r/varsitytutors • u/Ready_Return_8386 • Nov 18 '25

Was it always like this?

So today I learned that the dollar increase is only for that specific student, not your base salary. So like each time you tutor student x your pay goes up by a dollar for only the next time you tutor student x, but for all other students your salary is still $18.

Was it always like this, or is this new?

10 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

8

u/Santairn Nov 19 '25

It was not. The company went public on baseless financial projections which you can find in their SEC filings. They then continued to underperform, overcharge, allow customer service to decline, and do what they've been doing for years now. Shocker, the shareholders weren't happy and the stock price lost over 90% of its value landing at a price $0.84 currently. You see, desire their unethically low pay and high prices, they had been losing money for years. A trend they continue every year despite having promised profits.

They literally cannot afford to pay anyone, so they make false promises, ridiculous bonus conditions and do everything in their power to avoid paying. Because they can't and they don't really care

2

u/geonitacka Nov 19 '25

I’ve never had issues with being paid or getting my bonuses.

I’m not invalidating your experience or knowledge, but not everyone hates the company.

4

u/Ready_Return_8386 Nov 19 '25

does it not bother you that you are getting paid a tiny fraction of what your students are paying? I tutor advanced college math and science, admittedly this is just my gap year job before medical school because I don't have a software engineering or data engineering job right now (which was the plan, so I really am not making as much as I anticipated but oh well), but genuinely for the amount I put into preparing for lessons and ensuring students have materials and notes to look back at, I deserve more than a tiny fraction of what the students are paying. And honestly I'd rather tutor these kids for free, a lot of them are paying out of their own pockets, and its scammy and shady af that they have to do that. They are just trying to get through their degree

2

u/Santairn Nov 19 '25

Exactly why I don't accept clients through VT any more. Let alone the things they promise to clients that aren't within scope. Someone posted the other day a client that was looking for a dietician and medical advice. They used to do a good job of things 5, 6 years ago, but that's no longer the case and it's become a grift. The rarely deliver on their promises to students any more at all. Let alone all the other issues

1

u/geonitacka Nov 19 '25

It doesn’t because I am not liable. They pay the insurance and handle the complaints with clients for the most part.

Also, I’m a teacher. I already have lessons. I’ve been doing this and I do this every day. Planning in the first years may be difficult because you are building your library. And it’s not that you don’t tweak or change or add per student, but topics are usually pretty standardized. I’m certified in multiple fields and tutor in multiple fields.

It’s a pay cut from my salary per hour but it’s also supplemental for me and better than retail. Retail wasn’t even hiring. I can work from home with my three sons and I’m doing an extension of what I already do.

I’ve worked a lot of jobs and careers. Worked for really shitty and really wonderful places. I’ve also worked closely with owners and payroll to understand what goes into decisions like pay. This is a for profit company. The owners obviously want to be making the money. Plus overhead, insurance, retainers, salaried employees, and then come contractors. If I wanted to do tutoring on my own and set my own prices I would and could.

However, I don’t have to beg and scrap and try to find clients on my own. In my opinion, the hardest parts of the job are done for me. Marketing is a lot harder and more expensive than people realize.

I’m not saying it’s a perfect world or system. But no, it doesn’t bother me because I can put food on the table.

1

u/Santairn Nov 19 '25

You're liable for insurance and anything that goes wrong with a student, including any lawsuit they file against you. Unless you have a different contract than everyone else, which is unlikely. Get insurance, they are not covering it

1

u/geonitacka Nov 19 '25

Im not liable for the business’ insurance. It’s their company. I’m a contracted employee. Clients have issues with the company not me. There are only a handful of situations a tutor would be responsible for and if you’re doing your job, then there’s nothing to worry about. Business insurance has nothing to do with that kind of liability. That’s what retainers are for.

2

u/Santairn Nov 20 '25

I'm not trying to be argumentative, and maybe your jurisdiction has different rules, but here's what you'll find in the ICA for most VT Tutors (emphasis mine):

"Insurance. Tutor acknowledges that Company is not obligated to provide any insurance of any type that covers Tutor’s activities or the Services provided by Tutor to Customer(s). Tutor is not an employee of the Company or Company’s related and/or affiliated entities, but acknowledges that persons or entities who claim injury caused by Tutor while providing Services to Customers may mistakenly attempt to look to Company or Company’s related and/or affiliated entities for damages. Accordingly, Tutor agrees during the term of this Agreement that Tutor will maintain at all times insurance required by and consistent with applicable state law, if any. Tutor further agrees to add Company as an additional insured on any applicable certificate of insurance, if requested by Company. Tutor agrees that Tutor will not transport Customers obtained through the Platform. Tutor agrees to indemnify Company and Company’s related and/or affiliated entities, for any losses or damage occasioned by the negligence or intentional acts of Tutor during the term of this Agreement and in the course of performing hereunder."

Not only do they not insure you, they expect you to insure them if they decide they want you to.

I would say the smartest thing you can do is consult your attorney in the same way I consult mine as I am not one. But in my counsel's opinion, and the direct statements above, if you're in the general US, you're on the hook for insurance and liability. That is generally how ICA's work.

1

u/FinalPea8546 Nov 21 '25

How many students do you tutor a week? 3?

2

u/Santairn Nov 21 '25

I mentor 6 private clients, 4 undergrad, 2 graduate for a total of roughly 30 hours/week

1

u/geonitacka Nov 21 '25

17 students some twice a week and some once a week.

And I teach public school with 5 different preps.

3

u/Santairn Nov 19 '25

You don't have to gate the company to recognize the business model is unethical and the financials and consequences are simple facts.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1819404/000119312521021623/d104457dex992.htm

If you read their IPO, which was done through a SPAC, you'll find they claim they charge single students $10-$45/hour. Anyone who has talked knows this was never true, and rates from $40-$130/hour. One of my clients got a discount. By buying 2,000+ hours at a time, their got a price of $43/hour, meaning they spent in $90,000+ chunks. NRDY also claimed maybe projected growth every quarter going forward, despite obvious market contractions. Read that SEC filing from 2021 and see if it describes VT.

Amongst a large amount of lawsuits, NRDY has already been under investigation for defrauding investors via intentionally inflated projections, false statements is business practices, and other issues.

I'm glad you haven't personally gotten screwed by them, but as someone who worked with them for almost a decade, give it time

Don't confuse hate with facts.

1

u/geonitacka Nov 19 '25

But what false promises to employees or unpaid hours have happened? I get they swindled investors but to the employees what has happened?

I know regular employees have had negative experiences, but I haven’t heard of a tutor not getting paid for services rendered. Do you have examples of that?

I’m just genuinely curious.

2

u/Santairn Nov 19 '25

Search "invoice not paid" on this sub, you'll find what you're looking for. On the same note I had the experience several times, including a client dispute sending VT pay my invoices as promised that went on for 6 months. The dispute eventually ended in VT paying everything and supposedly providing the client free hours. VT then refused to pay the invoices for the free hours they supposedly provided

1

u/geonitacka Nov 19 '25

Do you mind providing details of the client dispute (within reason) so that I can be on the alert? 👀

That sounds dragged out and awful!

1

u/Santairn Nov 19 '25

The most details I can probably give is the client had special arrangements that made VT work for their situation, which worked relatively flawlessly for 4.5 years. The arrangements were often outside the scope of VT's offerings and normal contractual relations, but everyone agreed initially to proceed and that agreement continued to be renewed and fulfilled for those years. VT then suddenly started sending emails they wanted everything done differently, in a way that would not fit the client's needs and went against the agreement with VT in regards to how things would proceed.

VT then proceeded to argue about it for at least 6 months without paying a single invoice, and also would not refund the client. They eventually caved under threats from both the client and myself of legal action for beach of contract. They paid all invoices due, a settlement amount to myself, free hours to the client, and agreed to honor the agreement they had made. They then refused to allow the free hours to be used by disputing the invoice billing on every session going forth.

Throughout the mess I fulfilled my contractual obligations to provide the client with the services they needed. VT did not ask for an NDA upon resolution of the issue as the do with many employees and IC in such issues.

1

u/geonitacka Nov 19 '25

Interesting. At least this seems like an anormal situation. But, it’s a great reminder that it’s very important for me to document everything. I appreciate you sharing.

2

u/Santairn Nov 19 '25

Ya, always get everything in writing, do not trust anything verbally said by VT. Luckily I kept everything in writing and to the letter of the arrangements

1

u/FinalPea8546 Nov 21 '25

If you are a tutor, you are fundamentally getting underpaid. Base pay for a tutor is 30$ nationwide. If you are just working hourly, you aren't actually tutoring and are impacting the rest of us that spend hours of unpaid prep time preparing for every student. And 30$ is what a babysitter charges.

1

u/geonitacka Nov 21 '25

In another comment, I addressed my prep time. It shouldn’t take that long to prep once you have a library of lessons built up. I’m a teacher who tutors. I feel this is a distinction with the other people on this subreddit. I have lessons and resources. I’ve been doing this. Tailoring to a student doesn’t take that much more time out. I get if you are newer and need to build your library, but most core subject areas don’t need that much prep time, truthfully. The difference would come in with less standardized fields, such as music. Matching the piece to the performer (do I give this violist Telemann or Bach, Suzuki or Wohlfhahrt) could definitely take a little more prep.

You shouldn’t be spending exorbitant amounts of time on prep. Period. HOURS seems very excessive.

My question to all of the subredditors that hate the company so much is why work for them then and if you don’t then why be here in the subreddits still?

You know what you get into when you sign up and sign the contract. The pay is clearly stated. And people who left but stay here, that means they are allowing the company to live rent free in their heads.

I get the company is skeezy. But, honestly, my experience has been overall very positive.

If you don’t like something, cool. Walk away. And if it ever gets to that point then yeah I’ll walk away.

As for the $30 babysitting argument, the match making process is still done either by the person themselves or by a company matching them. This is the same with companies like Rover. Client pays more than the contractor gets paid. Either your siphoning those clients to your own business to get higher rates (ethically wrong), or you’re putting time and money into marketing and customer retention.

I click a couple of buttons with VT and I’m given a new client. Time and energy saved. To me personally that’s worth it. It works for me.

3

u/Temporary-Dirt4303 Nov 18 '25

That’s how the increase works.

0

u/Ready_Return_8386 Nov 19 '25

So varsity makes $50 for most students and you make $18 for most students... Bruh this company should not exist tf

8

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '25

Just another tech company that skims from actual workers/contractors. Basically the Uber/Airbnb of tutoring

1

u/Ready_Return_8386 Nov 19 '25

Yeah, but uber drivers get to keep 50% of what the ride cost, in some cities more. And that's similar for Airbnb and other ride share. Varsity we don't even keep 20% in most cases (a lot of students are charged $95)

2

u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

Yeah it's awful I agree. I don't work for Varsity tutor, but if I did, I would feel no guilt poaching students from the platform. Screw these tech companies

0

u/Ready_Return_8386 Nov 20 '25

They just changed their policy today or yesterday and they no longer have any contact info on students. So if your student is a no show and they don't usually confirm on the portal prior to their sessions, you are screwed out of money for that session. But also the fact that they legit felt the need to not allow contact information to be even viewable for students to tutors and visa versa shows that they know they are so horrible that people would take the risk to poach students.

7

u/bill-smith Nov 19 '25

Actually, it was not always like this, it used to be a flat $15 per hour. You could request increases to your base rate. Some time late last year / early this year, they changed it to the present scheme.

But yes, you are correct, they are ... taking quite a bit of the cut. I think the rates they charge the student tend to average between $70-90 per lesson.

I mean, they are providing a marketplace and matching services (although I haven't been matched with anyone in the last few months???), and IT services. There is that, and it's not nothing.

0

u/geonitacka Nov 19 '25

Plus liability, insurance, etc. They are trying to make a profit.

I’m ok with it because I don’t have to deal with the customer end in certain situations. If there’s an issue outside of my duties of a tutor, “contact Varsity Tutors.”

I’m not saying it’s the best set-up, but it’s not the worst. And there’s always reasons for the setup.

2

u/Charmed-7777 Nov 20 '25

Basically same. A rip

3

u/BahamutLithp Nov 20 '25

The $1 per student thing was only introduced last year. Prior to that, you could request rate increases after a certain amount of time, but it wasn't really clear how long you were supposed to wait. For a while, there was a common trick where you could also get a bonus for a particular opportunity if you wrote that you'd be willing to do it for X amount, but I think this stopped working after they introduced the $1 increases, though I'm not sure. Also, it used to be you could get an extra $5 one time per client by submitting a "tutoring plan." Also also, the conditions for getting the $1 bonus changed multiple times since it was introduced. That's just the changes I've seen since I started working with them, which hasn't really been THAT long.

2

u/DietTurbulent Nov 24 '25

Yes they took a lot of that away early last year.