Teaching · For Tutors · Pricing

Price the seat,
then see what
the group pays.

Type your one-on-one rate and describe the group. The calculator prices each seat, takes off the room and the materials, and shows your pay per hour against one-on-one for every group size.

Price a groupWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Tutoring business kit, $69 for 64 items.

The group pricing calculator

The worked example is made up: a tutor who charges $60 an hour one-on-one runs a four-student algebra group in a rented room. Nothing you type leaves this browser.

Loading the calculator. If nothing appears, turn on JavaScript.

What you get

Teaching · For Tutors$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
A seat price for your group, what each family saves against one-on-one, what the group brings in and what you keep per session and per hour, the smallest group that pays as well as one-on-one, and a table of group sizes. It prints as a one-page summary and downloads as a spreadsheet.
Who it is for
Independent tutors and small tutoring centers planning small-group sessions, and teachers who run paid study groups.
Format
Browser calculator for a phone, tablet or computer, by touch or keyboard. Prints a summary; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Tutoring business kit ($69) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The For Tutors space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Type your one-on-one hourly rate and the session length.
  2. Describe the group: how many students and how much less each pays than one-on-one.
  3. Add a fixed cost per session, such as a room, and materials per student.
  4. Read the seat price and your pay per hour, then check the table for the group size that suits you.
  5. Print the summary or download the spreadsheet.

Price a group

How the group is priced

One seat price, many group sizes.

Your pay per hour by group size, $36.00 a seat$582 students$923 students$1264 students$1605 students$1946 students1:1 $58Pay per hour by group size2 students$583 students$924 students$1265 students$1606 students$194one-on-one $58
In the example a seat costs $36.00, 40% less than an hour one-on-one. Two students already pay $58 an hour after costs, more than the $58 of one-on-one; four pay $126.

The arithmetic

A seat costs the one-on-one price of the same session less the discount: $60 an hour for 60 minutes less 40% is $36.00. The group brings in the seat price times the students. Your share subtracts the fixed cost once and the materials once per student, and pay per hour divides that by the session length. One-on-one per hour subtracts one student’s materials. The matching size is the smallest group, from 2 to 12, whose pay per hour reaches one-on-one.

Why small groups

Studies of tutoring that helps students catch up find the largest gains one-on-one and in groups of up to three or four, where the tutor still hears every student’s reasoning. A bigger group can pay more per hour and still be the right choice for review sessions and test practice, where students mostly work problems. Price the seat so the group makes sense at the size that serves the students, not the size that pays most.

Sources

  1. National Student Support Accelerator, Stanford University. Toolkit for Tutoring Programs and the high-impact tutoring design principles (studentsupportaccelerator.org): tutoring groups of no more than three or four students.
  2. Gersten, R., et al. (2008). Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention and Multi-Tier Intervention in the Primary Grades. IES Practice Guide, NCEE 2009-4045: intensive instruction in small groups.
  3. Nickow, A., Oreopoulos, P., and Quan, V. (2020). The Impressive Effects of Tutoring on PreK-12 Learning. NBER Working Paper 27476: larger effects for tutoring delivered one-on-one or in very small groups.
  4. Internal Revenue Service, Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business: room rental and supplies as business expenses on Schedule C.

The worked example is made up. The page does arithmetic on the rate, discount and costs you enter; it does not set prices for you. Your figures stay in this browser. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.