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How to start an online tutoring business

By Zippia Team - Dec. 9, 2022

To start an online tutoring business, you need to determine who you will tutor, build or expand your knowledge and education, and select a tutoring business model. For more details on these steps and others you can take to start an online tutoring business, reference this guide:

  • Determine who you will tutor. The very first step is to figure out who and what you want to tutor. This step is crucial because it affects your entire business plan.

    Here are some things to consider when making this decision:

    What grades do you want to tutor?

    The subjects you cover and the teaching style you employ will vary widely, depending on if you want to tutor elementary school students, middle-school students, high school students, or college-level students.

    Do you want your tutoring business to focus on a specific test?

    Many tutoring businesses stand out and become lucrative because they specialize in tutoring a certain test or exam. Tutoring in a niche area can help you corner a specific area of the tutoring market in your community.

    Will your business do one-on-one tutoring, group tutoring, or a mixture of both?

    Depending on the subjects or tests you are going to provide tutoring services for, you may choose to do any of these options.

  • Expand your knowledge and education. As a tutor you should have at least a bachelor's degree, and if you also have an educational degree that is an added bonus.

    This also goes for any employees you may hire. Your expertise and knowledge will be what makes your tutoring services attractive to students and parents.

    It's best if you can find a niche to tutor in, as was mentioned above. Starting a tutoring business focused on STEM subjects, which include science, technology, engineering, and math is great because they are in-demand skills.

    Within those subjects, you can narrow your niche even further by focusing on trigonometry or how to write a college-level research paper. You could also find a niche in a standardized test, like the SAT, for college admission, or LSAT, for law school.

    This can be a very lucrative niche, for example, an SAT preparation course from The Princeton Review can cost as much as $899.

  • Figure out your pricing. For this step, you need to do some more market research if you haven't already in this area.

    You need to have competitive rates that still cover any overhead costs you have.

    Tutors on average in the United States earn salaries between $14,000 to $42,000 per year and have an average wage of $22 per hour.

    You don't only need to know this for yourself, but also for any online tutoring employees you may hire.

  • Market your online tutoring business. Use the internet to market your tutoring business.

    Here are the different methods for marketing your online tutoring business using the internet:

    • Social media

    • Your online businesses' tutoring website

    • Email marketing

You should also consider making business cards and fliers. You can hand out the cards on college campuses or at PTA events for students in high school and under. You can post fliers in relevant places, such as a library or other community centers.

One of the best forms of marketing for a tutoring business is word of mouth. Here you don't actually have to do much of the marketing at all, just simply provide very good services to your customers and ask your clients to recommend you to other possible clients and customers.

Parents are often very selective in who they choose to hire for tutoring services, so it helps if you have other clients that can vouch for your expertise. You can also offer discounted rates for tutoring sessions to clients as an incentive if they help you obtain any new clients.

  • Prepare yourself for the challenges of tutoring. Like any industry, there are specific difficulties that can occur.

    As a tutor, you must make a schedule that accommodates your clientele. Many of your students will be in school during the day, meaning you can only provide your services to them in the late afternoon or evening. Sometimes when tutoring college students, their availability is even more limited.

    Tutoring takes a lot of patience. Some students struggle more than others when learning certain subjects or concepts. Coaching your students requires an awareness of their ability level and the patience to keep on helping them when they can't understand something.

    Attempt to learn different teaching styles that you can employ in different situations. What works for one student, may not work for another, and so on. It's up to you to figure out the best way to teach and guide your students, so you must remain accountable for that.

    Oftentimes you'll need to appease the parents of the student you are tutoring. In a lot of cases, you'll be pitching and selling your services to parents rather than their children. It's important to keep parents' happiness in mind and try to create a comfortable and conducive environment to tutor your students.

  • How to start an online tutoring business

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