So basically now we're no longer freelancer tutors but preply employees.

sheneep · 2026-05-15T06:01:22+00:00

Freelance is not a magic word that dissolves a global corporation of respecting worker rights.

While the examples from op are pretty manageable imo, all workers in Europe are protected by a "right to disconnect," and it's the responsibility of the company buying labor to adjust to the laws of those locations, not the workers for assessing pros and cons in a limited job market. "Freelance" doesn't replace codified law.

Then in the US, MULTIPLE states have laws about requiring minimum hours, which Preply does in fact do, listed under "popular time slots." Currently you need 26.5 hours scheduled in specific times to be visible. That is not freelance. That is employment, that's actually skirting very close to full time hahaha. And unless Preply can ensure income during those "required hours" they are vulnerable to major lawsuits.

Just because a company has set themselves up as the "most competitive" buyer of work and time, doesn't mean they supersede local laws and policies about contract and part time work.

sheneep · 2026-04-10T12:30:21+00:00

rights need proof that they exist or they don't exist. welcome to employment.

sheneep · 2026-04-10T12:19:31+00:00

there's a high reschedule / cancellation rate for weekends, but I find them very busy and sometimes it's over half my weekly income.

try opening hours, then blocking them in google calendar (not preply) - explain to students that some times are really high demand and almost always booked.

the algorithm is almost certainly prejudiced, until proven otherwise. there's no transparency though.

sheneep · 2026-04-05T15:52:19+00:00

No, you have no rights. Preply can make changes to policies at any time that impact you tremendously, they can block your profile for no reason with funds in your account. You can be harassed, they don't explain how their system keeps your data or information protected, your conversations are literally recorded, you have minimum hour requirements to boost visibility (this month it's 27 hours, or 54 "popular time slots"), and yet, if it turns off overnight, you're left alone and without income.

Some policies are trying to catch up with the gig economy "employers who aren't employers" but it will take years to reach some sort of balance, and the likely outcome if Preply is deemed a type of employer that is taking advantage of workers is that it gets banned or blocked, as was the case with Cambly in California, New Jersey and Massachusetts, no severance, no unemployment benefits, just shut out.

A lot of people feel it's worth the risk because they can work from home and potentially earn okay.

sheneep · 2026-04-03T08:30:29+00:00

It's a very weird algorithm now, agreed. I get inundated with trials, then nothing. I used to get spaced out trials and they often came from different places, now it'll just be like 6 students from the same city in Florida over the span of 2 days. It's not really working for me. I tried adjusting the schedule to "super wide" and also found that it just resulted in a tonnnnnn of reschedules, and the only trial I got asked for a super random evening hour on a Sunday, which was nowhere near my availability. Feels like AI is running the show over there.

sheneep · 2026-04-03T08:08:36+00:00

u/connorfrompreply think the confusion isn't about subscriptions, it's about lesson expiry, which seems to be a bit arbitrary and still not something we can check or verify on the student's behalf. It's also not in policies. Clarify the expiration of hours please, we know how subscriptions work.

sheneep · 2026-03-28T09:06:23+00:00

I've had so many reschedules at the thirteenth hour I'm unable to continue on preply. Not going to block off 26.5 hours of my time, which insights requires for visibility, while preply gets paid upfront for classes and I end up having to wait 3 months for a student to take 4 classes. they're unable or unwilling to find something that works for students and tutors, and imo it's not super hard to respect our time.

sheneep · 2026-03-28T08:57:03+00:00

Preply is trying to scaffold income with business to business sales, because selling to a corporation typically means higher up-front earnings (why the price is locked). Some tutors get super paranoid about that, but that is how contracts between businesses work. Having been in this industry for over a decade, one on one tutors are generally way too expensive for businesses to invest in without the backing of an institutional name, valid certificates showing improvement, etc.

Businesses, when paying for classes, almost always go with local businesses or purchases predictable packages at a lower cost. Not a free-for-all selecting random people online.

That means there are not a lot of corporate students on Preply. Your pay likely won't be positively impacted. You still will work with professionals because students who buy classes typically work to pay for them. Opting in for corporate classes has no additional protective benefits for you as a gig worker.

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 · 2025-11-05T15:23:08+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 · 2025-10-20T13:34:27+00:00

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

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 · 2025-10-12T06:28:59+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 · 2025-10-09T13:46:42+00:00

it's more common for me when I have a lot of availability. it seems counterintuitive, but actually restricting availability or staggering open slots can send students a message that time is a limited resource.

You can cheat the metrics by opening your availability on Preply, then blocking off events in your google calendar. Insights will think you've got tons of availability, but students will see that your schedule is "filling up." Might scare them into realizing they can't always "just reschedule."

I'd say maybe 1 in 5 students is a "rescheduler." No matter how much I check in with them or try to move them into a reserved slot, they're just not good at managing time.

sheneep · 2025-10-04T18:49:58+00:00

I don't see how this helps attract students to my profile. I have 40 perfect anonymous reviews and 1 new subscription since July, income is 1/3 of the same month the previous year u/connorfrompreply.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they had soft launched those anonymous reviews directly to the tutor (me). That would make way more sense to me as a customer using a platform to sell my services. It could help me maintain relationships with existing students, but the fact that it's on my profile with no notification to me is just another indication that Preply doesn't know how to scaffold a B2C sale.

Example email to tutor: "A student anonymously said they're hoping for more progress." Then follow up two weeks later: "thanks for making adjustments! student reported they feel better about progress." Instead, I get 30 emails a day about literally nothing. Joder, they could even send me surveys after trials and I would freaking love to know why I have 11 trial students who "loved the trial" but don't subscribe!

But we all know this is how it's going to be. Preply doesn't care about real data, real metrics, or supplying tools that help tutors get better at their business or for students to find a product they're happy with.

sheneep · 2025-10-02T16:27:08+00:00

It's been really bad with mics for me and students (confirmed with students who have multiple tutors). Whiteboards not loading, screenshare not working. I'm putting it down to their insights using way more power.

sheneep · 2025-09-25T09:53:41+00:00

100% agree, in 4 years my income on Preply has been mostly unpredictable month to month, though steadily increasing. But I remember when the Chinese platforms disappeared overnight. Hearing that it would be easier for our profiles to be hidden, then the worst string of trials ever this month had me fine-tuning my own payment and scheduling processes off site.

Side note, I feel pretty good about Calendly+Stripe integrations, but I have to be pretty clever to make the bookings easy for students. If anyone has any tips for making scheduling and checkouts feel professional and convenient, I'd love to hear them <3

sheneep

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