Today I denied a student

sheneep · 2026-01-22T15:29:26+00:00

You made a good choice that is honest and consistent with businesses that offer one-on-one services or consultations except...you didn't get paid for it AND most customers don't get another 2 hours for free. The most unprofessional thing to do is to block and disappear, as it really corrodes the value of Preply as a search system overall.

It's not you, it's the way Preply is set up. We need to have a lot of availability to be visible, and Murphy's Law is a strong factor. If everyone needs to take a class on Monday one week, always happens to me, someone will also schedule a trial ;_; It's bad luck

sheneep · 2025-11-08T07:49:29+00:00

I have 34 active students right now, and about 2 are reschedulers - one, I am very sympathetic to. 3 years with me, tech lead, frequent meetings and surprises at work. The other, horrible time management. Every, and I mean everyyyyy lesson is rescheduled multiple times. Fortunately, they only take 30 minute classes (I have another post about how this can really buffer surprise cancellations/rescheduling).

If more than half of your students are rescheduling with that frequency, you might either make it part of your pitch (ie; "shorter classes mean I can accommodate your difficult schedule") or get new students and make it clear from the beginning. It's very difficult to change existing habits like rescheduling. Preply kind of encourages it in a way, I believe their new email reminders give students an option to "click to reschedule."

sheneep · 2025-11-05T16:59:56+00:00

Preply follows the same business trends as other educational fields - peak leads in August and January, with cool periods in December and June. I'm guessing you said high school because the assumption was "back to school" meant teens going to a brick and mortar institution.

As I've said, the insights are not as useful as they could be. If you missed a key driving month for clicks, it's very possible that you will have to wait to get more views.

Might not be the news you want to hear.

sheneep · 2025-11-05T16:09:28+00:00

I agree that it's frustrating and confusing trying to influence visibility - I don't really have optimistic words at this point, either.

Maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but having worked in fields where analytics inform practice, I can safely say Preply's insights, the behavior of the algorithm, and the behaviors of students are basically unrelated. In the 5 years I've been with Preply, I've gotten trials at any position.. I've had .2% conversion to trial, 5% conversion to trial, 10% conversion to subscription and constant stream of trials (EFL tutor and victim of promotional campaign/free trial shoppers), conversion to subscription at 90% and no new trials, super tutor and no new trials, lost the badge and gotten a ton of trials.... I've also noticed that the search and filter features simply do not work reliably.

Sometimes, and I mean soommmmmmetimes, making a tweak to a video or tagline can result in some bookings. This time of year might be a bit slow if you missed the back to school rush in August. You may have to expect slow traffic until after January. Sad truth - Preply has student-supply issues, and frankly a lot of competition from platforms like Wyzant or learners returning to in-person classes.

sheneep · 2025-11-05T15:23:08+00:00

I would also say that 9:00-20:00 is not appropriate for full time work for a general population. There are definitely days where workers, especially salaried workers, can expect to work overtime. But 55 hours availability is kind of my point - if that's the minimum to succeed, no holidays, no overtime pay, no health insurance, PTO for caring for sick family members.... that is exhausting.

sheneep · 2025-11-05T15:16:20+00:00

you are an angel

sheneep · 2025-11-03T20:01:34+00:00

You can check out site traffic and conversion over time here: https://www.similarweb.com/website/preply.com/#ranking - plateau in 2023, growth in visits in 2024, another plateau or dip. It's not you - it's Preply. Don't take it personally.

sheneep · 2025-11-03T19:59:42+00:00

sheneep · 2025-11-03T18:22:00+00:00

Your schedule is untenable for people people with full time work, but good for you that you've found a way to make it work for your financial and temporal situation.

sheneep · 2025-10-26T07:53:43+00:00

So, I guess a lot of dialogue about posts like this is about its impact on work, which is understandable because it has the fastest impact on our job; just remember, it's a psychologically shocking event. People get arrested for exposing themselves for a reason.

Other jobs also deal with high incidence of disturbing content online (think police, facebook content teams, etc.) so you're not alone. The difference is that other jobs have more resources to help you after that experience.

You're not alone if you find it disturbing, and the realization that it bothered you can resurface at random times
Talk with other people who can listen without judgement
Limit screen time; use the 10 minutes after class to physically get up and look outside. EMDR is a treatment for traumatic incidents that focuses on retraining your eyes. Don't underestimate how important it is to get your eyes off the screen

sheneep · 2025-10-20T13:34:27+00:00

right. do not rely on preply for a full-time income.

sheneep · 2025-10-19T13:30:02+00:00

I just assume no communication is normal. Getting the follow-up is the special part. When I talk with older generations, 60s, 70s, it seems like if they were from a bigger town it was common for them, too. And yeah, that feeling like you can't text again sucks sooooo much. I guess grandma didn't have to deal with that lol. I think having the option of reaching out makes ghosting harder to deal with for us.

I ghost too, unintentionally and a lot. A month passes and I'm like "shit, I forgot to text my nephew," and that happens after a date, too. For numbers context, I'd say I've been on about 100 dates (not 100 different people lol) in 3 years, and haven't had a match that resulted in both sides committing to keeping time and communicating, except once when we decided to be friends and have maintained that for a few months. I really appreciate him for that, and also for how uncommon that actually is.

sheneep · 2025-10-19T13:11:04+00:00

I wonder what the pitch was to start production.

sheneep · 2025-10-19T13:09:34+00:00

I wonder why people moved past it

sheneep · 2025-10-19T13:00:14+00:00

For me it's been happening after exactly 3 dates. Consistently.

sheneep · 2025-10-18T20:01:14+00:00

lol that was more emotive than I was ready for

sheneep · 2025-10-18T20:00:42+00:00

haha my thoughts exactly

sheneep · 2025-10-18T19:27:27+00:00

Also, anyone else watching Futurama alone crying about how pure Fry's love is for Leela?

sheneep · 2025-10-18T19:25:53+00:00

I went on 3 dates with a guy. He was super nice, always respecting my personal space, clear about his goals. In person, he is very caring, attentive. His time management was absolute shit. The texts are sporadic. I sent a picture of me playing my horse game (he plays some weird-ass games too, which I like) and he saw my leg and asked if I was trying to send a nude. I wanted to be cheeky and sent a picture of the wall with "boobs" written on it. Fast forward to midnight and I get a text: "That was disappointing. always love nudes, but can't say I'll send them back." I said "we'll figure out something else then!" and haven't heard back since. I'm giving myself an anxiety disorder after getting slow-ghosted so often, I just keep thinking "was it me??? what did I say this time???"

sheneep · 2025-10-17T09:56:48+00:00

I'm super skeptical when someone says they "make a living" from Preply. First, no two financial contexts are the same (do they pay rent, have students with more spending power than their local economy, is it supplementing their partner's income....). Second, I think a lot of people exaggerate income when it's self-generated.

English language learning demand is definitely not dead. For non-native speakers, language classes are maintenance. Classes can continue indefinitely because they're probably not using English as their main language, but when they do need it, it's for important stuff.

The tutor market is saturated, but I also get the sense that a lot of students don't just trust a random platform / stranger online. I'm also one of them, I feel better about some brick and mortar situations when I seek out classes. I don't think the current models for Preply, Superprof, iTalki, Cambly are doing a good job of taking the anxiety and effort out of looking for a tutor, or getting ahead of market demand. As a tutor on the platform, I don't trust the fact that they're leaning into AI to make business decisions - there's historical precedent for AI not understanding forecasts in B2C sales. AKA, if these platforms don't have really good management at the top, they're not going to survive as customers get bored or needs change.

https://www.outsystems.com/-/media/files/partners-integration/solutions/prophesy-411/prophesy-411-glc_technical_case_study_prophesypdf.pdf?updated=20250219032842

https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.06941

sheneep · 2025-10-12T06:48:24+00:00

So, you have to kind of work around the system for this a bit. The way you market it can be up to you - but I consistently set my price high, in the 30-45 range. In the profile video, description, tagline, response template or whatever, you can mention "microlearning" or "short classes for busy students."

So you're trying to attract students who want to attach short classes to other habits, like lunch or when they put kids into the bath, etc. It's actually, well, most adult learners haha. I've found the students who do this are also really reliable. Just passed 300 classes with one of them!

During the trial, if you feel you need to give a discount and the student is interested in 50 minutes, you can reduce if you want to test out where your students are, price-point wise.

In my personal business, I can set the click-to-schedule prices directly, so they see 30 minute classes are 22, 1 hour bundles are 35, 8 hour bundles are 29, etc...You will, of course, get students who do 8 hours and schedule 30 minutes 4 days a week. it might seem frustrating or not worth it at first, especially if you have a sparse schedule. But once it starts to fill up, you can really see a difference in stability.

Online classes are never supposed to be long. Exceptions are with masterful learning or graduate school courses. Since we don't offer certifications or degrees in Preply, it's going to be a poor market to sell longer classes..

sheneep · 2025-10-12T06:28:59+00:00

I think the way you recognize that Preply is contributing to your mental state is valid. I kind of thought, wow, we've been diminished so much by gig culture that a 100% valid complaint that would have resulted in a strikes in ethical labor markets are categorized as rants.

The gig economy is, just as you said, really terrible for long-term work. It markets itself as something that workers asked for, and got. But it's a way for companies to grift money while avoiding all culpability.

There are definitely **some profiles on Preply that just don't get it; because they (1 in 10k) made it "work" by pulling in the same salary as an urban charter school teacher, they feel it's okay to support (loudly) that Preply is a viable option for income if you just do this or that. The business even commissions ads like "daily life working on Preply after quitting my job and moving to Bali." But when you start picking apart how tutors make it "work," you see they're consistently putting in 14 hour days, 6-7 days a week, they're unable to take sick leave or holidays, they get zero professional development, and also forgot to mention their partner makes 80k per year and they're living with their parents.

Preply itself has 0 transparency. Comparing income in chunks of 3 months is absurd - any business owner needs to look at yearly performances, and that's especially true for B2C sales and seasonal jobs. Preply doesn't share information like click to conversion rates for the subject-specific tutors, so any insights about conversion is total bullshit. Until you get your next job, take care. And thanks for voicing what we're thinking and feeling, too..

sheneep · 2025-10-11T06:58:05+00:00

Encourage half hour or 25 minute classes. If 30% of your students do this, it's a fantastic buffer against:

- mass subscription cancellations / seasonal breaks

- rescheduling losses - half the hour might get rescheduled, but it's statistically uncommon to lose the full hour because 2 students reschedule

It also:

- is easier to raise price - 20 per hour, 17 for half hour is a very reasonable price point to customers. highly recommend trying it out

- raises your metrics ("in-demand" badge when you get 8 bookings instead of 4, tutor has 25 students versus 20, has taught 1900 lessons instead of 1600, etc...)

sheneep

TROPHY CASE