How to Start Online Tuition in India: Students and Fees

Disclosure: I run Peerseek, which appears in this guide. Every fee below comes from each company's own pricing page or, for Peerseek, from how the product works today, all read on 25 September 2026. Where another tool suits a tutor better than Peerseek, I say so.

The short answer

To start online tuition in India, choose what you sell (one-to-one sessions, a small group or a recorded course), set a price, and find ten students through people who already trust you. Take payment through a proper booking page, not a UPI QR code, because it makes a new tutor look trustworthy.

Key takeaways

• Start on a proper platform, not a UPI QR code. A QR code in a WhatsApp chat asks a parent to trust a stranger's phone number. A booking page shows who you are, confirms the class and sends reminders. That is my judgement, and it costs about ₹12 more than a payment link on a ₹500 class.
• Tutors sell three things: one-to-one sessions, small live groups, and recorded courses. Most solo tutors start with sessions and add a course once they know what students keep asking.
• Your first students come from people who already know you. A free Superprof India listing is one extra source: its own site says it charges teachers no commission.
• Collecting fees has three real costs. Direct UPI is ₹0 but leaves you doing all the tracking and gives the parent no confirmation. A Razorpay payment link costs 2.15% plus GST, about 2.54% all-in. Peerseek charges a flat 5% that includes payment processing.
• On ₹80,000 of monthly fees that is about ₹2,030 with a Razorpay link and ₹4,000 on Peerseek. If all you need is fee reminders, a fee tool is cheaper than Peerseek.
• Peerseek does not do monthly recurring fees, batches or attendance. If that is your business, use a tuition-management tool and skip the rest of Peerseek's pitch.

In this guide

• Why start on a proper platform, not a UPI QR code
• What it costs before your first student
• Decide what you are selling
• Get your first students
• Collect fees and what each way costs
• Run the class
• Add a recorded course
• Where Peerseek is the wrong tool
• A 30-day launch plan
• Frequently asked questions
• How I checked these numbers

Who this guide is for

This guide is for a solo tutor or teacher who wants their own students: a school teacher going online in the evenings, a college student teaching a subject they scored well in, an exam-prep specialist leaving a coaching centre. You set the price, you keep the student relationship, and you may want to sell recorded lessons later.

It is not for two other searchers. If you run a tuition centre with batches, attendance and a parent portal, you need management software, and I point to one below. If you are looking for a tutor job with a fixed salary, sites like Superprof and Indeed list those, and this guide will not help you.

Why start on a proper platform, not a UPI QR code

My recommendation: start on a structured platform such as Peerseek, not on a UPI QR code sent over WhatsApp. It costs a little more per class, and it is what makes a new tutor look professional and like someone a parent can safely pay.

A parent who has never met you is being asked to send money to a stranger. A personal phone number or a QR code asks them to take you on faith, and it feels like paying a friend of a friend. For a child's tuition fee that does not look professional, and a careful parent notices.

A booking page answers that doubt before the parent has to ask. Here is what changes when a student books through Peerseek:

• They see who you are first. Your profile shows your name, what you teach, the length and price of each class and your testimonials, before anyone pays.
• They get proof of what they bought. After paying, the student receives a booking confirmation by email and WhatsApp, with a calendar invite. A UPI payment leaves a single line in a bank statement that does not say it was for a maths class on Saturday.
• The class runs like a real one. The Google Meet link is created for you, and you and the student both get reminders, so nobody is hunting for a link in a chat thread ten minutes before the class.
• You can show a track record. Testimonials sit on your profile and your bookings page lists every class you have run. A chat history is not something you can show a new parent.

None of this comes from a study. I have no survey of parents to point to, and plenty of parents will pay a tutor they know by UPI without a second thought. It is my judgement about how a stranger's parent decides, and it is why I would not build a new tutoring business on a QR code.

The price of that trust is the fee. On a ₹500 class, Peerseek's 5% is ₹25 and a Razorpay payment link costs about ₹12.69, so you pay roughly ₹12 more for the confirmation, the profile and the reminders. If your students already know you and you only need to collect a fixed monthly fee, a payment link or a fee tool is the better buy, and I explain why below.

What it costs before your first student

You can start online tuition in India without paying anything up front. The costs that exist are charged when a student pays you, so the setup fee is not what separates the options.

• Direct UPI: ₹0 to set up and ₹0 per payment.
• Razorpay payment link: no setup fee and no annual maintenance charge, then 2.15% plus GST on each payment you receive, per Razorpay's pricing page.
• Peerseek: ₹0 to set up and no subscription. Peerseek is an Indian platform where tutors sell one-to-one sessions, webinars and recorded courses for a flat 5% per sale, with payment processing included.
• TuitionDesk: free for up to 10 students, then from ₹99 a month, with 0% commission on your fees.
• Igniter, Starter plan: ₹0 to set up, then 5% per sale plus the payment gateway.
• Graphy: ₹24,999 a year on its entry plan, plus 10% per sale.

Graphy is the one route here that asks for money before your first student. That can be right for a tutor who already has a large audience and wants a branded app, but it is a poor first step for someone with no students yet.

Step 1: Decide what you are selling

Pick one format to start. You can add the others later.

That last point is my opinion, not a rule, but it comes from how the numbers work. A live student tells you which chapter is confusing within a week. A course built without that feedback usually explains the wrong things.

What tutors charge

Pricing has its own long guides, and supatutor's 2026 pricing guide is the most detailed one I found. Its ranges for the Indian market are ₹250 to ₹400 an hour for a fresher with no online experience, ₹600 to ₹900 for a tutor with three or more years, and ₹900 to ₹2,000 for specialist exam prep such as JEE, NEET, IB and IGCSE. These are supatutor's figures, not mine.

Two of its recommendations are worth borrowing. It suggests a paid trial class at ₹100 to ₹200 instead of a free demo, on the basis that families who pay anything take the trial more seriously. And it favours a monthly package of 8 to 12 sessions over per-session billing. Treat both as starting points and check them against what tutors near you actually charge for your subject.

How to get students for online tuition in India

You do not need an audience. You need ten people who trust you enough to try a class. Here is the order I would work in.

1. Ask the people who already know you. Parents of students you have taught, colleagues, school and society WhatsApp groups. Ask each person for one introduction, not for a favour.
2. Give a small, public sample. Record a three to five minute explanation of one chapter your students find hard and post it on YouTube or Instagram with a booking link. A stranger can judge you from four minutes of teaching far better than from a bio.
3. List yourself where students already search. Superprof India says on its own site that it charges teachers no commission and that you earn whatever you quote. Students send a class request and you accept it. I have not tested how many requests a new profile receives, so treat it as a free extra source and not a plan.
4. Make the first yes cheap. A paid trial at ₹100 to ₹200 removes the risk for the parent without making your time free.
5. Write down where each student came from. After ten students you will know which of the above worked, and you can stop doing the rest.

How to collect fees for online tuition

There are three ways to get paid. They differ in what you have to build yourself, in what they charge, and in how professional they look to a parent.

What one ₹500 class costs to collect:

Sources and dates are in the last section. The Razorpay figure is its 2.15% platform fee plus 18% GST, which is 2.537%. Razorpay's page advertises "just 2%" in its headline and puts 2.15% plus GST in the footnote, and it also mentions a promotional 0% platform fee for the first 90 days. The table uses the standard rate.

What this looks like across a month

Say you have 20 regular students paying ₹4,000 a month, which is ₹80,000.

• Direct UPI costs ₹0 in fees, a lot of your time and some credibility with a new parent.
• A Razorpay payment link costs about ₹2,030.
• Peerseek costs ₹4,000.

If all you need is to collect a fixed monthly fee and remind parents on time, Peerseek is the wrong tool and I would not use it for that. It has no monthly packages, no recurring billing and no due-date reminders. Each booking on Peerseek is one session.

Where the extra 2.5 points buy something is trust and convenience. A student who wants an extra doubt-clearing class before an exam books a slot, pays, gets a confirmation and a Meet link, and you did none of it by hand. That is the case for Peerseek: sessions and courses you sell to people who may never have met you, not a monthly fee you chase from parents you already know.

When you actually get the money

On Peerseek, the earnings from a one-to-one session become withdrawable once 24 hours have passed after the session is completed. Course sales follow the same 24 hours after purchase. Releases happen twice a day, so allow a little longer than 24 hours. You then request a withdrawal from the dashboard, there is no minimum balance, and your bank account has to be verified with an OTP first. Webinar earnings are paid out by our team on request instead of through that automatic release.

Razorpay's page says settlement is typically T+1, meaning the next business day.

How to run the class

For a one-to-one booking on Peerseek, the booking creates a Google Meet link for that class. Before it starts, you get an email and a WhatsApp reminder and the student gets an email. You can add up to eight intake questions so the student tells you the class, board and chapter before you meet. A session can run from 10 to 180 minutes and cost up to ₹1,00,000, and you can offer the student a recording of their own class as a paid add-on of up to ₹10,000.

Three things it does not do. It does not read your Google Calendar, so a slot you filled elsewhere is still bookable unless you close it. It does not use Zoom. And it has no attendance register. Keep your own calendar and a simple attendance sheet.

For a small group, Peerseek's webinars let you set a seat limit and run one or more sessions with a Meet link for each.

Start an online teaching business in India: add a course

Your hours are capped, but a course keeps selling while you teach. This is the step that turns tutoring into a business, and it is worth doing only after live students have shown you what they keep asking.

Peerseek Courses supports lessons as video, PDF, text or a quiz. Videos stream encrypted with device-bound, watermarked sessions, quizzes are graded automatically with a pass mark you set, and you can issue a certificate with a public verification page. You can make some lessons free previews, give access for life or a fixed number of days, and price a course from ₹0 to ₹1,00,000.

The limits are real. Courses are self-paced only. There is no live cohort mode inside a course, no EMI, no automatic GST invoices and no branded mobile app.

What you keep on a ₹2,000 course:

Igniter's 5% excludes the payment gateway, so the ₹40 is on top. Peerseek's 5% is everything. Igniter also offers a branded Android app for a one-time ₹9,999 and mock tests with ranks, which Peerseek does not, so it is the better choice if your course is really a full exam-prep app. Graphy's Launch plan takes 10% on top of ₹24,999 a year, and its higher plans reduce that rate to 7.5% and 5% for ₹49,999 and ₹99,999 a year. For a wider comparison see Graphy alternatives in India, and for the full cost logic see how to sell an online course without a subscription.

Many tutors also sell handwritten notes and previous-year question PDFs next to their classes. The fee maths for that is in how to sell notes online in India, and where to sell digital products for free in India covers the free plans.

Where Peerseek is the wrong tool

Be honest with yourself about which of these describes you.

• You collect a fixed monthly fee from regular students. Use a fee tool. TuitionDesk says it is free for up to 10 students, from ₹99 a month after that, with 0% commission on your fees. You still pay Razorpay's processing fee if you connect it.
• You run batches and need attendance, homework and a parent login. That is the same software category. Peerseek has none of it.
• You want your own branded app. Igniter, Graphy and Learnyst sell that. Peerseek does not.
• You need automatic GST invoices or EMI for parents. Peerseek does neither today.

A 30-day plan to your first paying students

1. Days 1 to 3. Choose one subject and one class or exam level. Write your offer in three lines: what the student gets, how long it runs, what it costs, including a paid trial.
2. Days 4 to 7. Set up how you get paid and make one test payment yourself. Confirm the class link works on a phone.
3. Days 8 to 14. Ask ten people for one introduction each. Record one four-minute lesson and post it with a booking link.
4. Days 15 to 24. Run paid trials. After each one, ask the parent for a two-line testimonial you can post.
5. Days 25 to 30. Set your price for continuing students. Look at which questions came up in more than three trials. Those are your first course.

Mistakes that cost tutors money

• Pricing to be chosen, not to be sustainable. Supatutor's guide names underpricing as the biggest pricing mistake.
• Taking payment in three different places. When some students pay by UPI, some by cash and some by link, you cannot tell who has paid, and you end up chasing.
• Free demos with no commitment. They fill your calendar with people who were never going to enrol.
• Building a course before you have taught the topic live to a few students.

Frequently asked questions

How I checked these numbers

Every figure carries the date I read it. Anything older than that date has not been rechecked.

• Razorpay: razorpay.com/pricing, read 25 September 2026. Platform fee 2.15% plus GST across Payment Links, Payment Pages and the gateway, a headline of "just 2%", standard UPI with no bank MDR but the platform fee still applying, and typical settlement of T+1.
• Peerseek fees and payout timing: how the product works on 25 September 2026, checked by the Peerseek team. The fee is a flat 5% with payment processing included. Earnings become withdrawable about 24 hours after a completed session or a paid sale, in releases that run twice a day. Withdrawals have no minimum balance and need a bank account verified by OTP.
• TuitionDesk: tuitiondesk.in homepage, 25 September 2026. Free for up to 10 students, from ₹99 a month, and 0% commission on your fees.
• Superprof India: its tutor earnings guide, 25 September 2026. It states that it charges teachers no commission.
• Igniter: igniterapp.com homepage, 25 September 2026. 5% on sales excluding the gateway, and the ₹2,000 course example of ₹1,860 kept.
• Graphy: graphyapp.in/pricing, 25 September 2026. Launch ₹24,999 a year at 10% or ₹10 per sale, Grow ₹49,999 at 7.5%, Rise ₹99,999 at 5%.
• Tutor rate ranges: supatutor.in, dated 25 March 2026. These are the publisher's figures, reported as its claims.

The bottom line

Starting online tuition is mostly a matter of getting ten people to say yes and making it easy to pay you. You do not need a website, an audience or a platform to begin, and for a fixed monthly fee from regular students a payment link or a fee tool is cheaper than anything else here.

Peerseek earns its 5% in a narrower case: students booking sessions on your calendar, or buying a course you built once. If that is the business you are starting, the setup is free and you pay only when someone pays you.