WyzAntReviews 378

I worked for wyzants for a year as something to do while job searching for a job after getting my masters. I had some tutoring and teaching experience at the college level but more from volunteering. I found it really easy, I started off slow picking up a couple jobs in different places but by the time I found a full time job I had 10 regular clients and was getting more people daily. It was a really good experience, I tried to post ads on a couple other places cause they didn't take a cut but never had any legit clients from the site. So I would rather have the site take a cut then not have clients. I was working with one client that had to get paid a different way because he was being paid by a nonprofit and the company really worked to get that all set up. The better I did the more ratings I got and the more people who wanted to tutor with me. I never had any problems with the site and I only had positive interactions with them.

I've been finding students through Wyzant for about three years, netting about $30K for about 600 hours. I think Wyzant's end comes out to about $8K (I forget just when I raised my rates). Right now I bill $80 per hour and keep $64. Package discounts come out of Wyzant's end. It's not nearly a living, but it isn't nothing, either.

Over this time, the site has developed a bit, and some initially infuriating site behavior (clunky interface, slow server) has improved quite a bit. There are still some page glitches. Administrative responses to queries have always been prompt.

Their cut schedule seems fair--hey, they have a business model, and if you want to use their bulletin board service and accounting, you pay their fee. They try to control student/tutor contact to prevent poaching (from other tutoring services) and cheating (by their own tutors and their own students). Some of the resulting policies are silly (like how they don't print your registered clients' full surnames--you tend to find this stuff out when you meet them for the first time) and some of them are annoying and silly (like how they lock communications when long-time clients change credit cards without telling them). But I understand and respect their paranoia.

If I were to recommend one change, it would be to eliminate the word-count check on tutor lesson summaries. I do resent a computer program telling me how to write. Of course, it doesn't complain if you fill out its requirement with jabberwocky. If I were to recommend another, it would be to edit the mistakes out of some of their tutor qualification quizzes. Those could be a bit more rigorous, too--though that might cut significantly into their tutor base.

I have been tutoring with Wyzant for about 6 months now. I started soon after finishing grad school. I appreciate the services it provides, and wish I would have known about it when I was a student.

Pros: I like that the financial information is handled through Wyzant. They ensure the money is there to pay me, and I don't have to do a thing. I have had students who short me on what they owe; some tutoring sessions take longer than expected. With Wyzant I never have to worry about that. Also, they give me greater visibility than I have been able to find anywhere else. Want ad postings get me a fraction of the exposure I get through Wyzant. And their website ensures a satisfactory experience for the student as well. Their certifications help weed out those who don't have a clue, they offer a satisfaction guarantee for the first lesson, and offer background checks on the tutors.

Cons: They're expensive. For me to make my normal rate, I have to charge an extra $10 to cover the cut Wyzant takes. Also, they limit my travel radius to 40 miles, when I would be willing to travel twice that distance to reach higher densities of students in my core subject areas.

Conclusion: Wyzant offers screened tutors at a moment's notice with a minimum of fuss. However, you pay for their services, perhaps a little more than expected.

I have been a tutor for a year and it has been rewarding on one side and also not so on the other. It is rewarding indeed to find new students and teaching them, but on the side, I don't have only good comments for the On-line tutor company. It is not so easy to find students, even as WyzAnt says that all the marketing and payments get on their hands, it is your job to follow all the E-mails and maketing yourself through your mails and successive contact with the customers, which I don't mind. But sometimes there are long periods of not having custormes and then they can deactivate your account without any explanation. Also they deactivate the account without warning, if they see something in the communication e-mails between you and your student they don't find within the rules of their company, such as giving your phone, or making appointments without them as intermediaries. They could give a warning, and not being so radical or dictatorial as they are, especially when I have been earning money for this company, that takes the 40% of your hourly rate. It is not a way to appreciate their tutors.

Wyzant is literally the best representation of what is wrong with the education system in america. ALL TAKE BUT NO GIVE.
Since Wyzant acts like the fricken FSB, they moniter everything you do and take 40% of your cut = TUTORS charge high prices, students pay high prices, and they get 40% of the cut for doing absolutely nothing.

I was a tutor on Wyzant for a few months and I got banned from the website because of 1 EMAIL. Something that should not have even been my problem and I get banned without even a first time strike or anything.

Literally this website sucks $#*!... WHY in gods name should a website take a percentage of a tutors hard earned rate?

The customer service also blows chunks... Supervisor is a $#*! with sand in her vagina and the normal Reps are absolutely clueless.

I am a Wyzant tutor and the experience has been great. So many whiners on here. If you feel 40% initially is too high, why not build your own site, manage it, market it, collect your fees, deal with charge backs and customer complaints, reply all the thousands of clients you will get, collect on bad checks... you get the message. We live in a society of whiners who will complain if they won a million dollars in the lottery.

Why would any parent be concerned about how much a tutor is getting paid? The client has already committed to paying that amount so who cares. I hope no whiners on here completed college because that would be so sad. With your degree you should be competent and resourceful enough to build your own tutoring company and pay tutors 100% while paying for marketing, payroll etc. Go ahead and try it.

I prepare for my lessons, tutor students in my local area through Wyzant, receive my earned income and love what I do. If I could build my own site I would have. Obviously I can't that's why I signed up with Wyzant and they're great.

I've been a tutor using this site for quite a long time. They have referred some great clients to me. They work. The problem is they take 35% commission on every session! As a tutor, getting paid $40/hr on average, I simply can't afford that. I tell all of my clients to pay me directly after a while.

Now Wyzant seems to have instituted a system where if you don't bill students for more than 2 sessions they will flag and de-activate your account. Also it is very clear that their admins spy on their tutor's activity, since you will get emails and reminders very soon after you mail students on their website.

You don't have to be psychic to see that they are getting even greedier and now want to eliminate any tutors that aren't giving them total commissions...

Watch out Wyzant, sites like BetterFly.com and ThumbTack.com are poised to take over when you eventually alienate most of your tutor client base.

I signed up as a tutor with WyzAnt. They are a horrible company and I urge any who wish to tutor not to bother with these scam artists and have nothing to do with them. I am a certified teacher having a teachers license in mathematics. I thought I would tutor students in Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and other math subjects. This service is pathetic. It is a scam and should be shut down by the consumer protection agency.
No matter what student I contacted assuming they are real and exist, I got zero responses after about 40 tries. Every message is the same. The student would get back to me via their email. We are not allowed to use our own emails. No one emailed my account, not one so called student called. Mind you I am not some jackass off the street. I AM A CERTIFIED MATHEMATICS TEACHER FULLY LICENSED BY THE STATE. I got zero responses.
This service is corrupt and is about as big as a rip off scam service as their is. I urge anyone who wants to tutor especially those who wish to tutor in math to not waste their time with this site. To my fellow mathematics teachers, this is your warning. Avoid this site and use your time for more productive pursuits.

"Great and fast service!" - Maria Veronica A. From Lowell, MA
I signed up in WyzAnt and within a day being part of the tutoring community I found my first tutoring job. It was so fast! After the first two weeks tutoring, I got my first payment as a direct deposit in my account. It is so convenient. Submitting the lesson is so simple. The whole site is just amazing, you can search for jobs, get alerts in your personal email about new possible jobs, submit lesson, check how many hours have you done, review payments, see how much you have earned... and more! I'm very satisfied with the service WyzAnt offers!

What a Joke! As a tutor, I have always worked as an independent contractor. There are a number of sights out there that will allow you to list your resume' for free. Yet, this website requires a 20-40%! Cut of all profits? WTF! That is WAY too much to charge for a little blurb on a website. Now, if they want to pay for my gas, provide me with a site of my own, market my services, etc... maybe but what in the world are they going to do for ME that would warrant my paying THEM $10-15 an hour? I mean really! You can't be serious!

The basic site is actually a great idea and works well. It's nice to have a site that fully displays tutors so students can compare them, and it also vets tutors background to some extent so students feel confident in the service they're buying.

The problem is that it takes 40 percent of the profits just for introducing tutors and students. This makes tutors increase their rates and makes students and their families spend unnecessary money that only goes to a corporation. Hopefully another developer will see the potential for a great business by competing with WyzAnt to make them drop their fees... or possibly even go to an ad-sponsored site (that would be truly wonderful for students and tutors!).

As a recent college graduate and teacher at the high school level, my income is not the highest. I love what I do and couldn't envision myself as anything other than a teacher, but right now, I need some money to have some spending cash. I was speaking with a friend of mine who recommended I take a look at Wyzant and intially I was skeptical: internet company and the company seemed to take 40% of my earnings. However, I signed up and have been rewarded. As others have said on this site, the first few times you tutor, Wyzant takes a decent percentage, but it is still profitable and after that... you take home close to 100 percent. It's great, I am constantly contacted by users looking for my tutoring experience and living in the Boston area, it is easy to meet up with different clients. All I can say is that this site is fantastic, customer service reps are 100% responsive and the management is great. Love this company, recommend for anyone looking to tutor!

I love working with Wyzant! I signed on as a tutor a month ago and I have 3 active clients and will be adding 2 more next week. I've moved up a pay level, and should be up to 70% within a month. I'm planning on raising my rates in January when my client base is more secure to make up for the student discount. They increase my business by providing qualified leads, eliminating lost income from charge backs, non-payment, bounced check fees, etc. Their billing and payment system reduces the amount of record keeping I have to do for taxes. They have terrific SEO and other marketing. I can charge whatever I want, and I have compete freedom to tutor outside the company. The 'billing info on file' rule can be inconvenient and I understand they're working on improving the system. It provides some security so that I don't go to a fake address and get jumped. Their strict guidelines for tutors are important for maintaining their reputation for quality, which brings me quality clients. All they ask in return is a small fee and that I play by the rules. If you read the negative reviews by clients it's obvious that non-responsive tutors create an issue that costs all of us business. If you are committed to delivering quality services as a professional educator and business person, Wyzant is a great company to be associated with.