Tutoring rate calculator
Set your parent-facing rate from the numbers you control: what the hour costs you, the margin you need, and how many students share it. Free, no email, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Shows a sanity-check band of $40–$80/hr. A starting point we chose, not market data.
Your cost basis: the loaded cost of one delivered hour.
Share of the parent's dollar you keep, before platform fees.
Students sharing the hour. 1 = one-on-one.
Suggested rate, per student-hour
$50
Inside the $40–$80 starting band for middle & high school subjects.
Your cost per student-hour
$30
$30 tutor pay split across 1 student.
Margin after Gigpie's 2%
38%
A flat 2% of collections takes your 40% target down by exactly two points.
| Package | Price at suggested rate | Gigpie's 2% | You collect | Tutor cost | Left over |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 hours | $250 | $5 | $245 | $150 | $95 |
| 10 hours | $500 | $10 | $490 | $300 | $190 |
| 20 hours | $1,000 | $20 | $980 | $600 | $380 |
Math: rate = cost per student-hour ÷ (1 − margin), each figure rounded to the cent before the next step. Package prices use the suggested rate before any package discount. The 2% is Gigpie's entire platform fee (flat, no tiers); Stripe's payment processing is separate and applies on any platform. Consider rounding the suggested rate to a clean number before publishing it: $63.64 reads as arithmetic, $65 reads as a price.
Price from cost, not from the center across town
Most tutoring rates start as a copy of a competitor's rate and never get revisited. That number tells you what someone else's business can afford, not what yours can. The sturdier method runs the other direction: start with what an hour costs you to deliver, decide what share of the parent's dollar you need to keep, and let the rate fall out of the arithmetic. The same three inputs work if you run a coaching or consulting practice instead of a tutoring business, since a client's dollar breaks down exactly the same way.
The formula behind the calculator is one line: rate = cost per student-hour ÷ (1 − margin). Pay a tutor $30 for a one-on-one hour and target a 40% margin, and the rate is $30 ÷ 0.60, which is $50. The parent pays $50, the tutor gets $30, and $20 stays with the business. If $50 sounds high for your area, the fix is not to shave the rate until it feels polite. It is to know which of the three inputs you are choosing to change, because one of them has to move.
Margin is not markup
These two get mixed up constantly, and the mix-up always lands in the same direction: underpricing. A 50% markup on a $30 cost gives $45. A 50% margin on the same cost gives $60, because margin is measured against the price, not the cost. The calculator asks for margin. If you have been adding 50% to tutor pay and calling it a 50% margin, you have been running a 33% margin without knowing it.
What belongs in your cost basis
The tutor's hourly pay is the floor of the cost, not the whole of it. If you pay for prep time, cover no-shows, or employ tutors as W-2 staff, the true cost of a delivered hour is higher than the rate on the pay stub. You do not need a perfect cost model; you need the loaded number. Take the hourly pay, add what you actually spend per delivered hour on top of it, and use that as the cost input. If you skip this step, the margin the calculator reports will be flattering rather than true.
Group rates: the output is a floor, not a price
Divide the tutor's pay across four students and cost-plus math produces a startlingly low per-seat rate. Pay $40 for the hour, target 40%, and the formula says $16.67 a seat. Almost nobody should charge that. Parents compare a group seat to your one-on-one rate, not to your costs, so group pricing usually lands somewhere between the cost-plus floor and the private-lesson anchor. Use the calculator's group number as the floor under your decision, and set the sticker price against your one-on-one rate. The gap between the two is your room.
Package discounts have a floor too
A 20-hour package at a discount is a rate cut in costume. Price 20 hours at $50 and sell the pack for $900, and your effective rate is $45; check that $45 still clears your floor before the discount goes on the website. The calculator prices 5, 10, and 20 hour packs at the suggested rate so you can see the undiscounted baseline, and what is left after fees, before you decide how much of it to give away.
What the flat 2% does to the rate
Gigpie's price is a flat 2% of what you collect, so it comes off the revenue side of the equation, and the effect on your margin is exact: two percentage points. Price for a 40% margin and collect through the platform, and you keep 38%. No tier or threshold changes this, because the fee is a single constant in our billing code. The calculator shows both numbers so you can price for the margin you want after fees: if you need 40% after, enter 42.
Card processing is separate, on every platform. Stripe's standard rates apply: about 2.9% plus 30 cents on cards, or 0.8% capped at $5 for pay-by-bank. The full fee arithmetic lives on the pay by bank page, and the revenue level where each flat-subscription competitor beats 2% is worked out on the comparison pages.
Also free: the tutoring invoice generator, which builds a printable invoice in your browser.
Rate questions, answered
Where do the subject-tier ranges come from?
We wrote them as sanity-check starting points, and that is all they are. They are not survey data, and we have no market-rate dataset to cite. Rates vary widely by city and subject, so treat the band as a prompt to check what tutoring businesses near you actually charge, not as evidence of what you can charge.
Should my own pay be in the cost basis or the margin?
Decide before you trust the output. If you also tutor, the hours you teach should carry the same cost as any other tutor's hours. Your pay for running the business is a separate question: either add a per-hour allowance for it to the cost basis or accept that it comes out of the margin. Both work; picking neither is how owners end up working for free.
What is the difference between margin and markup?
Markup is measured against cost, margin against price. Adding 50% to a $30 cost gives a $45 price, which is a 33% margin. To earn a 50% margin on that $30 cost you have to charge $60. This calculator asks for margin, the share of the parent's payment you keep.
How do I raise rates on existing families?
Set the new rate for new families first, so the higher number is proven before you touch anyone's renewal. For current families, give notice ahead of a natural boundary, such as the start of a semester or their next package purchase, and state the new rate without apologizing for it. Grandfathering a few long-tenured families for one extra cycle is fine; grandfathering everyone forever means you never raised rates.
Is Gigpie's 2% included in the suggested rate?
No. The suggested rate hits the margin you entered before platform fees. The results show your margin after the 2% separately, and the package table shows the fee in dollars on each pack. To hit a target margin after the fee, add two points to the margin input.
Does the calculator store or send what I type?
No. It is a page of client-side arithmetic: your numbers stay in the browser tab and are gone when you close it. There is no account, no email gate, and nothing saved on our side.
The rate is step one. Collecting it is the grind.
Gigpie handles the packages, autopay, and balance tracking behind the rate you just set, for a flat 2% of what you collect. Free until you collect revenue.
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