28 August 2026 · Updated 26 September 2026 · Hugo Harrabin
13 UK online tutoring platforms compared on price, tutor qualifications, group sizes and contract terms. Checked against their own pages, September 2026.
Booking a tutor tonight feels like a trade-off between what you can afford and what your child gets. Sort the thirteen platforms a family can buy from by price and that trade-off runs backwards. None of the four dearest, all between £50 and £69 a session, guarantees a qualified teacher. The cheapest that does is ours, at £25, in a group of six to eight.
Every figure above comes from the platforms’ own pages, though none of them puts it all in one place and some of it isn’t published at all. In August 2026 we went through fifteen UK online tutoring platforms and recorded the four things a parent decides on: what it costs, who teaches, whether you can buy a group class at all, and what you are signing when you pay. One closed while we were writing, and one sells only to schools, which leaves the 13 a family can actually buy from. We are one of them.
Key Takeaways
- Three of the 13 promise your child will be taught by a qualified teacher: Tute, Kip McGrath and Tugo. The rest run mixed pools or publish nothing.
- Seven platforms sell group classes. Five will sell one to a family, and only four of those online: Kip McGrath, Study Mind, Tute and Tugo, with Explore Learning in its centres.
- Four publish the size of a group a family can buy: Kip McGrath at five, Explore Learning at six in a centre, Tugo at six to eight, Tute at twelve. Study Mind keeps its group size to itself.
- Price does not tell you who teaches. At the four dearest, where the middle of the advertised rates runs £50 to £69 a session, none guarantees a qualified teacher. The two that do and publish a price charge £25 (Tugo Tutors) and an average of £36 (Kip McGrath).
- Commitment varies more sharply than price. Tute advertises "no contract, no commitment"; GoStudent's own FAQ describes a "selected minimum term" and cancellation by form with seven days' notice before renewal.
Two tables, because these are two different questions: who teaches and what it costs.
A tick means the provider states it on its own public pages. A cross means the provider publishes something that falls short of it. A question mark means the provider publishes nothing either way, so you would have to ask, and a blank group size means there is no group to put a number on. In the first table, "Qualified teacher" asks whether every tutor must be one, "Vetting" whether an enhanced DBS check is required of all of them, and "Group classes" whether a family can buy one directly at all. Several sell group teaching only to schools, and Explore Learning sells it only in its centres, so a tick there is not the same as an online class.
| Platform | Qualified teacher | Vetting | Group classes | Group size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kip McGrath | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 5 |
| Tugo Tutors | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 6–8 |
| Tute | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 12 |
| Explore Learning | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ centre only | 6 |
| Study Mind | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ? |
| MyTutor | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | |
| GoStudent | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | |
| Tutorful | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | |
| Sherpa | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | |
| Spires | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | |
| Preply | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | |
| Superprof | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ tutor dependent | |
| Atom Learning | n/a | n/a | ✗ |
| Platform | Price per session | Cheaper if you commit |
|---|---|---|
| Tugo Tutors | £25 | £22.50 termly, £20 annually |
| GoStudent | £30.97 | £26.84 at twelve a month |
| Explore Learning | £31 group, £39 1:1 | £20 at two a week |
| Study Mind | £35 1:1 | ~£4.40 a group class, paid monthly |
| Superprof | £15–129 | – |
| Spires | From £25, set by bid | – |
| MyTutor | £29–95 | – |
| Kip McGrath | ~£36 | – |
| Tutorful | £37–93 | – |
| Sherpa | £45–87 | – |
| Tute | Not published | – |
| Atom Learning | Software only | – |
All cells checked against each provider's own pages on 26 September 2026. Where the platform lets each tutor set their own rate, the range is the spread advertised on the linked page when we looked on 22 September 2026, not a price the platform charges. Spires is the exception among those: it publishes a floor by level and then has tutors bid for your job, so there is no listed rate to record. Otherwise prices are per session, on the basis of one lesson a week. Some platforms discount that for a longer commitment or a bigger booking, which is the third column; a dash there means a discount isn't advertised. Study Mind charges £19 a month for a weekly group class rather than by the session, and Atom sells software at £39.99 to £69.99 a month rather than lessons. Atom does sell one-to-one tuition from £54 a lesson, but it is entrance-exam preparation for 7+ through 16+ rather than GCSE teaching, so it is not a maths lesson a parent can buy here. A tilde marks an average rather than a set price: Kip McGrath is a franchise whose centres vary, and Study Mind sells a month of weekly classes rather than single sessions. Preply is not in this table because it teaches languages rather than maths. A question mark means we could not find it published anywhere on their site; if you can, send us the link and we'll update the row. The sections below give the full wording and the caveats.
Sort the market by price and the pattern comes out backwards. The two providers on the chart below that guarantee a qualified teacher charge £25 and £36. The four most expensive, every one of them between £50 and £69, do not guarantee it.
On the marketplaces the number on the front page is the lowest rate the platform advertises, not what a lesson costs. On 22 September we opened each one's maths listing and wrote down every rate on the page.
Superprof's maths page is headed "Private Maths tutoring from £15/hr" and the middle of its eighteen tutors was £55. Tutorful advertises "from just £20p/h" and the middle of its six was £65. Sherpa publishes a whole range on the same page, "from around £20 per hour to £70 per hour". The middle of its fifteen was £50, and the page listed one at £87. MyTutor advertises "from £26/hr" and the middle of its ten was £69. Spires does not advertise tutor rates; tutors bid on the work you post. It does publish tier floors of £25, £35 and £45 an hour.
On all four the middle of the range was more than double the advertised price. None of that is a criticism of the tutors, who are entitled to price their own time. It is a criticism of a headline number that no typical customer pays.
Where a platform also lists tutors who are not qualified teachers, it tends to offer a proportion instead. Sherpa publishes a share: 43% are "qualified to teach in UK schools". Tutorful published "50%+ are qualified teachers" in August and had swapped it for "94% of our tutors hold advanced degrees" by 26 September. MyTutor accepts "a current student or recent graduate at one of our 60 listed UK universities" and puts it plainly on its own recruitment page: "You don't need any qualifications to join!" On all three you might get a qualified teacher, and the platform is not promising it either way. Preply is blunter still: its tutor page opens "No specific certification or teaching experience is required!"
Of the four marketplaces we sampled, Sherpa is the only one that tells you which is which: each tutor card either carries a "Qualified Teacher" badge or it does not. On its first page of GCSE maths tutors, nine of the fifteen were badged when we looked on 23 September. The middle rate among those nine was £50, against £45 for the six without. The second-dearest tutor on the page charged £80 and was not badged; the cheapest badged one charged £43. Inside a single platform, on a single screen, the price still tells you nothing about the qualification.
Three of the thirteen do promise it. Tute and Kip McGrath both state that every tutor is a qualified teacher, and Kip McGrath charges an average of £36 a session for it. Every tutor who teaches for Tugo holds a PGCE, and a session costs £25 on the weekly plan, or £22.50 if you pay for a term up front.
The useful question is not what the session costs. It is whether the platform guarantees a qualified teacher, and ten of the thirteen do not. Why that matters is the subject of does a qualified teacher make a better tutor?
Nine of the thirteen are on that chart. The four that are not: Tute guarantees a qualified teacher but publishes no price at all, Spires publishes floors but leaves the actual rate to a tutor's bid, Preply teaches languages rather than maths, and Atom sells software at £39.99 to £69.99 a month rather than lessons.
One publishes nothing at all. Tute will not tell you what a lesson costs until you hand over your contact details, which means the one question every parent asks first is the one you cannot answer from its website. It is not a small operation and it has no good reason: Kip McGrath manages to publish an average, Explore Learning publishes a rate for every subject at one and two sessions a week, and we publish three plans and their totals.
Some of this reflects the law rather than the platforms. Private tutors are not legally required to hold a DBS check the way school staff are, and nobody has to clear any bar to call themselves a tutor. The Department for Education's guidance for parents, Using after-school clubs, tuition and community activities, tells you to ask any provider whether its staff hold an enhanced DBS check with the barred lists, which is the level a school would require. Asking is the only way to find out, and we have nine questions worth asking before you book. Nine of the thirteen say they require an enhanced check of every tutor anyway: MyTutor, GoStudent, Tutorful, Tute, Explore Learning, Kip McGrath, Study Mind, Spires and Tugo.
For what tutoring should cost across the market, rather than what these thirteen charge, see how much a GCSE tutor costs in the UK.
Commitment varies more sharply than price, and families tend to find that out late.
At one end, Tute puts it in four words on its homepage: "No contract, no commitment." Sherpa is similarly direct: "There's no hidden fees or costs", and it does not "try to lock you into any subscriptions or get you to pay upfront", with free cancellation up to 12 hours before a lesson. MyTutor advertises "no sign up fees, no subscriptions, just plain pay-as-you-go". Our weekly plan is £25 a lesson, stopped in your own hub with no notice and no further payment.
At the other end sits GoStudent, which sells memberships rather than lessons. Its advertised price is "from just £22.71 per lesson", but the page never says what you have to book to get it. The two worked examples it does publish are both on twelve-month memberships: £26.84 a lesson at twelve a month, and £30.97 at four. Four a month is one lesson a week, the basis this comparison prices on, which puts the real figure £8 above the advertised one.
Cancellation runs through a form, not a button in the dashboard. GoStudent's own FAQ says you may cancel "at any time (and at the latest 7 days before renewal) if you wish to cancel your account after the selected minimum term." How long that minimum term runs is not published anywhere we could find.
Tiers are not the problem here, and we have them too: £22.50 a lesson if you pay for a term up front, £20 for a year, neither refunded part-way through once the statutory fourteen days are up. The problem is an advertised price with no plan attached to it. Ours are on the pricing page with the commitment written next to each one.
In between sit the recurring plans. Explore Learning and Study Mind both bill monthly and both say you can cancel at any time. Preply sells a subscription you can pause whenever you like. Atom charges monthly for software rather than lessons, and Superprof sells a platform pass instead of sessions.
Kip McGrath alone publishes nothing at all about commitment before you enquire. And only three of the thirteen say what happens if you cancel a single lesson: Tutorful and Spires want 24 hours' notice, Sherpa 12.
The clearest pattern in this audit is not about price at all. It is how little these companies will tell you about what you are buying.
Twelve of the thirteen publish something about commitment, and twelve publish a price. Eight set some bar for who may teach, and only three of those commit to a qualified teacher. The rest set attainment or experience bars: Explore Learning asks for "great personal success in their own education at GCSE, A-level or degree", Study Mind for grade 9s.
Group size is last on that chart mostly because so few of them sell a group at all. Among the five that do, four publish the number: Kip McGrath caps sessions at "no more than five students", Explore Learning at "a maximum of 6 children at a time" in a centre, Tute at "groups of up to 12 students", and we cap ours at six to eight and say why. Only Study Mind advertises "small class sizes" without ever putting a number on it. Five students and twelve are different products: in one a teacher can read every piece of work in the room, and in the other they cannot, and the child who has got lost is on their own.
Seven of the thirteen run group teaching, so the format is hardly exotic, and the economics are settled. The Education Endowment Foundation puts small group tuition at four additional months of progress a year, one month behind one-to-one, and in maths specifically small groups come out ahead. We've gone through what the evidence says about group versus 1:1 in more detail.
Buying one is the hard part. MyTutor's 3:1 is a schools product. Sherpa's 3:1 is sold through its schools arm. Explore Learning runs groups in its centres only; its online tuition is "one-to-one". That leaves four options for a parent at home: Kip McGrath's online sessions capped at five, Study Mind's weekly online classes at £19–£49 a month, Tute, which sells to families as well as schools, and Tugo at £25 a session, or £22.50 paid termly, in groups of six to eight.
AI is now common in UK tutoring. It turns up in three places, and none of them is inside a live group lesson.
As the tutor. Third Space Learning has gone furthest. It has sold one-to-one tutoring to schools since 2013, and that tutoring is now delivered by AI, through Skye, a spoken AI maths tutor. Its homepage reports more than 4,200 schools, over 196,000 students and 2,295,000 sessions delivered, and it sells from £3,500 a year for unlimited sessions. The pupil talks to the machine one-to-one.
Around the lesson. GoStudent generates lesson summaries afterwards, sets Magic Quizzes, offers the Amelia study assistant between sessions and an AI planner for tutors beforehand. Preply has Lesson Insights and daily exercises.
In the practice. Atom's adaptive engine sets question difficulty in real time. Explore Learning describes a "smart learning tool" for independent work.
So wherever the AI does the talking, the child is on their own with it. Wherever there is a teacher and a group, the AI has been kept to the admin. Ours is integrated within the lesson environment.
A group is what makes a qualified teacher affordable. The four marketplaces we sampled had middle rates of £50 to £69 a session for one-to-one, while the two that guarantee a qualified teacher and publish a price charge £25 and an average of £36 for a group. The catch is attention. A teacher with eight students has eight pieces of work to follow and one pair of eyes, and the child who has quietly stopped understanding is the easiest one to miss.
Our assistant watches the work as it happens and tells the teacher who has gone quiet, who has the right answer by the wrong method, and who needs a harder question. The teaching stays with the teacher. The EEF puts feedback at six additional months of progress, seven where it is spoken rather than written, and tells schools to focus on its quality rather than its volume. Knowing who needs the attention is most of that job.
That is the Tugo method: a qualified teacher, six to eight students, £25 a session on the weekly plan and less if you commit.
If you want a qualified teacher and a published price. Two of the three that guarantee a teacher also publish what they charge. Kip McGrath states both: qualified teachers with cleared safeguarding checks, averaging £36 a session in groups of up to five. Tugo publishes both too: PGCE-qualified teachers, enhanced DBS, groups of six to eight, £25 a session on the weekly plan with nothing to cancel, or £22.50 termly and £20 annually if you pay up front. Tute uses qualified teachers with no contract, but you will have to ask what it costs.
If you are shopping on the advertised price. Tutorful and Sherpa both advertise from £20 an hour, among the lowest figures in this comparison. Neither resembles what was on the page: on 22 September the middle of the rates each was advertising was £65 on Tutorful and £50 on Sherpa, and nothing on either first page came near £20. Neither guarantees a qualified teacher. Sherpa publishes a share, 43%; Tutorful counts degrees rather than teachers. Tutorful requires an enhanced DBS of every tutor; Sherpa treats it as optional and badges the tutors who have one.
Before you pay for anything. Third Space Learning, Tute, MyTutor and Sherpa all sell through schools, so it is worth one email to the head of year to ask what your child already has access to. If you are still weighing up whether to book at all, we have written about the signs that a child needs a tutor.
If you need a subject outside the core. Superprof and Preply cover far more ground than any managed provider, and neither publishes a standard for who teaches. Check the tutor, not the brand.
Whichever way you go, ask any tutor or company the same questions.
There is no public revenue league table for UK tutoring. We picked a platform if it delivers tuition online to UK secondary-age students, operates as a platform or managed service rather than one tutor's website, and appears repeatedly in UK comparison listings and search results as of August 2026. That gave us fifteen to check. The rule lets in marketplaces that barely touch UK secondary maths, and it leaves out smaller agencies that never surface in listings.
Tugo meets that rule, so we are in the tables and in every count, on the same columns as everyone else. That is deliberate. We are trying to prise open a black box, and a comparison only works if every provider is measured the same way. Leaving ourselves out would have meant asking you to take our figures on trust while everyone else's sat in a grid you could check. If a row here is wrong, ours included, tell us and we'll correct it.
Two of the fifteen are not in the tables. First Tutors ran on a one-off finder's fee for twenty years and went down mid-audit; its site now carries a closure notice. Third Space Learning sells only to schools, so a parent cannot buy it at all; it is covered in the AI section. That leaves the 13 in the tables above, all of which a family can actually buy from.
Three guarantee it. Kip McGrath, Tugo and Tute all state that every tutor is a qualified teacher. One other publishes a share without promising it: Sherpa says 43% are "qualified to teach in UK schools". Tutorful counts degrees rather than teaching qualifications, "94% of our tutors hold advanced degrees". MyTutor accepts only current students and recent graduates of 60 UK universities, so a teaching qualification is not part of its bar. Preply says outright that it does not require one: its tutor page opens "No specific certification or teaching experience is required!" GoStudent does not ask for one either. Its application asks only that you are 18 or over, allowed to work with minors and speak English at native or C2 level, and its tutor-selection page adds that "applicants must have studied their chosen subject at either A-Level or degree level". Spires sets a bar but not that one, asking for "two years of classroom experience" rather than a teaching qualification. Explore Learning and Study Mind set attainment bars instead, and the rest publish no qualification standard at all. We explain what a teaching qualification actually buys in does a qualified teacher make a better tutor?
It varies, because the law doesn't require it. Private tutors are not legally obliged to hold a DBS check the way school staff are, so each platform sets its own bar and describes it in its own words. On one scale there are two answers.
Required of every tutor: MyTutor, GoStudent, Tutorful, Tute, Explore Learning, Kip McGrath, Study Mind, Spires and Tugo Tutors. GoStudent puts it plainly: "If applicants are unable to provide us with a valid DBS certificate, they are not allowed to teach on our platform." Spires is the one to check for yourself: its maths page says tutors go through "stringent vetting, including experience checks and enhanced DBS certification", while the onboarding steps on its recruitment page list only a "background check". Not required: Sherpa reviews enhanced checks "where provided" and badges the tutors who have one; Superprof "expects" tutors to have one; Preply runs a background check that is not a DBS. Expecting is not requiring, and on those platforms a tutor without one can still teach your child. Ask directly, and see our safeguarding policy for the standard we hold ourselves to.
Four will sell a family an online group class. Explore Learning will sell one too, but only in a centre.
Everything else in this comparison is either one-to-one or sold only to schools. For what the evidence says about group teaching against one-to-one, we have gone through the research separately.
Twelve of the thirteen publish a figure: MyTutor, GoStudent, Tutorful, Sherpa, Superprof, Spires, Explore Learning, Kip McGrath, Study Mind, Preply, Atom Learning and Tugo Tutors. Only Tute quotes on enquiry.
Read the marketplace figures carefully. On MyTutor, Tutorful, Sherpa and Superprof each tutor sets their own rate, so a "from" figure is the lowest rate the platform advertises rather than the price. When we read Tutorful's own maths results on 22 September 2026 they ran from £37 to £93 a session, against an advertised floor of £20. Spires publishes floors and then has tutors bid, so it has no listed rates to read at all. Whether a given rate is reasonable is a separate question, covered in what a GCSE tutor costs.
This is a snapshot, not a verdict. One of the fifteen went under while we were writing it. If you run or use a UK platform and a row here is wrong or out of date, email us; we'll fix it and re-date the page.
Compiled by Tugo Tutors, 17 August 2026. Every cell rechecked against provider pages on 26 September 2026. Next check: November 2026.
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