Italki teachers getting pricey?

[Hnie]

I teach on italki, and the price increase for italki teachers is NOT only due to inflation but also because of the fees charged by the payment platform, currency exchange rates, and italki's own rules. Over the past few years, italki has increased the standard price for professional teachers and tutors, meaning they cannot set prices lower than the standard rate. Many professional teachers on italki also do not use italki's tools to teach, as they prefer more stable platforms like Zoom, which they also have to pay for, and these platforms are not cheap.

 

Furthermore, starting this year (2025), italki increased the fee from 15% to 21% for single lessons, meaning lesson prices will increase as well. There are many cheaper teachers on Preply, but I doubt there will be many qualified teachers there, as I have used this platform before to teach and found that their fee system doesn't compensate teachers for trial classes (the first lesson). The advantage is that the fee reduces as teachers accumulate many teaching hours, which causes many teachers there to focus more on the quantity of lessons they can teach  ( than the quality ) to lower the fee (so they can earn more). A platform with a more teacher-friendly fee is Polytripper, which only takes 5%, allowing teachers to offer more affordable prices for students.

[Purple_]

Considering some people are shocked teachers are asking $15+, I'm almost afraid to post that I've been paying $35/hour! 

 

I'm unsure how quality differs between teachers as this was the first teacher I ended up talking to, but I do believe it's money well spend. 
We've been actively going through my textbooks, combined with small conversational practice. I usually book a session every 2-3 weeks, once I've had time to go through the word list for a specific chapter and study it.

I guess if you're at a higher level it might make sense to have sessions more often, but at my level of Chinese I don't think I would benefit strongly from more frequent (>1/week) sessions. There are only so many words I can stuff in my brain before it just doesn't stick anymore. Although obviously spending more time will always result in /some/ degree of improvement, but eventually the value proposition becomes off imo.

 

I also have in person 1.5h group classes once a week locally which cost me about $18/hour converted, which I believe to be reasonably cheap as well.

In both cases I'm taking up someones time, I don't think I would be willing to teach someone Dutch for less either...

[Jan Finster]

On 1/17/2025 at 2:47 PM, Purple_ said:

Considering some people are shocked teachers are asking $15+, I'm almost afraid to post that I've been paying $35/hour! 

Considering that learning Chinese is a hobby for most people, few people are willing or (quite simply) able to afford a hobby at those prices.  Especially for conversation practice when you need volume, such prices would be unsustainable for most. Also, wages in China are not that high, so if you compare what is fair in the Netherlands to what is fair in China, you are overpaying them. I am also not sure if a 35$/lesson teacher is really that much better than a 15$/lesson teacher. I had fantastic teachers for 15$ (off italki, ie arranged privately).