17 Responses

1. Dr PD

   25|May|2009 1

   Online payment to tutors is fine. Monthly fees will not retain many tutors continuing since they’ll loose hope when there is no contact from student/parent for a month time.

   I think UniversityTutor.com is a nice link between students and tutors.

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   Brian Armstrong Reply:
   May 25th, 2009 at 4:41 pm

   Thanks for the feedback. What about a clause “if nobody contacts you during the month there is no charge” or something to that effect?

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2. James Cayo

   25|May|2009 2

   Hi,

   I am not really enjoying the cancellation of online payments because to be truthful, I would not like having to pay a monthly fee. If this happens, then I personally authorize the UniversityTutor organization to terminate my profile from the website. I am contented with my private tutoring position held at a college and other site. The only thought I have about this catastrophe is to either keep the online payments for the customers to pay or terminate my profile. I am not willing to take the risk of having to pay a fee every month. Therefore, I have implicitly declared my opinions regarding this whole change of business.

   J.C

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3. Stefano Campagna

   25|May|2009 3

   As of yet, I have not received any new students through UniversityTutor.com. I joined about a month or two ago, but nothing yet. As for monthly fees, I agree with the previous comment. If we are not contacted by at least one potential client, then we should not be charged at all. I also have a profile on tutorsource.com, and it has a billing system similar to the current pay setup. Students really dislike paying the extra fee. I despise having to wait a week for payment, and the fee makes my overall rate seem cost prohibitive to most students. I offer discounts, but some students lose interest and search elsewhere. So, a yearly fee would not be unreasonable. Nonetheless, tutoring is not always stable, thus, for me, paying more than $50 for a tutoring website profile is excessive if I receive no business from such a site for several months. If I receive several clients from the site, I would be willing to share some of my earnings. Since I normally charge $50 per hour, I would pay $5-$10 for every new student that hires me. More precisely, $25 for the first 5 students, and $10 for each new student. On the other hand, this would be a one time payment as several students only want a few sessions. Upon a successful match, the student should contact the site, and I would submit a credit card payment. I think this method would be very helpful and convenient. It would also help keep track of newly gained tutoring experience, and students could write testimonials that might further boost sales.

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   Brian Armstrong Reply:
   May 26th, 2009 at 4:01 am

   Hi Stefano, good points about the online payment system. I’d be up for using a system where you only pay if the contact works out – we haven’t thought of a good way to verify this as of yet since many students would not come back to report it without an incentive. I’m open to any ideas on this front.

   Also, thanks for the thoughts on amounts. I like the idea of adding a yearly option in addition to a monthly so tutors can get some sort of discount.

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4. Rahul

   25|May|2009 4

   I havent received a single student yet and that’s why i’m in favour of a “get charged when you get a student” model

   if you are getting charged a 5% fee per transaction, then you might want to consider some other form of credit-card processing. Something like Google Checkout or even PayPal. Both are secure and trusted.

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   Brian Armstrong Reply:
   May 26th, 2009 at 4:25 am

   Hi Rahul,

   Thanks for the comment. I just saw it after leaving a comment below, but something to keep in mind: the monthly subscription would not come into effect until you’d gotten 3 free contacts to try it out. Hopefully this allows students to see if it will be profitable before deciding whether to subscribe or not.

   You’re right that another problem is getting more students to the site so tutors get more contacts. It is summer right now, but for this we could definitely use more marketing budget you’re right.

   Also, the 5% is not just for billing a credit card which is around 2.x%. It’s also for the direct deposit and monthly fees. Thanks for the feedback! If there is anything else just let me know.

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5. Joyce

   26|May|2009 5

   Online payments can be convenient for parents, but for me it has only complicated the process of getting paid. Not only do parents and students not want to pay the fee, but it can be a hassle for me to have to repeatedly contact them to ask that they pay in a timely manner. It was much easier to just get a check or cash at the end of each tutoring session and not have to wait a few business days to receive my pay through Paypal or direct deposit.

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   Brian Armstrong Reply:
   May 26th, 2009 at 4:02 am

   Thanks Joyce. This is helpful.

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6. Brian Armstrong

   26|May|2009 6

   I should also mention that with our monthly subscription – this was only after a FREE TRIAL period. During this free trial period tutors could receive 3 free tutoring jobs requests from clients. It didn’t matter how long this took (3 days or 300 days) It would be free until they had at least gotten 3 requests.

   This was a way to try out the site and see if it was profitable before deciding whether to subscribe. We would of course use something like this again so it’s wouldn’t be required up front.

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7. Joseph Schoonover

   26|May|2009 7

   The University Tutor website should be treated more as a social network for students and tutors. For the business aspect, universitytutor.com should collect a type of “booking fee” for the use of the website. Individual tutors should be able to state their own price (maybe not a minimum of $20/hr). The client should only be responsible for the 5% credit card processing fee and the tutor should cover a 10% fee for each appointment for using the website to build up clients. These measures are reasonable considering that paying online for anything with a credit card incurs a processing fee for customers and considering the service provided to tutors from the website.

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   Brian Armstrong Reply:
   May 26th, 2009 at 6:43 pm

   Hi Joseph, I like the idea of splitting the fee between tutor and student and I agree it’s reasonable.

   Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find a way to enforce this yet. I think it’s too easy to get paid offline so people (even it’s not intentional) end up avoiding the fee.

   How would you feel about something like $5/month or $45/year to keep up a tutor profile – and no percentage fee for payments (tutor gets paid by student directly in any way they’d like)?

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8. Stefano Campagna

   27|May|2009 8

   A $45/year fee is not unreasonable. Also, universitytutor.com may be able to market directly to high schools and colleges through representatives or flyers. Tutoring discounts would be incentives for clients to leave testimonials. If a client refers friends and family members and they hire a tutor, then they can get free or discounted tutoring hours. Also, universitytutor.com may be able to get discounts for academic materials sold on websites similar to credit card rewards. I know some tutoring companies have mailing lists of students obtained through school directories. Once or twice a year, they mail flyers featuring their services. These are just some ideas. Please let me know if any of these sound feasible.

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   Brian Armstrong Reply:
   May 27th, 2009 at 5:10 am

   Good ideas all around, thanks Stefano!

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9. Jay Godse

   23|Jun|2009 9

   Tutors have to view the fee for this site as a marketing fee. If they go with a tutoring company, then their marketing fee is about 50% of their billable rate. That, hopefully is higher than $10/month. If they self-market, then they have to look at the cost of producing and distributing flyers, and advertising in the newspapers. Again, $10/month is cheap.

   $10/month, however is very expensive if this service delivers no business. How about if you charge $2 per inquiry up to $20/month. If your tutors cannot convert 10 inquiries into at least $100 of new revenues, they shouldn’t be tutoring to begin with. If transaction costs are going to kill you, give tutors 3 free inquiries to start with, and then require them to keep their “inquiry” reserve topped up (minimum $20, refundable pro-rated) if they wish to receive more inquiries. Ding the reserve $2 for every inquiry. The up side is that you don’t have to pay anybody except tutors closing out their accounts. The other nice thing is that tutors who don’t want new inquiries can simply let their reserve dwindle to $0, and then top it up when they want new business. This lets you advertise the tutor as “fully occupied”.

   From the viewpoint of your hosting costs, I’m going to guess that hosting a tutor profile probably costs less than $0.10 per month, and can be rolled into the “mud” of your other fixed hosting costs.

   An online payment with a 15% cut is asking parents and tutors to cut side deals. That hurts your site because it tacitly encourages students and parents to work against you.

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   Brian Armstrong Reply:
   June 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 pm

   hi Jay, yep I think you’re right the 15% wasn’t the right solution. We’ve since gotten rid of that (as of a month ago or so) and gone back to the monthly fee which is working much better. I’d be up for a per-inquiry fee as you suggested, the only drawback is that it’s more complicated and requires people to answer more emails/refill their account etc. We’re going with a simple flat monthly fee for right now, but there is a free trial (3 contacts) so people can see if it actually generates business for them before subscribing. There is also a 60 day money back guarantee if they’re unhappy with the subscription. Thanks for the feedback!

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