Gigpie vs TutorCruncher: Which Fits Your Agency Size?
Compare Gigpie and TutorCruncher with verified August 2026 pricing: corrected tier costs, break-even math at three revenue levels, and an honest migration path.
TutorCruncher has run tutoring agencies out of London since 2014, and its feature list reads like the agencies it serves: automated tutor payouts, accounting exports, an Enterprise API, and pricing pages in both dollars and pounds. Gigpie is built for the stage before that, when a team of three to fifteen educators is still run by its owner, and it charges one number for everything: a flat 2% of what you collect. Below are both platforms' verified current prices and the worked math at three revenue levels, starting with a correction we owe TutorCruncher.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Gigpie | TutorCruncher |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat 2% of collections | $30-$240/mo + 0.65-1% revenue fee |
| Cost before you collect revenue | Free | 2-week trial, then paid |
| Unlimited tutors and students | Yes | Yes |
| Published card fees | Stripe, 2.9% + $0.30 | 3.85% PAYG / 3.5% Startup |
| ACH / pay by bank | 0.8%, capped at $5 | Yes |
| UK Direct Debit (GoCardless) | No | Yes |
| Installment plan builder | Yes | Not documented |
| Shared hour balance across siblings | Yes | Not documented |
| Parent/client portal | Yes | Yes |
| Calendar integration | Push + conflict check | One-way iCal feed |
| Tutor pay | Payroll runs + CSV for your processor | Automated Stripe payouts |
| CRM, campaigns, journey automations | Yes | Not documented |
| AI phone agent for inbound calls | Yes | Not documented |
| Post-session review funnel | Yes | Tutor reviews in portal |
| Accounting exports (Xero/QuickBooks/Sage) | No | Yes |
| API access | No | Enterprise tier only |
| Native mobile app | No | No |
| Phone support | No | Yes |
Every TutorCruncher cell above comes from tutorcruncher.com's pricing, getting-paid, billing-and-payroll, and help-center pages, checked in August 2026. "Not documented" means those pages don't confirm the detail either way. It is not a claim the feature is missing, so verify anything load-bearing with TutorCruncher directly.
Pricing, With a Correction
An earlier version of this page said TutorCruncher starts around $70 a month and adds per-tutor fees as you grow. Neither claim survives a look at the current pricing page. As of August 2026, the US tiers are Pay As You Go at $30 a month with a revenue fee of roughly 1% and card fees of 3.85%, Startup at $80 with 0.65% and 3.5%, and Enterprise at $240 with card rates it advertises as competitive. UK businesses pay £25, £60, and £200. Every tier includes unlimited users and lessons, so your eleventh tutor costs the same as your second: nothing.
Gigpie charges a flat 2% of what you collect, and nothing before you collect it. There are no tiers to choose between and no add-on catalog. Stripe's processing fees (2.9% + $0.30 for cards, 0.8% capped at $5 for pay by bank) are separate, the way processing is separate on any platform.
Platform fees at three revenue levels. At $3,000 a month collected, Gigpie's 2% is $60 and TutorCruncher's Pay As You Go is about the same: $30 plus roughly 1% comes to about $60. That is the crossover. At $12,000, Gigpie is $240 while TutorCruncher runs about $150 on Pay As You Go or about $158 on Startup. At $40,000, Gigpie is $800 and Startup is about $340. Below $3,000 a month, and in any month with zero collections, Gigpie is the cheaper line; above it, TutorCruncher is, by a margin that grows with revenue.
The platform line isn't the whole bill, though. TutorCruncher publishes card fees of 3.85% on Pay As You Go and 3.5% on Startup, while Gigpie payments run through Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30. Stack each platform's percentages and the totals converge: card-paid revenue costs roughly 4.85% plus the $30 base on Pay As You Go, versus 4.9% plus 30 cents a transaction on Gigpie, with Startup's 4.15% pulling ahead once your volume covers its $80 base. The published TutorCruncher rates are card rates; ask them about ACH and Direct Debit pricing before you model your own mix.
One more thing to price: the add-on catalog. Extra branches run $50 a month each, a custom domain $100, extended priority support about $120, and automated tutor payouts 0.2% per invoice, with a 1.5% surcharge on international cards and 2% on Amex (US pricing page, August 2026). None of this is hidden, but a growing agency should cost out its real configuration rather than the tier headline.
Where TutorCruncher Is Genuinely Ahead
The biggest gap we verified runs in TutorCruncher's favor: it actually sends tutors their money. When a client pays an invoice, split payments divide it between the agency's commission and the tutor's pay, and the tutor's share routes to the tutor's own Stripe payouts account in about seven days. Gigpie doesn't do this. Our payroll engine builds pay runs by pay group and schedule, takes an approval step, and ends in CSV exports (including a Justworks timecard) for an external payroll processor. If hands-off tutor payouts are a hard requirement, your search ends at TutorCruncher.
The payment surface is wider too. Alongside Stripe, TutorCruncher collects UK Direct Debit through GoCardless, with mandates that don't expire, and its billing data exports to Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage. Support goes deeper than ours: phone lines in London and Chicago, a bookable sales call, and support pages describing three months of video, chat, and email help for new customers followed by a dedicated account manager. Gigpie support is email. Enterprise customers also get the API, custom JavaScript and CSS, and a Google Analytics integration, which is the toolkit a 30-tutor agency's ops lead will eventually ask for.
What the 2% Includes
Gigpie's schema makes the family the owner of every package. Two siblings in different subjects with different coaches draw from one shared balance, the parent sees one number, and there is nothing to configure because no other mode exists. The no-show rules carry real money: a student no-show still consumes the family's hour and still pays the coach, while a coach no-show reverses both. TutorCruncher's client portal covers invoices, schedules, payment history, and lesson reports; whether it can pool one package's hours across siblings isn't something its public pages answer, so put that question on your demo-call list.
The 2% also covers a working CRM. Leads arrive from external forms and ad campaigns through a webhook, land on a pipeline board, and get worked from a unified inbox that threads email, SMS, and calls together. Campaigns run as one-off broadcasts or as multi-step journeys with branching. An AI phone agent can answer inbound calls and leave you the recording and transcript, and a text from an unknown number becomes a lead on its own. After every completed session the family gets a feedback request, and the reputation report points your 4- and 5-star responses toward Google, Trustpilot, and Thumbtack review links.
To be clear about scope: our TutorCruncher research covered pricing, payments, the portal, payroll, support, and data export, not its full feature catalog, so we won't claim it lacks any of the above. We can only tell you all of it ships inside Gigpie's 2%, with no tier gate in front of it.
Verdict by Use Case
The largest agencies: 30+ tutors, multiple locations, or a finance stack
TutorCruncher. This is who it was built for: branches as an add-on, exports into Xero or QuickBooks, automated payouts at scale, an API on Enterprise, and an account manager to call. Gigpie has no multi-location structure, no accounting integrations, and no public API, and at $40,000 a month collected it costs more too. Our own buyer's guide sends agencies this size to TutorCruncher first.
A six-tutor center where most clients are families
Gigpie. At $12,000 a month, TutorCruncher's platform line is about $85 cheaper, so the question is what the $85 buys back. One shared balance per household replaces the per-student ledger and the stream of emails asking how many hours are left. The CRM, campaigns, review funnel, and phone agent replace tools you'd otherwise subscribe to separately, or jobs that simply don't get done. If none of those describe your week, keep the $85.
Three tutors, choosing a first real system
Price won't decide this one. Below $3,000 a month the two platform lines sit within a few dollars of each other, and Gigpie's start, free until you collect revenue, matters most in the weeks before launch. Decide on rails and direction instead: a UK operation whose parents expect Direct Debit should take TutorCruncher, while a team selling shared hour packages to households and running its own marketing should take Gigpie. If you want the cheapest credible option and need neither platform's extras, TutorBird is the third door: $16.95 a month for one tutor, plus $4.95 for each additional one, so a three-tutor shop pays about $27.
Migrating From TutorCruncher
Getting your data out of TutorCruncher is genuinely well documented. Its help center covers CSV exports for students, tutors, jobs, lessons, and invoices, plus a dedicated accounting export and an account-closure procedure.
Plan the other half honestly: Gigpie has no TutorCruncher importer today, and a TutorCruncher move means re-entering families, packages with remaining balances, and schedules by hand. Adding a family, its package, and a coach assignment happens in one screen, so each one goes fast on its own, but the total time still climbs with your roster size. Session history and old invoices live on in your exported CSVs rather than inside Gigpie.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is TutorCruncher cheaper than Gigpie?
Above roughly $3,000 a month in collections, usually yes on the platform line: at $12,000 a month TutorCruncher's Pay As You Go runs about $150 to Gigpie's $240, and the gap widens from there. Card fees pull the totals closer, since TutorCruncher publishes 3.85% on Pay As You Go while Gigpie payments run through Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30. Gigpie only wins on price below $3,000 a month, or in months when nothing is collected.
Does TutorCruncher charge per tutor?
No. All three published tiers include unlimited users and lessons as of August 2026, so adding tutors never raises the subscription. Older comparisons claiming per-tutor fees, including an earlier version of this page, were wrong. What grows with your business is the tier itself plus the revenue and card fee percentages.
What does TutorCruncher actually cost in 2026?
US pricing as of August 2026: Pay As You Go at $30 a month plus a revenue fee of roughly 1% and 3.85% card fees; Startup at $80 plus 0.65% and 3.5% card fees; Enterprise at $240 with card rates it advertises as competitive. UK tiers are £25, £60, and £200. Add-ons include extra branches at $50 a month, a custom domain at $100, extended priority support around $120, and automated payouts at 0.2% per invoice.
What does Gigpie's 2% cover, and is it on top of Stripe fees?
The 2% is Gigpie's entire platform fee. It covers scheduling, family billing, the parent portal, payroll runs, the CRM, campaigns, and the feedback funnel, with no tiers and no add-ons. Stripe's processing fees are separate: 2.9% + $0.30 for cards, or 0.8% capped at $5 for pay by bank. Nothing is due until you collect revenue through the platform.
Does TutorCruncher pay tutors automatically?
Yes, and it may be the single biggest difference between these two platforms. When a client pays an invoice, split payments route the tutor's share toward the tutor's own Stripe payouts account, reaching the tutor in about seven days; the US pricing page lists automated payouts at 0.2% per invoice. Gigpie calculates and approves pay in payroll runs, then exports CSVs, including a Justworks timecard, for your payroll processor. It does not transfer money to tutors.
Which is better for a UK tutoring agency?
TutorCruncher has the stronger UK story: it was founded in London, publishes GBP pricing, and collects Direct Debit through GoCardless with mandates that don't expire. Gigpie processes payments through Stripe only. If Direct Debit is how your parents expect to pay, that difference alone can settle the choice.
Can I import my TutorCruncher data into Gigpie?
Not automatically. TutorCruncher documents CSV exports for students, tutors, jobs, lessons, and invoices, so your data comes out cleanly. Gigpie has no automated importer for TutorCruncher data, which means families, packages with remaining hours, and schedules are re-entered by hand. Session history and old invoices stay in your exported files.
Does either platform have a native mobile app?
No. Neither appears in the Apple App Store or Google Play as of August 2026. Both are responsive web apps you use in a mobile browser.
How does calendar sync compare?
Both are imperfect, differently. TutorCruncher provides an iCal feed you subscribe to from Google, Outlook, or Apple Calendar; events flow out of TutorCruncher, and edits made in your calendar don't flow back. Gigpie pushes sessions to Google or Outlook calendars and checks for conflicts at booking time, but doesn't watch for edits made directly in the external calendar afterward. Neither offers true two-way sync.
Does TutorCruncher have a free plan or money-back guarantee?
Neither is published. There's a 2-week free trial, and TutorCruncher's own terms state that billing is monthly, in arrears, and non-refundable. Some third-party review sites circulate a 30-day money-back guarantee claim; it contradicts those terms, so don't count on it. Gigpie has no trial clock at all: it's free until you collect revenue.
Does Gigpie have an API like TutorCruncher's?
No. Gigpie has no public API and no outgoing webhooks; its one inbound integration is a lead webhook for external forms and ads. TutorCruncher's API is real and documented, gated to the Enterprise tier at $240 a month US. If API access is a requirement today, only one of these two platforms can meet it.
How does each handle a family with two kids in different subjects?
In Gigpie the family is the billing unit by architecture: a package belongs to the household, and both kids draw hours from the same balance regardless of subject or coach. TutorCruncher's client portal handles invoices, schedules, and lesson reports, but its public pages don't describe a pooled hour balance across siblings, so ask them how they would model it.
What support does each company offer?
TutorCruncher lists phone numbers in London and Chicago, offers a bookable 15-minute call, and describes three months of video, chat, and email assistance for new customers followed by a dedicated account manager. Gigpie support is email. On support, TutorCruncher wins outright.
What's actually in Gigpie's CRM?
Lead capture from external forms and ad campaigns via webhook, a pipeline board with per-lead tasks, and a unified inbox that threads email, SMS, and calls. Campaigns run as one-off broadcasts or multi-step journey automations. An AI phone agent can answer inbound calls and leave a recording and transcript, and a text from an unknown number becomes a lead automatically. All of it is included in the 2%.
See what the 2% replaces
Family billing, CRM, campaigns, and payroll runs in one system, at a flat 2% of collections. Free until you collect revenue, so trying it costs nothing.
Get started freeRelated Resources
- TutorCruncher Alternatives - A wider field to check, for agencies where a flat 2% isn't the right trade
- Family Management - The shared-balance architecture up close: one package, one payer, every sibling drawing from the same hours
- Educator Payroll - How Gigpie's pay groups, payroll runs, and processor exports work, and where they stop short of automated payouts