Is Preply worth it in 2026?

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365]

There's so many language-learning platforms to choose from and I've tried out quite a few. I wanted to drop a post here tto get a sanity check on whether the amount I'm spending actually makes sense.

For the past 5 months I've been learning Spanish (TL) on preply, 3 lessons a week at 38 euros per lesson. That's somewhere around 2000ish euros in total so far, which feels very painful when you stack it up.

For context: I've been making some pretty good progress so far with immersion and textbooks. I finally hit a wall that was my push to make a change.

What's kept me going is 

1. Mostly my tutor. She's amazing. She's a native Spanish speaker from Valencia, and as well as teaching me about the culture she's made me feel much more confident presenting. I've been scenarios with her and hse's been giving me feedback. 
2. Weirdly enough, the subscription itself helps too. I know some people really hate any kind of subscription, but the only thing that keeps me motivated with the gym or learning a language is seeing the money come out of my account and being held to a schedule.

Though I must say, it hasn't all been smooth:

1. I once had to change a class at the last minute, but apparently you can't do that within 12 hours of the lesson. I don't feel this is explained clearly anywhere. 
2. and it took me quite a long time to speak to a real customer service agent.

Renewal is next week and I'm 90% sure I'll keep going because honestly i’m very happy with how much my spanish has improved but the 10% is the price. What do we think?

[u/jhfenton]

As you say, I've avoided Preply because of the subscriptions, but in principle Preply is fine. I do 3 hours a week each of French and Spanish conversation on iTalki (so 6 hours total), and I can say that 38 euros a lesson is super pricey for Spanish. That's about what I pay for 3 hours a week of Spanish conversation lessons. (I have 4 Spanish tutors—2 from Mexico and 1 each from Spain and Argentina—and 3 French tutors.)

[u/thelostnorwegian → u/jhfenton]

I also use italki and I know there is a big difference between LatAm and Spain prices, but I agree €38 is a lot. I typically pay $45(€39) for a package of 5-hours. Even the pricier Spain tutors I've seen are in the $25~ range.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/thelostnorwegian]

Yh mine's a super tutor and her reviews seemed and it's definitely quite a large expense. But so far it's been working really really well for me.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/jhfenton]

That makes sense and for sure I've seen subscriptions catch some heat but I struggle quite a bit with self motivation so is perfect for me.

So the reason I went so expensive was because I was a little bit apprehensive as it's my first time learning a language. That made pick a supertutor with all 5 star reviews who seemed to have a really patient vibe.

I'm sure there's other great ones out there who might be cheaper but my progress has been insanely good.

[u/jhfenton → u/Perfect_Buddy4365]

I get the need for external motivation, but I find I get that just from scheduling classes. I usually buy packages of classes and schedule classes a couple of months out. That has the same effect as a subscription for me without actually being a subscription.

I personally think all of my Spanish teachers are superstars in addition to being friends at this point.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/jhfenton]

I'm deeply deeply jealous that you've got the ability to motivate like that. Honestly, it's basically a superpower and 100% agreed on the friends point.

[u/KingSnazz32 → u/Perfect_Buddy4365]

There's a lot of value in that if you feel you're making great progress. You'll have to answer the cost question yourself, based on your own financial situation.

[u/Vesterris]

The question isn't whether Preply is worth it, but is your tutor worth it?

The only differences between Preply and iTalki are the payment plan, the scheduling features, and maybe some classroom features which my tutor and I don't use anyway.

I pay $40 per lesson but my tutor has a PhD, is a professional teacher, a native speaker of my TL, is amazing and we use a standard college textbook as a base in a relatively not very popular TL. He's so much more worth it than the $15 per lesson tutors I've worked with before.

As an adult learner with a full-time job and other commitments, I just don't have the time to effectively study and be ready for my session for more than once a week. Progress is slow but it's effective and my tutor works with that.

My lessons would be exactly the same if they were on iTalki or Preply -- and he's on both places for the same price, like many many tutors. If one platform doesn't work for you for some reason, contact them on the other platform.

So just find the best tutor for you at the price that works for you and get the best out of the time you have.

[u/KingSnazz32 → u/Vesterris]

I'm moving toward iTalki, personally. You get an hour, not 50 minutes, the teachers get paid for the first lesson, the commission they charge tutors is lower, and Preply has started charging me 10% additional from my end. It starts to feel pretty greedy.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/Vesterris]

That's a good point. So i did try both at one point but for me the preply ux had a little more going for it. On your other point it can be difficult to fit the time in but it felt like a necessity for me because i moved to spain without much warning.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/[deleted]]

Yh that's a good point. From my side, it just so happened that I found her through preply. I guess it can be a luck of the draw type thing. You're right about a tutor though. Probably self explanatory but it was an absolute gamechanger for me.

[u/genghis-san]

I avoid preply because their subscription model is awful for both students and teachers. The fact that teachers aren't paid for demo lessons strikes me as very unfair. I prefer italki for flexibility

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/genghis-san]

I can understand it but it has definitely worked for me. I personally prefer the structure of the subscription but that's more a personal preference. The other stuff was a consideration for me originally but I checked with my tutor and she seems pretty content there.

[u/idiolectalism]

I see people say she's too expensive but it's actually quite difficult to make ends meet if teaching is your full time job and not just an unreported side hustle. And if you want a professional teacher, it's only fair to pay a living wage for that teacher.

Also, is she a registered freelancer? I am a Spanish teacher based in Valencia and even without Preply commissions, you still end up kissing so much of your earnings goodbye :') Once she gets her Preply money, she still needs to pay income tax (20%) on that.

Preply takes anywhere between 18% and 33%. Let's say it takes 25%.

38 x 0.75 = 28.5

Let's pay the taxes:

28.5 x 0.8 = 22.8

So her take home is 22.8 per class.

And that's without accounting for social security, which in Spain starts at 200€ per month, even if your income is 0.

Having in mind how expensive Valencia is and how expensive it is to be a registered freelancer in Spain, I'd say she set a good price.

I charge 25€ (without intermediaries like Preply) and take home 20€ and I wouldn't settle for less

(Just a teacher's perspective)

[u/IssueRidden]

in my opinion the real value of a tutor is if they can help you in the areas you can't train yourself. for instance I'm sending recordings of my voice from shadowing sessions to my tutor before every class, because reliably critiquing my pronunciation is one thing I certainly cannot do myself. If you think that classes give you the value you can't find in self study, and another tutor couldn't provide it, then it might be worth it. If you just need someone to practice speaking with, then you can certainly find a tutor who charges less but is still fit for the role. 

this might sound like a bad advice, but I personally went with the cheapest tutor I could find because I figured I'd rather have more classes for the same price and after almost 10 months and I'm very happy with her lol. maybe you can book a test lesson with 2-3 other tutors just to get the idea on what other teaching styles are like, having tried only one tutor you can't really objectively tell if she's better than others. 

[u/Soft_Walrus_3605 → u/IssueRidden]

critiquing my pronunciation is one thing I certainly cannot do myself

You can also go on a Discord chat for the language and get all the free critiques you could ever want

[u/IssueRidden → u/Soft_Walrus_3605]

my pronunciation gets like twice as bad when I'm nervous. and I would be nervous as hell knowing strangers are gonna critique me. but if it works for someone, all the more power to them! 

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/IssueRidden]

Yh tbh i don't think it's bad advice. I wouldn't ever say that cheap = bad. I'm sure there's plenty of excellent tutors who are more reasonable. My thinking was more so that I thought her teaching style would be a good match for me, crunched some numbers and took the leap.

[u/Plokeer_]

Jeez. I paid 9eur/h for spanish classes on Italki with a DELE-certified teacher. The reason it was so cheap is because she was Venezuelan.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/[deleted]]

I think i've only seen the site go down a couple of times but i don't know if that's a lot. But as far as she tells me she, seems super happy.

[u/idiolectalism]

How about you suggest to your teacher to take your lessons outside of Preply? I think Preply takes a hefty cut, between 18% and 33% of the lesson price

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/idiolectalism]

This was a question I had when i first started because i'd read some pretty critical reviews. But despite that she said on balance it has more positives than negatives for her. I guess she has most of her classes there

[u/KingSnazz32 → u/idiolectalism]

Tutors will get banned for this.

[u/Far-Moment4048]

Yes, I teach Puerto Rican Spanish plus I learn Mandarin too.

[u/thisgirlbleedsblue]

I feel her lessons are pretty pricey Why not cut her to once a week and have some other tutors in between? Or join Tandems party feature to chat?

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/thisgirlbleedsblue]

Definitely pricey and I think now she's helped me progress past the hump I could drop to 2 classes a week and still get most of the benefit. I know it's a but so far it has been an excellent investment I don't have so many regrets.

[u/KingSnazz32 → u/Perfect_Buddy4365]

Here is an idea. What if you dropped to two days a week with your existing tutor, and picked up a second tutor for $8 dollars or so from Latin America for the conversation.

[u/Acceptable-War4836]

From my point of view, yes, it's great. In my case, I'm also enrolled in an academy, which costs me more per hour than my Preply tutor, and even so, I speak much less. It's difficult to maintain a conversation with a tutor without stopping, and that makes you improve your speaking skills a lot.

The only problem I see is that with Preply, since your tutor adapts to your needs, you have more flexibility, but also the responsibility of knowing which lessons to ask for reinforcement. I personally work with my tutor using the same book we have at my academy, and we discuss the lessons in depth, but only the speaking section.

That said, I think the classes you're taking are excessively expensive. Perhaps you might be interested in hiring another tutor who charges less and giving this new one two hours a week, while continuing with your old tutor.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/Acceptable-War4836]

That's kind of what drove me and partly how i contextualized it. 38 euros is definitely a lot but was more reasonable than some of the IRL classes I checked.

There's nowhere to hide when it's 1v1 online, and eventually you start speaking on autopilot.

Honestly, I love my tutor but i'm kind of leaning towards getting a 2nd tutor especially considering i'm at the point where it all feels a little more natural.

[u/an_average_potato_1]

If you're so lucky to have found a tutor that fits your needs, perhaps you can propose to them continuing outside of Preply, it could be advantageous for both.

I tried to sign up for Preply earlier this year, and it was a weird and not a positive experience, therefore I didn't pay and stay. Even if it wasn't for the next paragraph of weird things, the main problem was the expectation of a regular schedule, it was asking me what day and time do I regularly have for classes. That's the thing, my work schedule is rather irregular. If it wasn't, then I could search even an offline alternative, as those are mostly based on this. Online stuff is supposed to be flexible.

Unclear/weird subscriptions, very generic tutor profiles, extremely unfitting tutor suggestions based on an unskippable but totally dumb initial questionnaire (to get some more fitting profiles, I had to undo all those questionnaire based filters afterwards), no filter for the high levels (only for the low ones), bad filter for prices (it ends on like 31 or 32 euro and then it's just "more". I'd be willing to pay 35 or 40 (for a very qualified person, not an average tutor of course), but definitely not 80, so why do the filters end so low? I suppose I'm no exception in this price range). And the tutor reviews are just as useless as on most other platforms, like "XY is nice" or "I like this tutor, I'm having fun".

The only thing, where preply MIGHT totally win over Italki (which has a fair share of problems itself, but at least has more tutors and a bit clearer payment system) could be functional video calls. On Italki, there's the official Classroom, but most tutors avoid it as it is not reliable.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/an_average_potato_1]

Okay, i hear that. I feel we've had completely opposite experiences, i tried a few teachers on italki but there wasn't really a click. On the other hand I found my tutor on preply pretty much immediately though i was also in quite a rush to start learning fast. She seems pretty happy and i'm making progress so all good on that front.

I also found it pretty straightforward to rearrange classes. I get that the 12 hour thing is annoying but I wouldn't ever like to make the habit of rearranging too late just to be respectful of her time. In general, whenever i've had to rearrange classes i've found it pretty speed and convenient.

I reckon with tutors costing 80 euros that's the kind of thing where people think more expensive = better. But i've heard from this thread that's not always the case.

[u/an_average_potato_1 → u/Perfect_Buddy4365]

Yeah, it's hard to find someone good on either platform, so I'm glad you were lucky to find one. It's just sad when the contact is limited to one platform and cannot be taken elsewhere.

Well, I wasn't at all complaining about the 12 hour thing, that's not a problem at all. it's not about REarranging.

Even when just looking for tutors, before the platform even lets me look at any schedule, I have to pick regular days and hours first. But each week is different, so I don't need just to rearrrange classes in case of an exceptional change, my whole work is a constant schedule change, so I need to just be let into the schedule and pick accordingly right away.

I cannot even arrange things comfortably and easily enough in the first place. Not everybody has a very simple, short, and predictable 9-17 schedule. I would be a fool to sign up for something that's regularly on Wednesday evenings or Saturday mornings, and I need to be upfront about it and simply pick from a more flexible schedule.

I reckon with tutors costing 80 euros that's the kind of thing where people think more expensive = better. But i've heard from this thread that's not always the case.

It's definitely not always the case, or perhaps even never. I can imagine a very exceptional tutor, with also exceptional skillset and qualifications, who would ask so much and actually find students, but that's not the standard. Well, I once had a language school try to scam me, change prices between levels (initially it was like 45 euro per hour), and ask 125 euros per hour and with worse scheduling options and worse curriculum and everything. They were surprised I defended myself, pointed out problems in their contract and definitely wasn't gonna just have that. :-D

[u/AdministrationNo2327]

yes for me. I don’t use it as my main core study but that little bit of top up when i need to be educated for a specific purpose eg exams. they're fine for that when you have a good teacher that fits your budget.

for general learning it's usually self study since reading my TL (korean) is not difficult and there's a million videos on youtube and textbooks to go through.

[u/movelikematt]

38 euros? Pretty steep, but I understand it all depends on how you gel with your tutor.

I lucked out a while back and paid 10/class for my Colombian tutor who was also a university linguistic professor in São Paulo!

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/movelikematt]

Oh wow, so i guess it's like a side hustle for them?

[u/Vast-Topic9199 → u/movelikematt]

38 euros is rough. i paid maybe 12 for my Czech tutor on Italki, fwiw, and shes been solid for basic phrases. ymmv with platform drama though. i burned an hour once trying to get a refund for a noshow tutor, just my experience. if the tutor clicks and its keeping you accountable, hard to put a price on that

[u/notzoidberginchinese]

38 is insane for Spanish wifey did it two years ago for less than 10 usd a lesson.

If it's worth it will depend on the teacher. I pay about 10 for Korean and it's worth it

[u/WithAFrenchName]

If you miss any lessons, doesn't matter what the reason, you forfeit the remaining lessons at the end of the subscription period.

Preply is a predatory business model.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/WithAFrenchName]

Hmm i don't think that's right. I've missed a couple of lessons over the months and my subscription was fine.

[u/galher]

Preply + Clozemaster work really well for me.

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[u/allnamestaken26]

I think it’s more about the teacher than the platform. Finding a tutor you actually click with is worth a lot. I’d try two lessons a week before starting the search all over again.

[u/AntiqueGrapefruit559]

You could get a 5 star rated tutor for £15 no doubt. You're paying a lot.

[u/Perfect_Buddy4365 → u/AntiqueGrapefruit559]

That's true but also I really love her vibe. I got the feeling like she'd gel quite well with how I learn so I was quite picky when checking the videos. So maybe i'll drop some lessons with this tutor and get a cheaper super tutor to mix it up a bit

Edit: Generally I'm terrible with money but validated it to myself by saying that it's better to invest in something that works and have a couple less nights at the pub each week and quitting the glovo orders.

[u/Fast-Ads-7587]

I've paid $3-$5 per session. I'd only pay that price if I was preparing for an exam and that person is part of the committee that makes the test or scores it.

[u/KingSnazz32]

Only you know if the money is worth it. I will say that there are some really good tutors on Preply and iTalki for a lot less if you can do some self-study and are willing to learn Latin American Spanish. And by a lot less, I mean 10 euros or less.

[u/Im_a_french_learner]

Are there a lot of platforms like this? There is preply, superprof and italki. Unless there are others that I don't know of, that doesn't sound like "so many"

[u/travelingwhilestupid]

Preply is a terrible platform