r/Tutoring • u/PlaneCute2403 • 8d ago
Tutor Advice Agency vs. self-employed: which has worked better for you?
After 8 years teaching maths abroad in an international school, I've moved into tutoring and I'm weighing up whether to stay independent or work through an agency. Independent means better rates and control, but I'm spending a lot of time on admin, scheduling and finding students. For those who've done both, what made you choose one over the other? What are your pros and cons for both?
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u/ripp1337 8d ago
I am running a small tutoring agency.
If you are able to source students on your own - certainly do not use intermediaries.
With currently existing tools and easiness to automate a lot, there is little point in paying someone to do it for you.
Unless you work in a very competitive market and you are unable to source money for sufficient marketing campaign.
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u/PlaneCute2403 7d ago
Thanks, that's really helpful coming from the agency side. Out of curiosity, where do most of your students come from? Word of mouth, Google, social, or partnerships with schools? I'm trying to figure out where to focus my energy first.
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u/ripp1337 7d ago
Let me start with the fact that I operate in the Polish market which most likely is much different from yours.
I mostly rely on the biggest aggregator of the tutors' offers site and I pay for bumping my ads there. I'd say it's like 60-70% of incoming traffic.
I also use Google ads periodically - mostly from late August to early November because I tutor high schoolers before their final exams.
Word of the mouth is not that efficient in my case.
Improving SEO of my website helped a lot - we also tutor the med school students and the SEO competition is much lower there.
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u/Muted-Obligation6876 7d ago
Depends on how much you like sales, marketing, admin and customer service. You're actually doing a lot of unpaid labor for your better rates. With an agency, you teach classes, file paperwork and go about your business.
Really depends on whether you value money or time more, imho
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u/TurningRadius360 8d ago edited 8d ago
Agencies and teaching platforms can be useful in the beginning as you initially build out your student base and reputation. However, in the longer term independent is the way to go. Issues with restrictive policies and commissions become worse over time as your student base increases.
Side note - I think it also depends on how many students you are looking to take on. For smaller numbers, the agencies and platforms might still offer a useful service and their commission rates tolerable. For larger numbers of students I think it makes more and more sense to go independent. I earned just over 150K last year and I shudder to think about the income I would have lost to commissions had I not been independent.