r/Preply

Hey everyone, wanted to share an update on the situation with my long-term student who retroactively dropped their 5 star review to 3 stars following a minor scheduling boundary.
After stepping back and cooling off, I decided against any reactive moves before their holiday. No angry messages, no petty responses. Just space to think clearly.

Here’s what I’ve decided:

I’m going to teach the next scheduled lesson and address it briefly and professionally at the start of the class. Not to demand anything, but because I value open communication and don’t want to carry it silently into the session.

The script I’ll be using:

“Before we get into today’s lesson, there’s just one small thing I’d like to mention so we can start with a clear understanding.

I noticed that after our scheduling issue, your review was updated to 3 stars. Of course, I completely respect that your review is your own honest opinion, and I’m not bringing this up to ask you to change it.

I completely understand if that was done in the heat of the moment because you were frustrated with the scheduling mix-up. I just wanted to be honest and say that it was a little disheartening for me. We’ve spent nearly a year learning together, and I’ve genuinely enjoyed being part of your learning journey. Because of that, I was sad to see our time together reflected that way over a scheduling matter.

I really value the lessons we’ve shared, and I also value open communication, so I felt it was better to express how I felt rather than keep it to myself. Thank you for listening, and I’m grateful you’re here today. Now, let’s jump into today’s lesson.”

After that, I’ll see how the lesson goes and decide whether to continue from there.
Thanks to everyone who weighed in. It genuinely helped me think this through.🥲

@connorfrompreply, are you/why are you okay with tutors not getting paid for the trial lessons? What's your stance on unpaid labor in general?

I am going on an extended trip soon which is longer than 20 days and I won't have any internet whatsoever, so I need to cancel my subscription with my tutor. She is very kind and the last thing I want is to somehow affect her in a bad way, so I was wondering if cancelling is okay.

The student found me somewhere on fb when I promoted my account. Kept messaging me on facebook messenger and I don't reply to him there ever, and now booked an hour long trial lesson. I asked him to share his lesson needs, and he said he just wants to talk. It's less than 12hrs before the class, I know this will affect my stats especially since I am new in the platform. But I feel like this is going to be a flirty man who would not be converted into a subscription.

Question for both sides. My tutors have all used Zoom/Meet + a shared Google Doc for notes rather than Preply's built-in classroom or note features, and I'm wondering how universal that is.

Students: does your tutor keep notes somewhere, and do you ever actually review them? After 6+ months with a tutor, do you have any real record of what you've learned, or is it scattered?

Tutors: how do you keep track of what each student knows — what vocab you've covered, mistakes they keep repeating? Do you re-read old notes before lessons, keep some system, or mostly work from memory? Has anyone tried Preply's built-in tools and stuck with them (or not — why)?

UPDATE: my account was reinstated as of 9 am this morning. 🎉 I still haven’t received an explanation— hoping to get more feedback.

I’ve read similar stories from tutors here, and I'm hoping to hear some positive stories of reinstatement. How long did it take to get reinstated, what was the process like, how did you finally get in touch with a human, etc.

I've been teaching for 15 months, have nearly 1k lessons taught, 47 anonymous 5 star reviews, and 13 written 5 star reviews. So literally flawless, in terms of ratings.

I don't know how I've violated the terms. The only thing I can think of is I sent my email address in the chat to a student a few weeks ago so he could send me a list of words he was trying to use more often, translated from Arabic. He was having trouble attaching the document directly in to the chat, so I told him if it's easier, just shoot me an email. And now I'm banned! I've reached out to customer care and they've created a ticket.

Been teaching this guy for over two years - by far my longest term student. Sometimes he really gets on my nerves with his attitude, politics and general personality lol but the classes are so easy (apart from the irritation, and to clarify, I have this feeling with zero other students) and he's very regular and flexible.

My price for new students is now twice what he is paying, and I'm thinking of raising his price by 50%. I've been umm-ing and aah-ing for months about this, but now he's literally taking up space that I could be earning double with. Kinda hate myself for that attitude but gotta be real. He's from a """"""""dEveLopINg cOunTrY""""""""" but recently was telling me all about how he owns two properties and is looking to invest in another in western europe. Lol. I don't think I will ever be able to buy a property ever in my life. So it makes me feel less guilty.

I'm basically looking for tips and affirmation, or whatever anyone has to hit me with. Thanks in advance.

(edited to reduce details)

As the title suggests.
Also to what extent is it ok to ask the tutor questions back? Or questions about something they mentioned the convo? Or like about their week?

Important to note that my questions are surface level. I kind of mirror the extent to what the tutor allows.

Hi everyone,

I'm a new Preply tutor, and my profile clearly states that I specialize in teaching A1–A2 German learners.

A student booked a trial lesson. Her profile initially said she was "just starting," but when I asked, she told me she's actually around B1 (the Preply placement test says B2), and her goal is to reach C1. Right now, I am not too comfortable speaking with b1-b2 but A1 and A2 are okay so what should I do?

I'm currently only comfortable teaching A1–A2 students. What would you do in this situation? Would you still conduct the trial lesson and then explain that you're not the right fit, or would you message the student beforehand and recommend finding another tutor?

I’ve been working with the same tutor for about 8 months. They were such an improvement over my previous tutor, made learning more fun and I felt like I was making a lot of improvement.

Earlier on, there were a few odd moments. When I was doing an exercise or reading a paragraph and apparently they thought I wasn’t looking or forgot about being able to bring the viewing window over to the current tab, they did some personal grooming and at least one time there was some nose picking. It stopped, maybe another student called it out? Things seemed fine for a long time.

More recently, there’s been a number of last minute requests to start 10-15 minutes late, and occasionally last minute cancellation of sessions.

However, the deal breaker for me is blatantly working on other things in our sessions. I was asked to talk about my day, and as I was looking away and thinking about what I wanted to say, I could hear loud typing. I stopped and said- what? Are you typing now? They stopped. Then later in the session I could again hear typing, though much more softly.

I’ve paid closer attention in sessions since then and now notice they are often clearly looking at other things on their screen, and regularly hear soft typing while I’m doing an exercise or activity. I also notice at times they aren’t really paying attention to my answers.

So I’ve booked a few trials and plan to find someone new to work with. My biggest question is- do I change my rating? I think I found this tutor when they were just starting and I think my rating and review has given them a lot of students. I checked and see their hourly rate is much higher and I don’t know if this is resentment at how much less I’m paying, or if they have become bored or jaded with tutoring and is how they now treat students. I’ve never been asked to pay a higher rate and would have agreed if they still seemed like an attentive and professional tutor, but now I feel disrespected and just want to move on.

Since I know there’s a lot of tutors in this group, I’m interested to hear what you think about whether I should alter my rating and review before I go.

Hey everyone, I'm feeling incredibly frustrated and could really use some advice from anyone who has dealt with Preply's customer support.

The Background I’m a grad student based in Taiwan, and I’ve been using Preply to improve my English. I genuinely loved the platform, built a great relationship with my tutors, and was making solid progress.

What Happened
Because I had such a positive experience, I wrote a detailed, honest review about my learning journey on Dcard (the largest verified university student forum in Taiwan—basically a student-only version of Reddit). My goal was simply to recommend a great educational resource to fellow students, and I included my referral link at the bottom of the post.

Every single person who signed up through my link was a real, independent student who read my review. I didn’t use bots, I didn’t spam, and I didn’t create fake accounts. I legitimately thought I was doing free, authentic marketing for them.

The Ban & The "Ghosting"
Out of nowhere, my account was permanently suspended for violating Section 6 of their referral program.

I reached out to support immediately. I explained the context and sincerely apologized, acknowledging that posting on a large forum might technically fall outside their strict definition of "personal use."

I even offered a very fair compromise: I told them to wipe all my referral credits and permanently ban me from the referral program. I just wanted my basic account access back so I could continue paying out of my own pocket and taking lessons with my tutors.

First, I was stuck in an AI loop. When a human finally replied, they just sent a generic template stating "the decision is final and we won't discuss this further." Since then, they have completely ghosted me. They are actively ignoring my emails.

My Questions for the Community:

1. Has anyone successfully appealed a permanent ban like this?
2. Is there a different email, a social media channel, or an escalation path to reach a manager who will actually read a human appeal?
3. Should I try reaching out to my tutors privately (if I can find them outside Preply) to explain why I disappeared?

I’m devastated to lose my progress and my tutors over a well-intentioned mistake. Any advice would be hugely appreciated!

I recently took a trial lesson with a tutor, and we really got along.

Their profile price was within my budget, but right after the session, like 1 week difference , they messaged me saying their rates went up and asked me to accept a massive price increase (basically double). I felt it was 100% a bait price.

I knew I could keep the price tho..but they probably wouldn't be very motivated or helpful during our classes anyway.

I didn't want to deal with the awkwardness, so I contacted customer support, canceled the upcoming lesson without penalty, and transferred my balance to a different tutor.

Has anyone else dealt with this?

Hi!

I'm from Chile and I just started teaching in preplay, I just had my first class with a student (not trail) and I wanted to withdraw the money to see how it works. When I did it the offer from the app was 7.200 Chilean pesos for 10 USD, when the actual currency exchange is 9.250 Chilean pesos for 10 USD. I tried the option of bank transfer, is there any better option? Does wise of paypal give better exchange rates??

Because I'm already losing 30% with what preply takes, and with this exchange currency I will losing about half of the money I charge for class:(

Has anyone have a similar problem?

Thanks you for the help!

A former student who unsubscribed had a lesson rate of $14. During our work, my rates have changed many times, and the current price is $35. Although I believe it would be fair to automatically show returning students the new rate (the same as for new students), I’ve gathered that Preply’s system works differently, and I need to set the price manually. What do you think would be an appropriate price increase in this case?

I had a pretty terrible trial - not really sure what was happening, and felt super bad afterward. I have mid to high price at 39USD, but I'm also burnt out so not sure if the quality of my trials is decreasing, but....

1. she (trial student) scheduled a class at 3am in her local time
2. of course she missed the trial, saying "I thought it was Sunday," despite liking my message: "see you Friday!".....and I, stupidly, offered to makeup the trial
3. she spent over 10 minutes trying to figure out how to enter the classroom the next day, despite sending a screenshots and the help article on how to enter
4. if I said "ok" or spoke at all, she would respond with "can I speak?" I said there may be awkward moments but it's not intentional interruption, and she can speak without asking permission. She sat in silence for a minute and 45 seconds, despite me saying "please share" and doing universal "your turn" motions
5. I made a quick worksheet to introduce new sequencing vocab, (her goal is to make technology education videos....) and she struggled to understand this example: "to begin with" =
   • step 1 / first
   • step 2 / next
   • last step / finally
6. after I gave her the answer, she rolled her eyes. I said I think it's best she contact customer service to refund the trial she missed, and she said "yes, I definitely will"
7. I blocked her after that

I'm not used to Preply students behaving this way - public school pre-teens, sure. I'm not sure if my expectations are too high or if I need to just look for new work. In the past 6 years on Preply I've had very few students like that, and I'm unsure what other tutors are tolerating out there. Not sure if I can manage the public school middle schoolers plus adult learners like this anymore.

Hello everyone! New Preply teacher here, and I need to vent a little about trial lessons. 😅
I’m an experienced teacher on italki, where I teach three languages: Ukrainian, English, and Russian. On Preply, I currently teach only English.
I’ve recently had five trial lessons (three of those students subscribed), and today I have three more trial lessons—each of them is 50 minutes.
I honestly find it frustrating that tutors don’t get paid for trial lessons, especially when they last 50 minutes and there’s no guarantee the student will subscribe afterward. I don’t mind the 25-minute trials as much—they feel like a reasonable introduction. But 50 minutes for free feels excessive to me.
Is there any way to disable 50-minute trial lessons and only allow 25-minute ones?
Also, has anyone tried messaging students before they book a trial to explain that tutors aren’t paid for trial lessons and politely ask them to choose the 25-minute option instead? Or would that come across badly?
I’d love to hear how other tutors handle this. I enjoy teaching, but I’m worried that too many unpaid 50-minute trial lessons will eventually lead to burnout.

Hi everybody! 🙋🏻‍♀️ New Preply teacher here.

I’d like to ask my fellow teachers: what percentage of your trial students usually become regular students, and how long does it typically take them to subscribe?
So far, I’ve had six trial lessons, and three students subscribed. (One of them subscribed immediately but hasn’t scheduled any regular lessons yet.) The other three seemed to enjoy the trial and even said they were planning to subscribe. I sent each of them a follow-up message, but they haven’t replied or subscribed yet. It’s been about three days.

I have to admit, I feel a bit frustrated because I spent 50 minutes with each of them, didn’t get paid for those lessons, and now I’m wondering whether that time was simply lost.

I currently charge $10 per lesson on Preply, which I know is a low starting price. I’m actually an experienced teacher and charge $36/hour on italki. I teach English, create a separate Google Doc for every student, personalize every lesson based on the student’s goals, level, and interests, and I provide detailed corrections and explanations throughout the lesson.

So I’m wondering—is it common for students to wait several days (or even longer) before subscribing? Have any of you had trial students who disappeared for a while and then came back later?

I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences.

My eyes hurt bro. Lots of fancy AI homework tools but no dark mode? How hard would it be? (With love.)