From Zero To Booked: My First Month As A Preply Tutor

How to get booked on Preply with no teaching experience:

• Niche down: Position your profile around specific student pain points (eg, Business English or Interview Prep) rather than generic qualifications.
• Strategic starting price: Start at an accessible price to build lesson volume and secure 5-star reviews, then incrementally increase your rate.
• Maximum initial availability: Open flexible calendar hours early on to gain algorithm momentum and qualify for Super Tutor status.
• Conversion-focused trials: Treat trial lessons as discovery calls to understand goals and build rapport rather than giving hard sales pitches.

Starting as a new online ESL tutor without a degree or formal teaching experience can feel overwhelming, but building a fully booked schedule on Preply comes down to smart market positioning. By treating your teaching profile like a product launch — targeting a specific niche like Business English, setting a strategic entry rate, and optimising your calendar availability — you can quickly attract trial students and convert them into long-term clients. Within one month of implementing this student-first approach, I landed 12 trial students, converted 7 into recurring bookings, and built a sustainable tutoring business that eventually scaled to $35/hour with complete schedule flexibility. Here is the exact step-by-step strategy to go from zero to booked on Preply.

But let’s go back to the beginning: 

I decided to start with Preply. Instead of simply creating a profile and waiting for students to find me, I approached it almost like launching a new service. I thought about who I wanted to attract and how I wanted to position myself.

I started at $11 an hour. Within my first week on Preply, I started getting messages from potential students. During my first month, I had 12 trial students, and seven of them went on to book further lessons with me. It was enough for me, because most of them booked 2-3 lessons per week and stayed with me for several months. 

Read more: 11 Best Places To Teach English Online Without A Degree

That first month taught me a huge amount about getting started on a teaching marketplace. Here is the step-by-step approach I used for myself.

Step-by-step guide to getting started on Preply

Step 1: Decide who you want to teach before you build your profile

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to teach Business English. I genuinely enjoy interacting with professionals and helping people succeed at work because I had once been in that position myself, using English professionally in an international environment.

But choosing Business English wasn’t specific enough. Before writing my Preply profile, I researched my target audience. Who were these professionals? What situations did they struggle with? What did they want to achieve?

That research shaped my positioning. Instead of building a profile around my qualifications, I built it around their needs and pain points. I also used Preply’s built-in AI tool to optimise the wording, but first I had to give the AI a clear direction.

To add credibility as a newly qualified tutor, I also completed Preply’s recommended course for tutors, which gave me the Professional Tutor badge on my profile. It’s free and helpful.

Step 2: Package your profile around your ideal student

Once I knew who I wanted to attract, I needed my entire profile to communicate that within seconds.

I chose a professional but approachable photo and wrote my headline and opening lines around the student rather than simply listing my qualifications. I focused on the situations I could help professionals with and connected these to my own business experience.

Consistency mattered too. My photo, headline, description, specialisations and introduction video all needed to tell the same story: who I help, what I help them with and why I understand their needs. I finished with a simple call to action encouraging the right students to book a trial.

Read more: Teaching On Preply: Everything You Need To Know

Step 3: Make yourself genuinely available

When I started, I followed Preply’s recommended availability guidance and opened plenty of bookable hours. I even taught late evenings at the beginning. Sometimes until midnight. My goals were clear.

My priority wasn’t quick income. I wanted to build momentum, gain experience, strengthen my profile and work towards Super Tutor status so I could attract corporate students. 

As my calendar filled with regular students, I gradually reduced my availability and became more selective about the hours I offered. The flexibility I wanted became very real. I was able to take time off during the Christmas holidays and Easter, and I even took six weeks off during the summer. When I was ready to return, I simply opened my calendar again after my six week break and started receiving bookings. 

That gave me reassurance that the work I had put into my profile was paying off. I could step away when I needed to, come back, reopen my availability and still attract students. My profile was working for me.

The key, especially at the beginning, is to make it easy for your first students to book you while only opening slots you can genuinely commit to.

Read more: What I Wish I’d Known Before Teaching English Online

Step 4: Use your introductory price strategically

I started at $11 because my first goal wasn’t to maximise my hourly rate. It was to get booked. As a new tutor, I had no Preply reviews, teaching hours or platform reputation yet.

My strategy was to:

• set an accessible starting price, 
• get lessons into my calendar, 
• gradually increase the rate, 
• deliver a great experience and 
• start building reviews and credibility.

As my profile became stronger and demand increased, I gradually raised my price. Today, my rate is $35.

Preply currently takes 100% commission on a new student’s trial lesson, with a different commission structure applying to subsequent lessons.

Important: Always check Preply’s current commission scheme, pricing guidance and other platform policies before making decisions, as these can change over time.

Remember: Your starting price doesn’t have to be your long-term price. Use it strategically to establish yourself, then review it as your experience, reputation and demand grow.

Step 5: Treat every message as a potential relationship

When a potential student contacted me, I tried not to treat it as just another booking. I wanted to understand why they were looking for a tutor and what they wanted to achieve.

Rather than relying on generic responses, I asked questions, listened to their needs and only then explained how I could help. This also helped me understand my audience better: the language they used, the challenges they faced and what they valued in a tutor.

For me, this has always been about people first. A message isn’t just a potential sale. It is the beginning of a conversation and possibly a long-term working relationship.

Step 6: Give students a reason to come back after the trial

I never wanted my trial lessons to feel like a sales pitch. My goal was for the student to leave thinking: “She understands what I need, and I know how she can help me.”

I used the trial to understand their goals, identify what was getting in their way and give them a genuine experience of working with me. At the end, I explained what I thought we should focus on next.

You don’t need to spend the trial convincing someone how good you are. Listen, understand the problem and let them experience what working with you could be like.

Step 7: Make every lesson about the person you teach

If you’re newly qualified, those first lessons can feel scary. But if there’s one piece of advice I can give you, it’s this: make it about the person you teach. 

Be a good listener. Find out what they need, where they’re struggling and what they’re hoping to achieve. Then build the scaffolding to support them and be the person who helps them climb it. There are so many ways we can make an impact on our learners, and it starts with really paying attention to them.

Don’t pretend you know everything. I was very open with students during my early trial lessons. I told them I was newly qualified, but that I was determined to support them as much as I could. Some didn’t go ahead, and that was okay. Others gave me a chance. Since then, my students have left nine positive reviews on my profile. Not bad for a tutor without prior teaching experience. Strong reviews will help your visibility and credibility on Preply.  

Read more: Survival Tips For Your First Day In The EFL Classroom

Step 8: Keep reviewing and refining

Your first profile doesn’t have to be your final profile. Mine certainly wasn’t.

I continued paying attention to who was finding me, what students were asking for, which students I genuinely enjoyed working with and where I could provide the most value.

Over time, this helped me refine my positioning further. I started with Business English and eventually moved towards Interview Preparation for international professionals.

Changing direction doesn’t mean your original strategy failed. Sometimes it means you’ve learned enough about your market and yourself to make a better decision.

Where I am today 

Nearly a year later, I have delivered 240+ hours on Preply, increased my rate to $35, and refined my positioning from Business English to Interview Preparation for international professionals. All this while taking the UK school holidays off, including Christmas, Easter and the six weeks during the summer break.

I genuinely love my TEFL life. I get to travel the world from the comfort of my home and meet so many different people, with different stories, careers and ambitions.

And as a mum, this way of working gives me something incredibly important: the opportunity to keep growing professionally while still being present for my children and family. That was one of the reasons I chose TEFL in the first place.

Read more: 7 Unexpected Outcomes Of A TEFL Life

Final note: Keep going, keep learning and look after yourself

• Build your reputation one lesson, one student and one review at a time. Be ambitious, but be patient with yourself too.
• Your TEFL journey shouldn’t be a sprint.It’s a marathon so get the right energy and trainers ready. Sometimes you need to persist. Sometimes you need to pivot. Keep learning the difference.
• Use the Preply tutor community. Ask questions, learn from other tutors and remember that there are lots of people figuring this out alongside you.
• Protect your energy. There may be times when you want to say yes to everything and open every possible hour. That can help you build momentum, but you don’t have to work that way forever. Building something sustainable matters too.

Good luck with your own Preply journey. I’m still building mine too.

Author Bio

Written by

Petra Jedlickova

Edited by Kirsten Colquhoun

Originally from Czechia, Petra has spent much of her adult life in London, building her career in the international education sector. She began teaching Business English in November 2025 and later expanded into job interview preparation, helping international professionals around the world communicate their experience and value with confidence in English. Petra says: “I love my TEFL life, and I love helping others pursue their career aspirations and goals, just as I pursued mine.” Read Petra Jedlickova's story →