What should a kid charge for tutoring?

Tutoring pays more per hour than anything else on this list, and most kids who could do it never think to.

What they are really buying

Not a subject. A parent hires a tutor because homework has become a fight in their house at seven in the evening, and they want it to stop being one.

Underneath that is something bigger. A kid who has decided they are bad at math is on a path that gets more expensive every year, and the parent can see it. What they are buying is that sentence not being true.

What adults pay proves it

Private tutors charge roughly $25 to $80 an hour in 2026, with newer tutors clustering around $25 to $45. Test prep runs higher, commonly $45 to $100. Tutoring centers charge similar rates and often require a package.

Where to start, and why

A teenager tutoring a younger kid in a subject they are genuinely good at usually starts between $15 and $25 an hour. Helping a second grader with reading sits at the lower end. A high school junior who took AP Calculus tutoring an algebra student is worth the top of it and more.

The gap under the adult rate is for being unproven. A certified teacher has a track record of grades going up, and on your first session you do not.

The discount should not last

Proof here is unusually concrete. A student whose grade moved from a C to a B is evidence no credential can argue with, and it arrives within a term.

Once two families are recommending you to a third, you are not an untested teenager. Raise it, and raise it on new families first.

Where you should not discount at all

This is the one business where being young is genuinely an advantage rather than something to price around.

You took that exact class two years ago. You remember which part was confusing, because you were confused by it, and you remember what finally made it click. A forty year old math teacher does not have that and cannot get it back. For a struggling fourteen year old, being taught by someone who is closer to them is often more effective, not less.

Price that as the advantage it is. You are not a cheap substitute for a real tutor. For some students you are the better option.

Charge more for the harder subject

The adult market prices math and science above humanities, and there is no reason a kid should not. Fewer people can do it, and the parents who need it know that. The same applies to test prep, where scoring well on the test the student is about to take is a specific and scarce thing.

Sell a block, not an hour

One session helps with tonight's homework. Six sessions changes a grade, which is what the parent is actually buying. A set of sessions at a slightly better hourly rate gets you a booked schedule instead of a phone that rings during a crisis.

The ninety second habit

Report back briefly after each session: what you worked on, what is getting better. It costs almost nothing and it is most of the difference between a tutor who gets recommended and one who does not.