For PhD students and postdocs
Tutor at PhD rates, on a site that is actually yours
A stipend does not stretch, and tutoring is the one side income that pays properly for what you already know. The problem is where you do it. Marketplaces put you next to undergraduates in a price list, and a price list is the worst possible place for someone with five years of specialist training.
A site of your own flips that. Your thesis topic, your department, your publications, and your teaching experience are all on the page before anyone sees a rate — so the rate stops being the first thing they compare.
It also has to survive your actual life: a site you set up in an afternoon and touch twice a year, not a project that eats a writing week.
The problem
What gets in the way for PhD students
Your credentials are invisible in a directory
A marketplace profile gives you a photo, a rate, and a star average. Nothing in that layout can carry "I run the tutorials for this exact module" or "my PhD is in the thing you are stuck on". On your own page, that is the headline.
Commission is a tax on the years you already paid for
A platform cut is the same percentage whether you are a first-year undergraduate or four years into a doctorate. At PhD-level rates, that percentage is a serious number over an academic year — and it does not shrink as the student stays.
Your availability is not a normal timetable
Fieldwork, conferences, teaching terms, and a thesis deadline mean your hours move. A site lets you say exactly what you are taking on this term and pause without deleting anything.
The work has to compound, because your time will not
You will not always have hours to teach. A recorded course made once from the tutorials you already run keeps earning through submission month, when you have nothing left to give in person.
What to do
How to set the site up
Lead with the specialism, not the subject
"Statistics tutor" competes with thousands. "PhD researcher tutoring multilevel models and R for social science postgrads" competes with almost nobody, and the people who search it are ready to pay.
Put the department and level on the page
Students search for help with the level they are at. A page that names the level you teach — final-year undergraduate, masters dissertation, postgraduate methods — is the page they find.
Turn your recurring tutorial into a course
You already explain the same five things every term. Record them once, sell them on the same site, and let the course sell the tutoring to the students who want more.
Own the referral flow
Most PhD tutoring comes from a supervisor, a departmental mailing list, or a student telling a friend. Every one of those routes needs a link to send. Make it yours, not a marketplace profile.
Questions tutors ask
Am I allowed to tutor while on a PhD stipend or visa?
That depends entirely on your funder, your university, and — if you are an international student — your visa conditions, which cap working hours in many countries. Check your funding agreement and your institution's policy on outside work before you take paying students. We cannot tell you what your terms say.
Can I run this around fieldwork and deadlines?
Yes. You can pause the site, change what you are taking on, or leave a page saying you are booking for next term. Nothing is deleted and nothing expires while you are away.
Will a new site actually rank against the big platforms?
Not for "maths tutor". It will rank for the narrow things you specifically teach, which is where the good students are anyway. Be specific and the competition mostly disappears.
Is this worth it if I only tutor a few hours a week?
Do the arithmetic on your own numbers before you decide — our commission calculator does it in about ten seconds. At a handful of hours a week on a high hourly rate, a flat subscription usually costs less than a percentage. At one hour a month, it does not.
Put your tutoring on a site that is yours
TutorPax hosts it, you keep every euro your students pay you.