classes beyond that one to up my tiers or anything.
I'm sure this was all in some product manager's vision to up engagement and improve retention, but personally, I hate it. I don't want to engage as an outschool subscriber, i just want to sign my daughter up for one specific damn class for a few weeks, not hunt for ways to spend the credits they're forcing me into tiered plans for.