Price increases and difficult to use subscriptions
I'm an avid language learner and traditionally have preferred in-person lessons or language exchanges/cafes (good old days), but after struggling to find a tutor near me, I turned to online lessons and came across Preply. It is a great platform that there are so many tutors to choose from, for all budgets and you can schedule the lessons by choosing from tutor's schedule.
But I was looking for regular, consistent long term learning (years, not months). I've been a student for 4-5 months and while the tutor has generally been great, consider that I am reviewing the Preply platform here (not the tutor) and in hindsight, I wouldn't choose Preply again.
1) the subscription price has been raised 300% since I joined. I don't mind paying a fair wage and was happy to pay the first two increases, because it was a fair rate and the tutor was reasonably skilled (but not professionally trained). However, on Preply's rating system, she became a super tutor, so they are entitled to charge much higher rates due to their popularity.
2) When the tutor takes a holiday or removes times from future schedules, I have to reschedule some lessons. But Preply still takes the subscription unless I change the date, which I did. However you can only do it once, even though the tutor can modify their schedule again. This means the student is pressured to schedule many lessons in a short time frame, because there is a no refund policy (which I understood). In the end, it can be hard to use up the paid allocation even if there is flexibility from tutor and student - since we all deserve holidays!
3) Related to point 2, the subscription model renews on a monthly basis, but I often found one or two of my reserved weekly slots were not available. This was quite inconvenient and gave less routine to my learning journey.
4) No refund policy. Not really sure why unused credit is lost, simply because you didn't use it within 1 month, but fine I read the small print and agreed to it.
I only once asked Preply for a partial lesson credit, when the Preply classroom wouldnt't connect us. The tutor was waiting for me, and I was waiting for them but it wouldn't connect us. Tutor's time wasted. My lesson credit used.
Obviously a technical issue, but Preply's answer was they don't give credits and said I should ask the tutor to give a free make-up lesson but they're fully booked so Preply said I could do it on another platform. The tutor or student has to take the loss for any platform issues, rather than Preply.
Pros:
- Great platform to connect students and tutors
- Short term flexibility may be good for some
Cons
- Subscription model could be improved for the student in terms of flexibility to use unused credit.
- Frequent price increases make the platform unreliable for those on a limited budget, or having to continually switch tutors
- Preply cares more about the money they take than the tutors or students
Date of experience: April 21, 2025
