Italki or Preply for English teachers

Anyone teaching English online one on one eventually runs into the same comparison: Italki or Preply. Both are language lesson marketplaces, both bring students to the teacher, and at first glance they look like the same thing with a different name. They are not. Each one treats the English teacher in a very distinct way, charges commission differently, and places different restrictions on your day to day. It is worth taking the time to understand what changes between Italki and Preply before deciding where to put your schedule.

Italki and Preply do not work the same way

The confusion starts because both show up together in any search for online English lessons. From the student's side, Italki and Preply are almost interchangeable. From the English teacher's side, they are two very different operations.

Italki is a more flexible, more informal marketplace. You set your hourly price, write your profile freely, offer whatever formats you want (a cheaper trial lesson, a package, a single lesson, conversation) and the student finds you by browsing the catalog. The platform charges a flat commission of around 15% on each lesson. The student pays in ITC (Italki's internal currency) and you convert it to real money afterward.

Preply is a more structured, more commercial marketplace. The hourly price is yours too, but the platform charges a heavy commission on the first lesson with each new student, somewhere between 33% and 100% depending on the plan. Following lessons with the same student carry a smaller commission, around 18% to 33%. In exchange, Preply spends much more on advertising and tends to deliver a higher volume of new students.

This difference in commission model changes everything. On Italki you earn less per student from the start, but the earnings stay stable. On Preply the first lesson is practically not yours, but if the student stays, the commission improves.

How Italki works for an English teacher

On Italki the English teacher chooses between two paths. Community tutor, with no formal certification required, a lower price, and less weight on credentials. Professional teacher, with recognized certification (CELTA, TESOL, a degree), a higher allowed price, and more visibility in search.

Running an Italki profile is very hands on. You write your own profile, record your introduction video, set the price for each lesson format, decide whether you accept a trial and for how much, and build your own availability calendar. The student finds you by filtering on language, accent, nationality, and price.

The classroom is what Italki calls Italki Classroom, or Skype, or Zoom, depending on what you arrange with the student. It is not a single integrated room like on some other platforms. It works, but you can tell the lesson itself is "the teacher's responsibility" and Italki is just the intermediary for scheduling and payment.

Italki's advantage is its more conversational, more personal tone. Students looking for casual conversation lessons tend to prefer Italki. The 15% commission is more predictable and withdrawals are reasonably flexible. The downside is that the volume of new students tends to be lower than on Preply, and the rule against taking students off platform exists too (arranging payment outside the platform is a violation of the terms).

How Preply works for an English teacher

Preply is more industrialized. The platform invests heavily in SEO, paid advertising on Google and social media, and partnerships with schools and companies. The result is a larger flow of new students arriving every day, mainly in the early morning and late afternoon.

Running a Preply profile is more standardized. There is a stricter profile model, a requirement for specific types of teaching material, clear rules about cancellations, a scoring system that affects your position in search, and a requirement to reply to messages quickly so you do not drop in ranking. There is not much room to be flexible: the Preply way is the Preply way.

The classroom is built right into Preply, in the browser. The student joins by clicking inside the platform, with no need to open Zoom or Skype. That is convenient, but it ties you to the layout and the limitations of Preply's room.

The big issue with Preply is the first lesson commission. When a new student books with you, Preply keeps a very large slice, in some cases the entire lesson. The logic is to offset the platform's acquisition cost (the advertising that brought the student to you). If the student comes back, the commission drops to the 18% to 33% range. If the student does not come back, you essentially worked that lesson for free.

Preply's advantage is volume and structure. The downside is the high commission on the first lessons and the rigidity. Students looking for serious lessons, with material and measured progress, tend to prefer Preply.

When each one makes more sense

It is worth separating three typical scenarios for anyone teaching English online.

A teacher starting from scratch, with no formal certification, no strong online profile, wanting to test whether this career makes sense. Italki tends to make more sense at this stage. The community tutor mode accepts teachers without a CELTA, the commission is stable, and students arrive looking for conversation and tolerate a beginning teacher. It is not where you earn a lot, but it is where you can get started.

A teacher with certification, with their own material, wanting to scale volume and build a reputation. Preply makes more sense in this case. The volume of new students is higher, the rating system helps those who deliver well, and the high commission on the first lesson is offset by returning students. It works for those willing to follow the Preply method.

A teacher who already has their own students coming in through referrals, Instagram, a former student who came back, or their own advertising. Neither one makes sense for that student. Both Italki and Preply charge commission on something they did not bring in, and on top of that they restrict you from serving the student off platform.

Most English teachers land somewhere in between these three scenarios. Part of the schedule comes from Italki, part from Preply, part from their own students. That is where things get complicated.

What both are missing once the student is already yours

Italki and Preply are good at what they do, but both share the same structural limitations for anyone who already has their own students.

The student is not really yours. If the platform decides to suspend you for any reason (a bad review from a difficult student, a rule interpreted differently, an algorithm change), you lose access to your entire base all at once. No warning, no contact migration, no notice to the students.

Your brand does not exist. The student knows you as "teacher X from Italki" or "teacher Y from Preply." The relationship is not with you, it is with the platform. When they renew, they are renewing with the platform, not with you. This becomes clear the day they decide to switch teachers and simply click on another profile in the same catalog.

The financial relationship is not direct. The student pays the platform, the platform pays you afterward (minus the commission, minus the withdrawal fee, subject to the payout period). If the student wants to pay in advance, pay in installments, or pay you directly, it is not possible. Arranging payment directly with the student is prohibited.

The rule against teaching off platform is the most frustrating part. Your own student, referred to you, wanting a lesson with you, sees your profile on Preply or Italki and wants to book. If you move them off platform, you breach the contract. If you teach them there, you pay commission on someone who came in without the platform's help.

For a student who is already yours, what both are missing is the opposite of what they do well. They bring students in, so it is easy to forget that acquisition is only one part of the operation. The other part is teaching, building loyalty, delivering visible progress, and doing it under your own brand.

How Noladi fits into this story

Noladi is not a marketplace and does not compete with Italki or Preply on acquisition. Noladi is where you teach the student who is already yours, under your own brand and with no commission.

The live class opens in the browser, at your own address yourname.noladi.app. It runs with nothing to install, with a real time collaborative whiteboard, screen sharing, and a PDF dragged straight onto the board. The student joins by clicking a link in their own schedule, with your name and your brand, not as just another profile inside a catalog.

The schedule is integrated with package tracking. You register the plans you offer (10 lessons, a recurring monthly plan, a conversation package), set the credit for each one, and the student's balance is deducted automatically when they book. When the balance hits zero, they renew. You can see who is up to date and who is about to run out of their package without opening a spreadsheet.

After the lesson, the student's panel shows the full lesson to review, with a transcription of the conversation, new vocabulary classified, and speaking stats. It is this post-class material that keeps the private student paying for private lessons, instead of going back to single lessons on the marketplace the following month.

Billing keeps happening through whatever method you already use, Pix or card through your own payment processor. Noladi handles the tracking (who owes, who paid, how much they used), not the card reader. No commission is charged on what you arrange with the student. Plans start at R$ 39.90/month.

Get to know Noladi

If acquiring new students is still the bottleneck, Italki and Preply do their job within each platform's rules. To serve the student who already came to you outside those marketplaces, you can create a free account at noladi.app/teacher and try the live class with the first hour on the house.