Wyzant Review Summary

Wyzant is a teacher marketplace that hires US residents to tutor children and adults in 300+ subjects. Most charge $35-63 an hour, no formal qualifications or interview are required, payouts are prompt, and there is a lot of independence, however, a 25% commission is charged and bookings can take time and effort.

Wyzant Pros and Cons

Pros:

• No specific qualifications, interview or teaching demo are required to apply
• Wide range of subjects to tutor
• Flexibility and independence to determine your own pay, cancellation policy, methods, materials, schedule and lesson duration
• Quick payment available within 5 business days

Cons:

• Have to self-promote to acquire students
• Takes time to build up bookings, which can be irregular
• Some scammers set up fake student profiles on the platform
• Wyzant retains a 25% commission for students not referred by the tutor

What Is Wyzant Tutoring and Is Wyzant Legit?

Wyzant tutoring company is a legitimate online teacher marketplace, started in 2005, with a Trustpilot score of 4 out of 5. Over 300 Wyzant subjects are offered through the platform, broadly grouped into the following categories:

• Mathematics
• Science
• Language
• English
• Test Preparation
• Elementary Education
• Computer
• Business
• History
• Music
• Special Needs
• Sports/Recreation
• Art

Where Is Wyzant Located?

The Wyzant headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois, though they offer in-person and online tutoring across the United States.

How Many Tutors Are on Wyzant?

Wyzant currently has more than 80,000 tutors.

How Does Wyzant Work?

Wyzant is a teacher marketplace, meaning that tutors compete with one another to attract students through their Wyzant tutoring profile which is listed on the website. A Wyzant commission of 25% is deducted from all teacher earnings as a fee for using their platform.

Wyzant teachers are considered independent tutors with the freedom to decide their own pay rate, cancellation policy, teaching method, lesson frequency and duration. No curriculum or Wyzant resources are provided, and you must create your own teaching materials.

Wyzant provides the option of both online and in-person tutoring for children and adults.

What Platform Does Wyzant Use?

A bespoke Wyzant online tutoring platform, known as the Online Learning Tool, is used via a Google Chrome or Firefox browser.

There is also the option of conducting tutoring with Wyzant through Zoom, though you must first schedule the lesson through the Wyzant tutor dashboard so that it is registered on your calendar, and send a Zoom link to your student through the internal message board.

Here is a video exploring some of the Wyzant Online Tool‘s functionality:

Tutors may practice using the Wyzant Online Demo room and its features. You can also invite students to try a Wyzant online tutoring demo with you as a strategy for attracting bookings.

How to Get Students on Wyzant

There are three ways that Wyzant online lessons can be secured:

1. Tutors can search for students through the Wyzant jobs board
2. Students can request lessons by searching through Wyzant tutor profiles
3. Tutors make themselves available for Wyzant instant book (first come, first served)

You can improve the visibility of your Wyzant tutoring profile by:

1. Recording more tutoring hours
2. Responding to new students within 24 hours
3. Receiving high Wyzant ratings from your students

Some students may initially be looking for in-person tutoring, but will be open to receiving online tuition if suggested to them, according to Wyzant teachers on Facebook, though they also warn that it can take time to build up bookings:

How Much Does Wyzant Pay?

Wyzant tutor pay rates are set by the individual teachers, and thus vary hugely, with some charging as little as $10 and others as much as $1,000 per hour! Wyzant says that most of their tutors charge between US$35-$63 an hour, before commission/platform fees are deducted.

How Much Does Wyzant Take From Tutors?

The Wyzant business model is commission-based, with the company retaining a proportion of tutors’ earnings as a ‘platform fee’ for using their website. The Wyzant percentage is 25%, with tutors receiving 75% of the lesson rate. However, a tutor will keep 100% of their Wyzant tutor salary from a student they themselves have referred to the platform.

How Does Wyzant Payment Work?

Upon completion of each tutorial, the teacher must report the length of the session within 5 days before Wyzant collects the fee from the student.

The typical Wyzant payment schedule is bi-monthly, on the 1st and 15th of each month via direct deposit. However, Wyzant payment options also include ‘express deposit’, which allows payment to be received 5 business days after a lesson is submitted.

Wyzant Hours

A Wyzant online tutor will decide their own hours and how long they want their Wyzant tutorial to last.

Greater availability gives one a better chance of securing Wyzant instant book requests, which are allocated on a ‘first come, first served’ basis.

Wyzant Cancellation Policy

Wyzant tutors decide on their own cancellation policy and what fees they wish to charge a student for cancelling or not showing up to a scheduled tutorial. The cancellation notice period can be set anywhere between 1 and 36 hours.

Wyzant Tutor Requirements

There are very Wyzant requirements to become a tutor on the platform. You must:

• Be 18 years of age
• Reside within the United States
• Have a valid Social Security Number

How to Become a Tutor on Wyzant

To start a Wyzant tutoring job application, you must first visit the Wyzant tutor sign up page and register with your:

• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• Password
• ZIP code

You will then be able to complete a Wyzant application form by answering the following Wyzant questions:

• Have you ever been a teacher?
  • What is the name of the school where you teach or most recently taught?
• How many years of tutoring experience do you have?
• Which type of students do you like to tutor?
  • Elementary
  • Middle School
  • High School
  • College
  • Adult
• Where do you prefer having lessons?
  • Student’s location
  • Library
  • Location I select
  • Online
• Which of these do you find rewarding?
  • Improving your students’ grades
  • Helping students get ahead
  • Giving a student confidence to succeed
  • Providing test prep
  • Teaching a hobby
• Do you have access to a car?
• Are you interested in online tutoring?
• How many hours per week do you currently tutor outside of WyzAnt?
• Choose your subjects – Select 1–5 subjects you’d like to tutor. You can add more later once you’re done signing up

• How Wyzant Works (answer simple multiple choice questions after reading short pieces of information about the company):
  • What is the relationship between tutors and Wyzant? (Answer: ‘Tutors are independent. They use Wyzant to find opportunities and manage their tutoring business, including communications, scheduling, and payment processing.’)
  • What factors will affect your match rate with students? (Answer: ‘All of the above’)
  • How does payment work at Wyzant? (Answer: ‘All of the above’)
  • Which of the following is true about Wyzant? (Answer: ‘All of the above’)
• Click to confirm: ‘I promise to follow the Wyzant marketplace rules and provide a great experience for my students.’

• Basic information:
  • Administrative details:
    • Gender
    • Date of birth
    • Cancellation notice (between 1-36 hours)
    • Where did you hear about Wyzant?
    • Hourly rate (choose a default hourly rate. Wyzant’s platform fee is 25% of this amount. Most tutors charge between $35 – $63 per hour)
  • Education:
    • Undergraduate college
    • Undergraduate major
    • Graduate college 1
    • Type of degree
    • Graduate college 2
    • Type of degree
    • Teaching certification
  • Your address:
    • Address line 1
    • Address line 2
    • City
    • State
    • Mailing ZIP code
    • Phone number
  • Location settings:
    • Privacy radius (Wyzant will randomly display a location within the Privacy radius so that your exact location is not revealed)
    • Travel radius (specify the distance you would be willing to travel for tutoring opportunities)

• Personalize your profile – Students and parents will see this information on your profile page (see an example of Wyzant tutor profiles):
  • Wyzant profile headline
  • Profile photo (Minimum size: 200×200 pixels) – Tutors with a profile photo receive three times more business than tutors without one
  • Bio – Do you have experience tutoring or teaching? What do you love about tutoring? (This section must be two paragraphs in length, not written in ALL CAPS or a resume format. All submissions have a 2048 character limit)
  • Your subjects – What makes you an outstanding tutor of this subject?
  • Wrap up your profile – Encourage students to contact you to learn more and schedule lessons

Sign the Wyzant tutor agreement and agree to the Wyzant terms of use.

There are also Wyzant employment opportunities in ‘curriculum design’ through the Wyzant careers page.

How Long Does It Take to Get Approved on Wyzant?

Applications are processed in the order they are received, with Wyzant profile approval usually taking between 7-10 business days, depending on volume.

Wyzant Proficiency Quiz

Before being allowed to teach a particular subject, you will have to submit relevant qualifications or pass a proficiency test.

The proficiency quiz can only be attempted once, lasts approximately 30 minutes, and comprises 8-20 multiple choice questions. The passing score varies by subject, though a perfect score is not necessary for approval, and you will receive your result immediately after.

Wyzant Reviews – Is Wyzant a Good Company to Work For?

The Wyzant Glassdoor page gives the company an average rating of 4.1 out of 5, with 78% willing to recommend them to a friend, though none of these reviews are more recent than August 2021 (at the time of writing). The Wyzant tutor reviews here are also not particularly detailed, providing some positive comments about the flexibility, online platform, and prompt payouts, along with Wyzant complaints concerning the commission rate/platform fee and challenge of finding students:

The Wyzant Indeed page displays a similar score of 4 out of 5, but with more recent Wyzant tutoring reviews. These Wyzant testimonials provide corroborative comments praising the flexibility, independence, and timely payouts on offer, but criticize the commission and booking rates, and lack of guidance, job security and benefits:

A word of warning, however, comes from one of our readers, who relayed her negative personal experience of the platform to us:

“I have been signed up for some time, and they have only referred to me ‘student opportunities’ that are FRAUDS. NO OTHER SERVICE DOES THIS. Then I keep getting asked to answer ‘student questions’ for free. I don’t  work for free.  There is no effective communication from them, either. Pretty disgusted.” 

It does appear that Wyzant has problems filtering out some spam or scam fake students (evident in their tutor guidance), as has been documented by teachers on Reddit and Indeed:

Conclusion – Is Wyzant Worth It?

Wyzant might be worth considering if you are an experienced solo tutor used to leveraging online marketplaces, or teach an in-demand subject in a unique way. There is no interview and the company is open to any adult US resident, offering more independence than most, with control over aspects like deciding your own cancellation policy (which is a rare perk). However, this ease of entry onto the platform also extends to the presence of some fake spam or scam students. The usual downsides to teacher marketplaces also apply, notably the amount of time, patience and self-promotion required to build up bookings, the weighty commission that is charged, plus you must devise your own teaching materials which takes up additional unpaid time.

You can apply to Wyzant here.

A full list of other online teaching companies can be found here.