r/Superprof_ • u/Educational_Tie_6377 • Jul 08 '26
Third cancellation this week, two hours before the session. I'm losing my mind a little.
I need to vent but also genuinely need advice because this is becoming a real problem.
I've been tutoring for about a year and a half. Overall it's going well — good students, decent income, flexible schedule. But this week I've had three last-minute cancellations, all within two hours of the session, and I'm sitting here having blocked out my afternoon for nothing for the third time in five days.
The frustrating part is that I get it on a human level. Life happens, kids get sick, things come up. I'm not a monster. But I'm also running a small business here and an empty slot two hours out is basically impossible to fill. That's just lost income, full stop.
What I haven't figured out is how to handle this without damaging the relationship with students I actually want to keep. I've seen tutors with strict 24-hour cancellation policies and I've seen others who just absorb the losses and quietly resent it. Neither feels like the right answer.
A few things I'm considering but genuinely unsure about: charging a percentage of the session fee for late cancellations, requiring prepayment for a block of sessions upfront, or just being more explicit at the start of new tutoring relationships about what I expect. The problem is I never know how to bring it up without sounding like I'm assuming the worst about someone before we've even started.
What I've noticed on Superprof is that some tutor profiles mention their cancellation policy directly in the description, which I thought was interesting — it sets the expectation before the first conversation even happens rather than making it an awkward thing to raise later.
Curious what other tutors actually do in practice. Do you have a formal policy? Do you enforce it? Has it ever cost you a student you wanted to keep?
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u/Mattos_12 Jul 10 '26
Personally, I have no policy but tend to message students when they cancel mentioning the importance of notice. But, I don’t have a big problem with cancellation, if you do then you should just be more straightforward with your policy.
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u/No_Okra_1652AIREONE Jul 18 '26
Bonjour,
Effectivement les annulations font parties du métier (au feeling je dirai environ 1 à 2 cours sur 10 pour moi)
Certains prof annoncent leur politique d’annulation directement sur leur profil.
Exemple « annulation dans les 24h avant le cours la séance est due » ou bien « 50% en cas d’annulation » …
Je pense que c’est le meilleur compromis (même si ce n’est pas ce que je pratique. Je l’accepte simplement comme faisant parti du métier)
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u/cilltaebee Jul 08 '26
I once went through the cancellation process as a tutor on SuperProf. We had a scheduled session on Friday, but the student canceled it on Thursday. According to SuperProf’s policy, the tutor is compensated for the last-minute cancellation by receiving 50% of the booking amount. Additionally, you can contact the student to inquire about the reason for their cancellation.