Online learning has opened doors for students to gain knowledge outside of the conventional classrooms as well as anyone who is passionate about interactive teaching. If you resonate with the latter group of people, then this Wyzant Tutoring review is a must-read.
In the next few minutes, we’ll be exploring yet another job opportunity that can possibly make your career more exciting and rewarding. So…
What Exactly Is Wyzant?
Wyzant is an online marketplace for private tutoring that has been around since 2005. It currently serves more than 2 million registered students coming from elementary to college backgrounds so you’re pretty much welcome to teach most types of subjects here.
As an independent tutor, you’re fully responsible for designing your own curriculums, fixing lesson appointments, and deciding how much to charge. Oftentimes, the platform will do its best to match the students’ requests to the tutors’ expertise and lesson ratings. Alternatively, you can also search the job boards or check your emails for notification on new teaching opportunities.
Your main teaching tool comes in the form of an interactive online whiteboard provided by Wyzant. All that’s needed on your end is a functional camera and a microphone so that effective communication can take place with the students via video interaction.
How Do You Become a Wyzant Tutor?
First and foremost, you must be at least 18 years old, residing in the US, and possess a valid Social Security Number to sign up. If these criteria are met, you can apply to become a tutor through these 6 simple steps;
- Select the type of subjects you’re interested in teaching.
- Take a short quiz to understand how Wyzant works for tutors.
- Provide basic personal information, educational background, and your desired hourly rates.
- Personalized your tutor profile to make it appealing for students.
- Acknowledge the terms and conditions of using the platform.
- And lastly, verify your email address.
It takes about 1-2 days for the team to review the application and once accepted, your profile will go live and you can start accepting students for tutoring on Wyzant.
How Much Do Wyzant Tutors Make?
Although Wyzant allows the tutors to decide their pay rate, you should be aware that you will not receive the earnings in its entirety. The site retains a platform fee in the form of a 25% commission from your rate per lesson while you take the remaining 75% after the students pay the site.
Depending on the subject’s popularity and demand, the earnings could fall within the range of $35 to $63 (or more). If you’re a new tutor, it makes sense to undercut others’ prices until you’ve built a solid reputation, but you must also factor in your level of expertise and the cost of living within your area. This will account for the different hourly rates in terms of in-person vs online tutoring.
By default, payments are made bi-monthly to your checking account but you can certainly request an express deposit to be processed in as little as 5 business days. As far as PayPal is concerned, there’s no option to get paid in that manner at the moment.
The Advantages of Tutoring on Wyzant
In the digital age where online education is fast becoming accessible to everyone, one can easily relate to these perks of tutoring on Wyzant.
(1) Unlike most tutoring sites that are only open to language teachers, you don’t need to be certified in any field to teach on Wyzant. You can be an industry professional, graduate, or undergraduate and still qualify as long as you’ve sound knowledge in the expertise you’re contributing.
This will create more opportunities for people to pursue online teaching without restrictions and add more subject choices for students to select.
(2) The company offers valuable support services such as user-friendly teaching tools and a free professional profile to help you get started immediately. Since Wyzant doesn’t do premium listings, everyone gets an equal chance to be matched with individual needs so long they are responsive, earn plenty of tutoring hours and high ratings from the students.
(3) On Wyzant, you’re considered an independent tutor in charge of your tutoring business. The freedom to choose your own teaching hours means you can maximize your earning potential; record more tutoring hours and you’ll earn more.
Such flexibility is extremely helpful especially in this time of the global pandemic where many teaching jobs are negatively affected. Offering your expertise on Wyzant may be one of the solutions for teachers interested in a second income stream. Some of the top tutors are said to earn well over $50K per year!
(4) Another advantage tutors may not be aware of is that you can maximize earnings by referring students directly to your service on Wyzant. This lets you earn 100% of your hourly rate and if you refer new tutors, you’ll be earning points that are redeemable for cash. This is called a referral program and it works by sharing your unique referral links on blogs, emails and social media.
Alternatively, if you’re interested in doing reviews, you can join the Wyzant affiliate program and earn up to $8 per lead for every new enrollment that takes place within 180 days. Affiliate marketing works very much like a referral program except that the targeted audience here is the students.
Other education sites that can be added to the bucket list for comparison are Future Learn and Coursera; these sites offer on-demand academic-oriented courses and higher commission payouts.
The Downsides of Tutoring on Wyzant
On the flip side, the platform may not be ideal for the following situations;
(1) Wyzant is currently open only for applicants residing in the US. Until they change this policy, there will be no opportunities available for those living outside of this region. If you’re in such circumstances, consider teaching on Udemy instead.
(2) Just like any free listing marketplace, you’re bound to find a lot of competitions; in this case, tutors who offer similar subjects as yours. It’s said that there are more than 76,000 active tutors on Wyzant.
If you’re interested in teaching English online, for example, you’re up against 9000 tutors within the same field. It could take a while for your profile to become visible in that kind of saturated number.
(3) While the commission structure is pretty straightforward, it’s quite clear how much you’re giving away to Wyzant for every dollar earned. This is an inevitable business trade-off since the platform doesn’t charge you anything for listing but in doing so, you must be willing to sacrifice some of your profit.
If tutoring is just your side gig, then the amount may not be so significant. But if this is going to be your full-time income, you’re likely to feel the pinch in the long run.
(4) As an independent tutor, there are platform rules to be followed whether you like it or not. For example, you aren’t allowed to accept payments directly from the students nor are you allowed to exchange personal emails or phone numbers casually. Going against these rules can have you expelled from the marketplace in an instant so make sure you’re aware of that.
Is Wyzant a Good Place to Teach?
Overall, Wyzant offers an easy start to launch a teaching business (online or offline) at a minimal cost for US-based tutors. It offers an excellent opportunity for those wishing to put their education to work while making money teaching topics they’re passionate about.
Everyone gets a fair chance to be matched with students’ requests and there are good online tools in place to conduct effective tutoring. If you have what it takes to outshine other competitors and don’t mind splitting profits, then it’s worthwhile to create a profile on Wyzant.
Oftentimes, the major hurdle revolving around marketplaces like this is that it’s difficult to get eyeballs to your services in the early stages. For that, I recommend starting a blog to feature your expertise in an effort to drive more traffic to your teaching profile and earn 100% from your lesson rate.
On the blog, you can also write reviews about various education sites/services/products and earn from affiliate commissions. Given the education trend we’re seeing nowadays, it’s an exciting way to diversify your online income while growing your tutoring business whether it’s on Wyzant or another platform of your choice.
Here’s a web builder you can use to create a free WordPress blog in just one minute.
I hope this Wyzant tutoring review has opened your eyes to the number of online opportunities out there. Please visit my recommended training to learn more about starting a teaching business from home and if you’ve anything to add to this article, please do so in the comment space down below.
Wyzant sounds like a very timely program as I believe many people would appreciate and utilize online training and tutoring at this time. With the current pandemic, students will need to learn from isolation, and possibly many current teachers could utilize this system to set up a supplementary income.
It would be interesting to know about the valuable support services and user-friendly teaching tools. This could be an important selling point for someone who is interested in becoming a tutor. Does Wyzant provide any advertising for new tutors to help make them be more visible?
Hi Moonmount. Unfortunately, Wyzant doesn’t accept advertising or do premium listing because it believes in giving every tutor an equal chance to gain visibility in the marketplace. For starters, it may be best to try the tutoring job board or respond to job opportunities sent via email. One’s position on the listing is very much influenced by the profile detail, responsiveness, reviews, and the amount of time spent on the platform.
As a teacher and the parent of children who seem to need more activities in their learning environment, I am so happy I came across your website.
Wyzant sounds like a great place to find freelance jobs. As a teacher I find the freedom to set my own hours quite attractive. This means, I can still keep my day job and pick up additional income after hours teaching online.
Could you share on how this platform works from a student’s perspective? I would really like to enroll
my boys in a teaching-learning program here.
Hey Candy, since I’m not a student on Wyzant, I can’t really comment on that, but this page may answer your question. Hope it helps!