How much to charge for tutoring
Tutoring rates are set by subject scarcity and outcome stakes far more than by your hours or credentials.
Based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wages for tutors in the national average:
Covers costs and tax with zero profit. Below this you are paying to work.
Pays you properly, covers overhead and self-employment tax, and leaves a 15% margin.
Specialised, in-demand, or booked out. Achievable once you are turning work away.
- Effective hourly rate
- $60.13/hr
- Billable hours per year
- 720
- Revenue at this rate
- $43,292
- Employee equivalentBLS wage for this work in your state
- $19.81/hr
How tutors actually price their work
There is no single right structure — but there is usually a right one for each kind of job.
Hourly
The default across the industry. $25–$80 typical, with test prep and advanced STEM at the top.
Package or block
Exam preparation with a fixed deadline. Sold as a programme rather than as hours, which supports a higher effective rate.
Small group
Two to four students at roughly 60–70% of the individual rate each — often your highest earning-per-hour option.
The mistake that costs tutors the most
Not billing for preparation. An hour of genuinely tailored tutoring often carries 15–30 minutes of planning and marking. Tutors who bill only contact time are working a materially lower hourly rate than the one they quote.
What tutoring overhead actually looks like
These are the defaults behind the calculator. Yours will differ — change the overhead figure above to match.
| Cost | Typical / year |
|---|---|
| Materials, textbooks, practice tests | $400 |
| Platform and scheduling fees | $360 |
| Background check and marketing | $250 |
| Mileage, if travelling to students | $1,200 |
| Total | $2,210 |
Where tutors earn the most
Median hourly wage by state, from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey.
| State | Median |
|---|---|
| Wyoming | $30.99 |
| Rhode Island | $28.53 |
| Massachusetts | $27.52 |
| Connecticut | $26.78 |
| Mississippi | $25.03 |
| Virginia | $23.74 |
| New Hampshire | $23.66 |
| Maine | $23.61 |
| Vermont | $23.01 |
| Maryland | $22.60 |
Common questions about tutoring pricing
How much should I charge for tutoring per hour?
General K-12 tutoring commonly runs $25–$50/hour, while SAT/ACT prep and advanced maths or science reach $60–$100+. Scarcity of qualified tutors in the subject matters more than your years of experience.
Should I charge more for online or in-person tutoring?
In-person usually carries a $10–$20 premium to cover travel, but online lets you serve a wider market and removes drive time entirely — which frequently nets out higher.
How much do tutoring platforms take?
Marketplaces commonly retain 20–40% of your rate. Set your independent rate with that in mind, and treat the platform as a client-acquisition cost you eventually want to grow past.
How this calculator works
The starting point is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2024), which reports what tutors earn as employees in each state.
An employee wage is not a business rate, and treating it as one is the most common reason home-based operators price below cost. An employer covers half your payroll tax, your benefits, your paid leave, and every non-billable hour of your day. Self-employed, all four come out of the same rate.
So the calculator grosses the wage up for self-employment tax (15.3% on 92.35% of net earnings), adds roughly 28% for benefits you now self-fund, adds your overhead, applies a 15% margin, and then divides by billable hours only — not hours worked.
These are estimates. Your market, specialisation and reputation move the number, and every assumption above is adjustable so you can disagree with ours.
Other pricing calculators
Wage data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2024 (released 2026). This tool provides estimates only and is not financial advice.