How to teach as a freelancer and establish a solid business: A Quick Comparison of Preply and Amazing Talker

For a while now I have been a freelance teacher working with Amazing Talker and Preply. I want to give a quick comparison of the two based on my experience. This comparison is helpful to someone who wants to teach as a freelancer and establish a solid freelance business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to teach as a freelancer and establish a solid business

 

 

I will compare and contrast the two companies in 5 categories and give my final verdict at the end.

 

1. Pay rate

Amazing Talker –

This platform charges a 15% commission on what you will have earned in the month. Amazing Talker sends via PayPal or TransferWise and doesn’t have any extra costs for you to get your money which is pretty exceptional. They release your earnings on a monthly basis. AT usually pays on the 15th or earlier. One thing I like about them is they never miss the 15th.

If you have many students and earn more you are at an advantage because the commission rate drops by 1% with every $100 increase from $1500. With this, AT helps its teachers teach as freelancers and establish a solid business by realizing more earnings with fewer platform fees.

 

Preply –

This platform also charges a 30% commission on your earnings. However, they take all of what you charge for the first lesson. This means your first lesson earnings belong to them!

What I like most about Preply is that you can withdraw your earnings instantly. After each lesson and the student confirms the lesson, you can withdraw your money. You don’t have to wait for a certain time to get your money. You do these withdrawals at no extra cost. All charges are covered by the 30% commission.

 

2. Requirements

Amazing Talker –

AT is a platform developed in Hong Kong but attracts teachers and tutors all over the world. They have over 80 languages you can teach. These include minority and majority languages. To be able to teach on the platform, you need to be a speaker of the language. Not necessarily a native speaker but you need to show excellent native or near-native understanding of the language.

You need a tertiary qualification and a TEFL. The approval process can take up to a week before you can start teaching. There is no demo class but teachers are strongly encouraged to go through a thorough onboarding process.

Preply –

Preply is a tutoring platform that also offers language and technical subjects tutoring. Many tutors are tutoring both languages and subjects like calculus. When I joined Preply, I wanted to teach English but ended up tutoring one of my passionate subjects, History.

To be approved to teach you must have a teaching certificate for the subject you want to teach. If it’s English, you must have a TEFL certificate. For a non-language subject like Maths or history, you must have a qualification that relates to the subject.

They usually approve applications within a week, and you go through a robust tutor training process through webinars. These are very important in helping you get established and attract students.

One thing I like about Preply is they acknowledge freelancers and so help scale up their tutoring business through continual training of tutors.

3. Students

Amazing Talker-

AT has many students from  Asia. Of the 1.5 billion people learning English in the world, more than 600 million come from Asia. It is mainly because they are based in Hong Kong and have the advantage of communicating in Chinese. The most popular language is English. Teachers have the freedom to charge whatever they like depending on how they perceive their business.

I have seen teachers that charge as much as $47 an hour while others charge as little as $3 an hour. Both native and non-native English speakers are welcome to teach on Amazing Talker.

Preply –

Preply has students from all over the world. Non-language subjects attract many students from the US whilst languages like English have many students from European countries like Spain and Asian countries as well.

Students on Preply are both adults and children. Depending on your profile, you can get adult learners or children. Anyone who is interested in what you offer can book you.

Comparing the two, Preply is more popular therefore has more students. On the other hand, Amazing Talker started recently and is on a campaign to let more people know about it. Any serious freelancer who wants to teach as a freelancer and establish a solid business can create a profile on this platform and enjoy the free advertising their currently giving.

 

4. Teaching platform/software

Amazing Talker –

When teaching on AT, one uses Zoom. AT does not have a teaching platform of its own so when your student makes a booking the system automatically creates a Zoom meeting ID which is sent to both the teacher and the student. Using the same ID both the teacher and the student can join the meeting when it’s time.

I, so far enjoy using Zoom with add-ons like a whiteboard, recording option, and screen sharing. When done with the lesson you have to come back to the AT page and click lesson completed and leave a review for your student. The student also confirms the lesson and leaves a review for you.

In case of any conflict or problem. The teacher or student has to come back to the AT page and lodge their issue. Zoom is just a third party used to deliver the lesson.

Preply-

When I started as a freelancer, Preply used to teach via Skype but now they have their own teaching platform which works the same way as Skype. The teaching platform is within the Preply system. You can access it from your dashboard.

The platform discourages using third parties and always encourages its teachers to use their teaching system. I, however, think Preply has to add more interactive features to its video system, so it matches with other top video systems.

 

5. My Final Verdict on how to teach as a freelancer and establish a solid business

Amazing Talker

AT is a great platform for those that have just started teaching as a freelancer and are eager to establish a solid business. Most of the marketing is being done for you. I have seen my own profile in pay per click campaigns and have gotten students from that which is pretty cool. As the company seeks to position itself as a powerhouse in freelance teaching, it is at the same time exposing its teachers’ profiles.

From the time I started with AT, they have never missed payment date. Actually, I have received my payments as early as the 8th. Any freelancer can concur with me on how this is such a relief when you get your earnings on time.

Like I mentioned earlier, AT is new. It’s less than 4 years old which means there is still more work to be done to gain trust and attract more students. It’s unlike established platforms like Preply, which have been around for some time. They already have built trust in the market and no longer need to advertise their services.

As a freelance teacher who is working hard to establish a solid business, I enjoy the less competitive opportunity Amazing Talker gives me. I teach a minority language, Shona, but still, I get many students through AT.

Preply

According to a report of 2018, Preply had over 47000 registered tutors tutoring over 27 languages. This makes competition on the platform so stiff. But, with the correct training on how to teach as a freelancer and establish a solid business, it is very easy to be successful on this giant platform. The market is wider.

Preply holds an enormous advantage because it offers lessons on other subjects that are not languages. You might not be a language tutor but you can be a subject tutor or both which brings in more earnings to the freelance teacher!

In conclusion, you can be a tutor on both platforms and maximize your earnings. As long as you can manage your schedule, freelancing on both platforms is fun and rewarding.