How much does online maths tutoring cost?

Maths tutoring is quoted in at least four different ways — per month, per hour, per session, per term — and that is before anyone mentions how long a session is or how many children are in it. This guide turns all of it into one number you can actually compare: the price of one hour of teaching, for your child alone.

What does online maths tutoring cost per month?

These are our own plans, published rather than quoted on request. Every lesson is 45 minutes and one-to-one with the same teacher each week.

In the other currencies families here pay in:

How do I compare two quotes properly?

Three questions turn any quote into a comparable number. Ask all three, in this order.

• How many minutes is one session. Thirty, forty-five and sixty are all common. A tutor at $40 an hour and one at $35 for forty minutes are not what they look like — the second is more expensive per hour.
• How many children are in it. A group session costs less and teaches less. In a group of four your child is being taught for roughly a quarter of the time and supervised for the rest. That is legitimate — it just is not the same thing.
• What is not included. Registration fees, materials, exam-paper packs, cancellation charges. A monthly figure with a joining fee behind it is a different price by the end of the year.

Why is online so much cheaper than a local tutor?

Not because the teaching is worth less. The cost sits somewhere different.

• Nobody is travelling. A tutor driving to your house prices the journey into the hour, whether or not it appears on the invoice. Two visits a week can be two hours of their working time spent in a car.
• There is no building. A learning centre pays rent, heating and a receptionist, and that is shared across the children in the room — which is also why the room has several children in it.
• The teacher is not limited to your postcode. This is the part most parents miss. Online, the pool is every qualified teacher rather than the ones within a half-hour drive, and that affects who you can get as much as what you pay.

What you give up is the room. For some children that matters a great deal — if yours cannot concentrate at home, that is worth more than any saving, and a local centre is the better answer.

How many lessons a week does a child need?

For most children, two. Three if they are behind and catching up to a deadline, four only for a short push before an exam. More is not better: a child doing school, homework and four extra lessons is a tired child, and tired children do not learn arithmetic.

Should I pay monthly or for a term up front?

Monthly, until you are sure. A term discount is real money, and it is also a term committed to a teacher your child has met once. Two months is usually enough to know whether the match works. A tutor who only sells a term in advance is telling you something about month three.

What should the first lesson cost?

Nothing, and you should be able to watch it. That is the single most useful thing in this whole decision: forty-five minutes of seeing somebody teach your child tells you more than every price list you will read. If a tutor charges for the first lesson or will not let you sit in, that is worth knowing before you commit to a term.