Last updated 15 October 2026
Private tutor leads in maths, English and science, and the £636.40 a GCSE maths year leaves with MyTutor.
Parents in the UK search for a maths tutor about 20,400 times a month, an English tutor about 4,800 times and a science tutor about 3,940 times. Very little of that work reaches a private tutor as a lead you pay for once. MyTutor keeps a share of every lesson: at a £34 customer price, close to the usual GCSE maths rate, you take home £18.09, so 40 weekly lessons leave £636.40 with the platform. Spires starts at 35%. Tutorful, Tutor Hunt and Superprof charge the parent instead, and Bark sells a contact once, at £1.80 a credit, to as many as 5 tutors.
A click on your own Google ad for a maths, English or science tutor costs £7.65 to £19.08. So for a private tutor or a small tuition business, the useful sum is what a student costs over a term or a year, and whether the platform lets you keep teaching them if you leave. Search the phrase "tutor leads" and many results are adverts for lead tutor jobs; this guide is about finding students.
What tutors offer to pay
17 requests, from £5 to £55 a lead
On the Referr lead exchange, tutors and tuition firms post what they'll pay anyone who sends them an online tutoring student. On 1 October 2026 there were 17 such requests, offering £5 at the bottom and £55 at the top. That is what tutors think a student is worth finding. Hold it up against the platform columns below.
Where we stand
We don't sell private tutoring leads. We help you get your own.
This guide is the honest version of what buying private tutoring leads costs, and who else gets them. What we do instead is build private tutors a website that turns visits into calls, and run Google Ads in an account in your own name, so every lead that comes in is a customer who found you, and nobody else was sold it.
What a platform student costs
A trade pays for a lead once. A tutor pays again every single week.
A roofer who buys a lead pays for it and is done. A tutor who finds a student on MyTutor pays for that student every time a lesson happens. MyTutor sets the gap through its pay table, published in August 2026: you choose a customer price within a range, and the table says what you take home. Its tutor terms cap the platform fee at 49% of what the customer pays, and say MyTutor charges tutors nothing directly.
| Customer price | You take home | MyTutor keeps | Over 10 lessons |
|---|---|---|---|
| £26 | £13.31 | £12.69, 49% | £126.90 |
| £34 | £18.09 | £15.91, 47% | £159.10 |
| £40 | £22.48 | £17.52, 44% | £175.20 |
| £50 | £30.00 | £20.00, 40% | £200.00 |
MyTutor's figures, dated 13 August 2026. The last two columns are our arithmetic. Ten weekly lessons is our own stand-in for a school term; nobody publishes a lesson count.
The share falls as your price rises, from 49% at £26 to 40% at £50. What does not fall is the number of times you pay it. Tutorful puts GCSE maths at an average of £34.23 an hour, so take a family who books a year of weekly GCSE maths at £34: over 40 lessons, £636.40 stays with MyTutor. That is more than 11 times the most any tutor on Referr was offering to pay for a student.
Where the platform earns it
For a tutor starting out, MyTutor brings the parent and collects the payment. A student who books four lessons before their mocks costs you a share of four lessons and nothing up front. That is a fair trade for a short run.
Where it stops adding up
The student who stays from Year 10 to results day is the one the cut hurts, and the one the terms stop you moving. Both are covered in the seller section below.
Your numbers
What can finding one student cost before the lessons stop paying you?
Each preset is a ten-lesson term of maths, English or science, at GCSE or A level, priced from Tutorful's own rate guides for the subject. Chemistry stands in for science. It opens on a GCSE maths term at £30 to £35 a lesson. For Bark, type in the credits a tutoring lead shows in your account times £1.80; for your own ads, try the per-lead figures further down, then move from GCSE to A level and see how far the answer shifts.
WHAT CAN YOU PAY TO FIND A TUTORING STUDENT?
Pick a job, or type in what yours are worth
Starts on one in three, the figure MyJobQuote tells its own trades to expect. Put in yours.
You can pay up to about
£16
a lead, winning one in 3
- Healthy range, per won job
- £33 to £49
- Which per lead is
- £11 to £16
Put a seller's price in the last box and this will tell you what each won job would cost you.
As a rough rule, winning a job should cost about 10 to 15 percent of what it is worth. Winning one in 3 is MyJobQuote's figure for its own trades; nobody publishes one for tutors.
Who finds you students
Six places sell you tutoring work. Four of them say where you may teach it.
Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Rated People, MyJobQuote and Leads Do Work have no tutoring category at all, and Zapo's education ads are aimed at schools and universities. That leaves the tutoring marketplaces and Bark. First Tutors has closed: its site now says "After more than 20 years of trading, First Tutors has made the difficult decision to close."
| Platform | What it charges | Who else gets the student | Teaching them off the site |
|---|---|---|---|
| MyTutor | Up to 49% of each lesson | Requests go to several tutors | Account "permanently closed" |
| Tutorful | Nothing to you; a % on the parent | Up to 4 tutors per job post | Barred for six months |
| Spires | 35% at first, falling slowly | Tutors bid on jobs | £500 debt to the family |
| Tutor Hunt | A per-lesson fee on the parent | Parents told to message 6 to 7 | Covered for 12 months |
| Superprof | £39 a month, paid by the parent | As many tutors as they like | Allowed |
| Bark | £1.80 a credit, per contact | Up to 5 tutors | Yours once you pay |
MyTutor sends one request to several tutors
Parents can message a tutor from their profile, or MyTutor's support team sends a "Tutor Request" to "multiple tutors at once". Payment outside the site counts as disintermediation, and its policy says the account "will be permanently closed". The parent is bound too: its client terms bar them from hiring a tutor MyTutor introduced until 6 months after the agreement ends. MyTutor also runs a schools programme on fixed pay bands, with a base rate of £14.25 for one-to-one GCSE.
Tutorful charges the parent and sets your outside price
"For tutors, using Tutorful is completely free", its help centre says, and the service fee is "paid by the student" as a percentage on top of your rate. It doesn't publish the percentage. Two clauses in its terms matter more: 5.10 says tutors "must not undercut Tutorful", so your rate on the site has to be as good as the one you charge anywhere else, and 5.13 bars you from moving a student off the site until six months after your last booking. Its own guidance puts average tutor earnings at about £22 an hour. And right now it says "We are not taking new tutor applications at this time."
Spires and Tutor Hunt keep the family after you
Spires' terms start its fee at 35% and cut it by 1% for every 5 hours you teach the same student, and its jobs page puts average tutor pay at £40 an hour. If a family books you outside the platform, Spires can serve notice of a £500 debt on them. Tutor Hunt tells tutors "we do not take a cut of your earnings"; its terms put a Website Fee on the parent for every lesson booked, keep collecting it even if you take payment yourself, and can charge a parent who books and then cancels nearly every lesson a finders' fee of £23.99. Its engagement clause runs 12 months from the introduction.
Superprof and Bark leave the student with you
Superprof charges the parent a Student Pass of £39 a month and says "There is no subscription fee required for any tutor." Parents can message as many tutors as they like, you have up to 72 hours to reply, and payment can go to you directly. A paid Premium option removes commission on lessons paid through Superprof; it publishes neither that commission nor the Premium price. Bark's credit costs £1.80, credits last 3 months, and up to 5 tutors can answer one request. Its pages put the average maths tutor at £28 an hour and English at £25, below Tutorful's bands. What five tutors chasing one parent does to your rate is in the shared-lead trap, and Bark itself is weighed in is Bark worth it.
Everything here about MyTutor's contract comes from its own published terms and conditions, last read on 1 October 2026. Terms get revised, so check yours against the current version before you act on anything.
Rather have private tutoring leads that are yours alone?
That's what we do. We don't sell leads. We build the website and run the Google Ads that bring customers straight to you, in an ad account in your name that stays yours if you ever leave.
See pricingWant to know how many people near you search Google for what you do each month? Message us your town and we'll send you the real numbers.
Check my areaBuying the click yourself
Maths draws 4 times the searches English does. Science costs the most per click instead.
Nobody types "private tutor leads" into Google: the Ads data shows no searches and no bids for it. Tutors hunting for work search "tutor jobs" instead, about 5,400 times a month. Parents search by subject, and the three subjects split like this:
| Subject | Searches a month | Searches counted | Click prices |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maths | 20,400 | 5 | £9.52 to £18.72 |
| English | 4,800 | 3 | £8.29 to £18.90 |
| Science | 3,940 | 5 | £13.08 to £19.08 |
Each total adds up the subject searches in the table below, without the "private" ones, which are listed on their own. Science covers physics, chemistry, biology, plain science and GCSE science.
"maths tutor" alone gets 8,100 searches a month at £11.96 a click. Exam-level searches cost far more: "gcse maths tutor" is £15.96, "gcse science tutor" £17.73 and "chemistry tutor" £19.08. Parents who add "private" are cheaper to reach: "private maths tutor" is £9.44, though only 480 a month search it, and the 5 "private" searches together come to 4,160. For the per-lead column we assume 7.33% of clicks get in touch, which is WordStream's conversion rate for home improvement search ads. It is US data, so treat it as a rough guide, and it was not measured on tutoring.
| Search | Searches a month | Per click | Per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| chemistry tutor | 880 | £19.08 | £260 |
| gcse english tutor | 1,300 | £18.90 | £258 |
| a level maths tutor | 1,900 | £18.72 | £255 |
| physics tutor | 1,000 | £17.99 | £245 |
| online maths tutor | 2,400 | £17.93 | £245 |
| gcse science tutor | 590 | £17.73 | £242 |
| gcse maths tutor | 3,600 | £15.96 | £218 |
| biology tutor | 590 | £13.37 | £182 |
| english tutor | 1,900 | £13.25 | £181 |
| science tutor | 880 | £13.08 | £178 |
| maths tutor | 8,100 | £11.96 | £163 |
| maths tutor near me | 4,400 | £9.52 | £130 |
| private maths tutor | 480 | £9.44 | £129 |
| private english tutor | 390 | £8.71 | £119 |
| private science tutor | 90 | £8.50 | £116 |
| private tutor near me | 1,300 | £8.41 | £115 |
| english tutor near me | 1,600 | £8.29 | £113 |
| private tutor | 1,900 | £7.65 | £104 |
Google Ads data for the UK, pulled 1 October 2026. Click prices are bid estimates from what other advertisers pay, so your real price will land near them rather than on them.
So a lead costs £104 to £260, a lot next to one GCSE maths lesson. Win one parent in 3 off "maths tutor" and the student costs £489, 150% of a ten-lesson GCSE maths term, where MyTutor would have kept £159.10 at £34 a lesson. For one term, the platform wins.
The GCSE maths year is where the sum flips, as long as you bid on the right words. A £1,300 year won off "gcse maths tutor" at one in 3 costs £653, 50% of it, no better than the 47% MyTutor keeps. Won off "private maths tutor" at £129 a lead, the same year costs £386, 30%; "maths tutor near me" lands in the same place at £130 a lead. Win one in two and it is 20%. Here is what the money buys you besides the student:
- Bids on the subjects you teach best
- Your rate, with nobody adding a fee to it
- Your own name on the ad the parent taps
- No clause on where you may teach them
- Your own rules on cancelling
- An ad account that leaves with you
Google's UK Local Services Ads list has no tutoring category, so ordinary search ads are the route. The one education rule we found bars ads for things that enable academic dishonesty, "like essay or thesis generators", which a tutor is not. Brand searches show where the parents already go: "mytutor" gets 49,500 a month and "superprof" 22,200, though both include tutors signing in. Setting a monthly figure is covered in how much to spend on Google Ads, and the mechanics in our Google Ads guide, written for trades but the same auction.
Before the first lesson
Since January, a self-employed tutor can get their own enhanced DBS check.
The route opened on 21 January 2026. The DBS guidance for self-employed people uses "a private maths tutor who offers one to one lessons to students in their homes" as its example, and says it is down to the tutor "to apply for their own Enhanced DBS check via a DBS Umbrella Body". You can't ask the parent to get it for you, and the umbrella body adds its own fee on top of the DBS one.
The second change came on 1 September 2026, when the supervision exemption for regulated activity with children was removed in England and Wales. The DBS is plain that this "does not create a new requirement for organisations to carry out DBS checks". No law we found makes a private tutor hold one. Parents will still ask, and now you can answer with a certificate in your own name.
Meet the parent first
The DfE's 2026 guidance for tutors says it is good practice for a tutor who works alone with children to meet the child and their parent and agree what will happen in sessions.
Get consent in writing
"If the child and their parents or carers are happy for you to work alone, you should get written consent." The same guidance says to hand over a copy of your child protection policy.
Know the frequency test
The guidance lists teaching a child unsupervised more than 3 times in a 30-day period as regulated activity. Weekly lessons pass that in a month.
Once the student is yours
A parent who books a term online has 14 days to change their mind.
On a platform, the cancellation rules are the platform's. Take bookings yourself and the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 apply: a service contract agreed online or away from your premises can be cancelled within 14 days. That is our reading for a block of lessons booked by email or through your website. Under regulation 36 you may only start inside those days if the parent asks you to, and if they then cancel they pay in proportion to what you have taught.
- Send the 14-day cancellation information
- Get their request to start early in writing
- Bill a cancelled term for lessons taught
- No notice: the 14 days run 12 months more
VAT, if you take on other tutors
HMRC's VAT notice 701/30 treats private tuition by a sole trader or partner, in a subject taught regularly in schools or universities, as exempt. Grow into a tuition business with other tutors teaching for you, and "the tuition that others deliver is standard-rated".
Children's details on file
Taking bookings yourself means holding a family's details yourself. The ICO says organisations "(including sole traders) that use personal information need to pay a data protection fee, unless they are exempt."
Through the school year
Maths tutor searches run four times higher in September than in July.
Parents in the UK typed "maths tutor" 12,100 times in September, against just 2,900 in July, so the peak runs at about 4.2 times the low. There is a second rise in March, to 9,900. A diary that is full by October was filled in September.
UK searches for "maths tutor", by month
September 2025 to August 2026. Google Ads keyword data, rounded bands.
A side note on 11 plus and SATs
Both are smaller markets than the three subjects: "11 plus tutor" gets 1,000 searches a month at £8.66 a click, and "sats tutor" 480 at £7.77. The 11 plus runs to a fixed calendar: in Essex the CSSE took registrations from 12 May to 19 June and set the test for 19 September 2026.
Year 11 is the busiest year
The Sutton Trust found 29% of secondary pupils in England and Wales have had private tutoring at some point, rising to 45% in London, and that Year 11 is the likeliest year, at 25%. That is the GCSE year.
Which way to go
Use a platform for short runs. Find the year-long students yourself first.
A platform suits you if
- You are new and need reviews
- Students book a few lessons
- You want payment handled
- Your diary has gaps now
Think twice if
- Your students stay a year
- The cut is near 49%
- Moving them breaks the terms
- Five tutors see the same parent
Find your own if
- Your GCSE students stay a year
- You can show your own DBS
- You want to set your own rate
- The ad account is yours to take
In tutoring the cost of a student is spread over every lesson they take, which is the opposite of how trades buy work. A platform is cheap for the four-lesson student and dear for the one who stays two years. How leads are sold in the trades is in our guide to trade leads, and the lessons from it carry straight across. Teaching people to drive is its own market, in driving instructor leads.
Our sources
Where every tutoring figure here came from.
Our interest, said up front: what we sell a private tutor is the other road, a website and an ad account of their own. So each platform speaks here through its own terms and help pages, and where MyTutor comes out cheaper, as it does over a single term, the tables show it.
Seller pages and terms were read on 1 October 2026, and the UK search and click data was pulled from Google Ads the same day. Lesson prices are from Tutorful's maths, English and chemistry rate guides; MyTutor's cut is its own pay table. Superprof's terms sit behind a bot check, so its figures come from its own blog. The DBS position is from gov.uk, lone working from the DfE, cancellation from legislation.gov.uk, VAT from HMRC, and the share of pupils tutored from the Sutton Trust.
Questions tutors ask
Private tutor leads, plainly answered.
- How much do private tutor leads cost in the UK?
- Very few are sold by the lead. Bark charges £1.80 a credit plus VAT, and up to 5 tutors can answer one parent. MyTutor keeps up to 49% of each lesson instead: at a £34 customer price you take home £18.09. Spires starts at 35%. Tutorful, Tutor Hunt and Superprof charge the parent rather than you. A click on your own maths, English or science tutor ad costs £7.65 to £19.08.
- Which tutoring subjects do parents search for most?
- Maths, by a distance. The five maths tutor searches we tracked add up to about 20,400 a month in the UK, against 4,800 for the three English ones and 3,940 for the five science ones. Science clicks are dear for the volume: "chemistry tutor" costs £19.08.
- Which tutoring platform takes the least from tutors?
- On paper, the ones that charge the parent: Tutorful says tutors pay nothing and adds a service fee on top of your rate, Tutor Hunt says "we do not take a cut of your earnings", and Superprof charges students £39 a month. MyTutor and Spires take a share of every lesson. The catch with Tutorful is that it is not taking new tutor applications at the moment, and its terms say your rate on the site must be as good as the one you charge anywhere else.
- Can I teach a student I found on Tutorful or MyTutor away from the platform?
- Not without breaking their terms. Tutorful bars it until six months after your last booking with that student. MyTutor says it will permanently close your account. Spires can bill the family a £500 debt, and Tutor Hunt's terms cover an engagement within 12 months of the introduction. Superprof lets you take payment directly.
- Is Bark worth it for tutors?
- It is the only big UK site that sells tutoring contacts one at a time. A credit costs £1.80, credits last 3 months, and up to 5 tutors can contact the same parent. Bark shows how many have already responded before you buy, but it only shows the credit cost of a tutoring lead inside your account. After that the lessons are yours, with no commission.
- Do I need a DBS check to be a private tutor?
- The law does not make you have one, and the DBS says it mandates no checks. Many parents will ask. Since 21 January 2026 a self-employed tutor can apply for their own Enhanced with Barred List check through an umbrella body. A basic check costs £20.
- Can a parent cancel a block of tutoring lessons?
- If they booked online or away from your premises, they usually have 14 days to cancel under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. You can start lessons inside that time only if they ask you to, and if they then cancel they pay for what you have already taught. Leave out the cancellation information and the 14 days can stretch by 12 months.
- When do parents look for a maths tutor most?
- UK searches for "maths tutor" peaked in September at 12,100 and fell to 2,900 in July, about 4.2 times apart, with a second rise in March.
- Is private tuition VAT exempt?
- HMRC says private tuition by an individual teacher working in a personal capacity, as a sole trader or partner, in a subject taught regularly in schools or universities, is exempt. If you take on other tutors, the tuition they deliver is standard-rated.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
Students who found you, at your rate, with no cut on every lesson.
We build your website and run Google Ads from an account in your own name, aimed at the parents searching for your subjects and your levels in your area. See what it costs, then tell us about your business and we'll build the campaign around the students you want more of.