What counts as an active student?
A student marked active in your practice. That is the whole rule: the cap counts active students, not lessons, invoices, parents or logins.
Archived students never count. A learner who finishes their exams can be archived the same day and their place is free immediately — a roster that turns over is not punished for turning over.
Why is there no percentage option?
Because it would cost you more, and it would give us an interest in your lessons that has nothing to do with helping you teach. A tutor charging $40 an hour for ten hours a week pays about $400 a month to a marketplace that takes 25%. Starter is $15 and Solo is $29, whatever you bill.
It is also the thing tutors tell us they hated most about the platforms they left. A rate agreed is a rate held — that is the promise we make about our own price, and it does not survive a plan that takes a slice of every lesson. There is no percentage tier and there is not going to be one.
What happens if I go over the cap?
You keep full read and write access to every student, lesson, report and invoice you already have. We will never hold a live practice hostage, and never lock you out of a lesson you are teaching in ten minutes.
The only thing that stops is adding a new student, and the message that tells you so links straight to the upgrade. A trial that runs out behaves exactly the same way.
Can I change tier later?
Yes, up or down, from Settings → Billing. Stripe handles the proration for the part-month, so you are never billed twice for the same days.
If you move down while you are above the smaller cap, nothing is deleted: your existing students stay exactly as they are, and only adding another one is blocked until you are back under it.
Do I need a card to start?
No. The 30-day trial creates no Stripe customer and takes no payment details — it is a full-featured practice with room for 20 active students.
You only meet a card when you choose a tier, and you can do that on day 1 or day 29. If you do nothing at all, the practice moves to the Free plan and keeps working: one active student, every feature, and everything you already have still readable and editable.
What happens to my data if I cancel?
Export it first — and you can do that at any time, not only at the end. Settings → Privacy produces a complete machine-readable export of your practice, self-serve, without asking us.
After you close the account the export stays available for 30 days. Then our retention policy applies: your practice data is deleted, some categories on their own fixed windows, and a small residue survives on purpose — accounting records and change history with names removed, and one row recording that the deletion was requested and carried out. Database backups keep deleted data until they rotate out and are never restored without re-running the deletion.
We would rather write that down than let you discover it. Ask us anything about it at support@tutorhelm.com.
Is there a discount for paying yearly?
Yearly costs ten months instead of twelve — $150 for Starter, $290 for Solo, $590 for Studio. There is no other discount, no annual contract, and no minimum term on the monthly plans.
