Chelsea International Education

Chelsea International Education Review:

Chelsea International Education is a tutoring platform that enlists freelance educators to tutor kids both online and in person. The site differs from many other tutoring sites in that it only enlists educators, who have education credentials and at least two years of teaching experience. You’ll also need to pass a background check.

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If you have those requirements, you can sign up and the site will schedule a demonstration tutoring session. Assuming you pass that screening, the site will send you a contract to review before you start tutoring. Chelsea also asks all tutors to commit to remaining with the site for at least a year.

Pay

If you make it through that gauntlet and happen to teach high-demand subjects, like higher math or SAT prep, you could be paid generously. Tutor pay ranges widely, according to company officials.

Someone tutoring elementary students online, for instance, might make as little as $15 per hour. The same job, if done in person, would pay $25 – $35. However, the pay goes up steeply for those able to coach kids in the subjects needed to get good scores on college and graduate school admissions tests. Pay is also higher for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects in high demand.

Chelsea doesn’t charge a commission on tutor pay, but it marks up the price of your services. So, for the tutoring job that pays $15, Chelsea earns $36; for the one paying $35, it gets $70.

While that’s a high mark-up, it doesn’t officially come out of the tutor’s pocket. That said, it increases the cost to students and might prove a deterrent for hiring Chelsea tutors.

Students

However, again unlike most other tutoring platforms, students don’t choose their tutors here. Chelsea makes the connections between tutors and students. (At other sites, tutors post profiles and students — or their parents — choose them, based on their rates, experience and availability.)

The site says it attempts to maintain the same tutor for students until they complete a course of study. But that’s not guaranteed for teacher or student.

Recommendations

Although Chelsea promises good pay to seasoned educators, those educators have less control here than they do at other sites. This site is also relatively small and unlikely to bring in the wealth of students that you can find with the industry giants.

If you meet all of Chelsea’s requirements and are convinced that you’ll want to tutor for at least a year, Chelsea is worth checking out. But be sure to read their independent contractor agreement to make sure there are no terms that disturb you. (This is something we were unable to view.)

Overall, we think the opportunities are better at Wyzant, where you set your own rate of pay and simply pay a commission to the site for making the connections and collecting payment for you.

Wyzant not only draws more monthly visitors than any other tutoring site, it charges tutors just 25% of their pay. That’s about half as much as Chelsea. That allows you to make more, while charging parents comparatively less. That’s a recipe for success. You can sign up with Wyzant here.

What their tutors say: (from Indeed)

This is an easy, structured way for educators to make extra money as tutors without setting up their own company. Reasonable pay rate. The owner is very scrupulous about checking in with her contractors, and providing helpful feedback. Sometimes response times are slow, but not to an irritating degree.

Updated 1/19/2023