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What apps do tutors need to run their own tutoring?

An independent tutor needs apps for six jobs: a room to teach in (live video plus a shared whiteboard), a way for families to book lessons, a way to invoice and get paid, a home for lesson materials, a channel for parent updates, and a record of who has paid for what. Most tutors start with free general-purpose apps for each job, such as Zoom or Google Meet, Calendly, Stripe or PayPal, Google Drive, WhatsApp and a spreadsheet. They consolidate into fewer apps once switching between them costs more time than it saves. The usual first step is a tutoring classroom that covers teaching, booking and invoicing in one login. The second, once there's a team, is tutoring-business management software.

This page is for tutors who find their own students and run their own lessons. If you're looking for an app to find a tutor, or for a tutoring job, this isn't that list. We build Koala Go, one of those tutoring classrooms, so the page ends with an honest map of which jobs it covers and which it doesn't. Everything before that is the advice we'd give whichever apps you pick. For the hardware side (microphone, camera, lighting), see what equipment and software you need to start tutoring online.

The six jobs, and the apps tutors use for each

1. A room to teach in

The lesson itself: live video, a whiteboard you and the student can both write on, and your materials open inside the lesson rather than in a second window you share.

  • General-purpose: a video app (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams) plus a separate whiteboard app such as Miro or FigJam.
  • Built for tutoring: browser-based classrooms that put video, whiteboard and materials behind one link. We compare them on the best Zoom alternatives for tutoring and the best online whiteboards for tutoring.
  • What to check: Can a student join from a link without making an account or installing anything? Does it run on the device the family already owns, whether that's a Chromebook, an iPad or a parent's laptop? Does the free plan cut calls off after a set time? Can the student write on the board, or only watch you?

2. Booking and scheduling

How a family picks a time, and how that time holds week after week.

  • General-purpose: booking-page apps such as Calendly or Acuity Scheduling, or Google Calendar's booking pages.
  • Built for tutoring: scheduling inside a tutoring classroom or a tutor-management app, where the booking already knows which room the lesson happens in.
  • What to check: Does each family see your availability in their own timezone? Can they book the same slot every week in one go? Can you set a cancellation notice, and does the app hold families to it, or is it just a sentence in your welcome email? Does the confirmation carry the lesson link? Does the app send reminders, or will you? Plenty of apps don't, so plan on a one-line message the day before on whatever channel the family uses. The full walkthrough is on how to schedule online tutoring lessons.

3. Invoicing and payments

Billing the family and getting the money to you.

  • General-purpose: invoices from Stripe, PayPal, Wise or Square.
  • Built for tutoring: invoicing inside your classroom or tutor-management app, so the invoice sits next to the student and the lessons it covers.
  • What to check: What does each invoice really cost you, counting the app's own fee and the card or transfer fee? Can a parent in another country pay without trouble, and in which currency? Can you nudge an unpaid invoice without writing an awkward email? If you sell lesson packages, does anything keep count of the lessons left? Packages are covered on how to structure lesson packages, and setting the price on how much to charge for online tutoring.

4. Lesson materials

Slides, worksheets, flashcards and the books or curriculum you teach from.

  • General-purpose: Google Drive and Slides, Canva for worksheets, Quizlet for flashcards, and the digital resources that come with a published curriculum. Many tutors now draft worksheets with a general AI assistant and edit them before use.
  • What to check: Can you open the material inside the lesson, so the student can write on it, instead of sharing your screen? Is it saved, so next week's lesson starts where this one ended?

5. Parent updates

The note after each lesson, and the fuller update every few weeks that keeps families renewing.

  • General-purpose: WhatsApp, email, iMessage or WeChat, whichever the parent already answers. Don't add a new app for this; use the one the family replies on.
  • What to check: Does your classroom give you anything to write from, like lesson history, a recording or drafted notes, so an update takes a few minutes instead of half an hour? The cadence that works is on how to share progress updates with parents.

6. Records: students, packages and payments

Who you teach, who has paid, and who has lessons left.

  • General-purpose: a spreadsheet. For the first handful of families it's genuinely fine.
  • Built for tutoring: tutor-management apps (TutorBird and Teachworks are two that describe themselves this way) bring student records, scheduling and billing together once the spreadsheet stops matching reality. If following up on new inquiries is what's slipping, that's a CRM question instead; see whether a tutoring business needs a CRM.
  • What to check: Can you see at a glance who has paid, who has lessons left on a package, and who hasn't booked for a month?

A starter set of apps, and what tutors move to

Job Common free starter What tutors often move to
Teaching room Zoom or Google Meet, plus a whiteboard app A tutoring classroom with video, whiteboard and materials behind one link
Booking Messages back and forth, then a booking page Scheduling built into the classroom, so the booking opens the lesson room
Invoicing Stripe, PayPal or Wise invoices Invoicing in the same app that knows your students
Materials Google Drive and Slides Lessons saved inside the classroom and opened on the shared board
Parent updates WhatsApp or email The same channel, written from lesson notes or a recording
Records A spreadsheet Packages tracked in the app, or tutor-management software once there's a team

Neither column is wrong. The starter set costs little or nothing and plenty of tutors run on it for years, especially with older students on simple video calls. Its cost shows up in your time: lessons that start with "which link is it today?", payments matched against a calendar by hand at the end of the month, and lesson history spread across five apps when a parent asks how things are going.

How to tell you're running too many apps

  • You switch apps during a lesson more than once.
  • A parent has asked which link to use more than once this month.
  • The end of the month means matching payments to a calendar and a spreadsheet by hand.
  • You can't say how many lessons a family has left without opening two apps.
  • Writing a parent update means rebuilding the lesson from memory.

If two or more of those sound familiar, consolidate the job that costs you most first. That's usually the teaching room and booking together, because the booking should open the lesson. Change one job at a time, so families aren't learning three new apps in the same week.

Where Koala Go covers which job, and where it doesn't

Koala Go is the browser-based classroom we build for tutors. Here's which of the six jobs it covers, and on which plan. Koala Free costs nothing, Koala Pro is $25.99/month ($21.99/month billed annually), and Koala Platinum is $49.99/month ($39.99/month billed annually).

  • Teaching room (every plan). Video, a shared whiteboard, a cobrowser (you and the student use the same live webpage together, instead of one of you watching a screen share), and the 3D Playground many tutors use as a brain break or a reward. Students join from your link by typing their name, with no account and nothing to install, and wait in a waiting room until you let them in. Free covers up to 4 students per session with a limited cobrowser. Pro adds PDF and PowerPoint uploads and an unlimited cobrowser, and records lessons to your own computer. Platinum adds cloud recordings of your classes.
  • Booking (Pro and Platinum). Pro includes our scheduling portal. You set weekly availability plus one-off exceptions, send each family an invite link, and they book one-off or weekly lessons, shown in their own timezone. The booked lesson opens your classroom. Platinum adds booking-policy controls (minimum booking notice and cancellation notice), two-way Google or Outlook calendar sync, and booking lessons for a student yourself. We don't send lesson reminders, so the day-before message is still yours to send.
  • Invoicing (every plan). You create an invoice inside the classroom and the parent pays from a link. You invoice in your own currency, and the parent can pay in theirs through the payment platform. Families in mainland China can pay with WeChat Pay. Unpaid invoices have a Send reminder button, and payouts go to your Stripe, PayPal or Wise account. Our fee is 4.5% per invoice on Free, 3.5% on Pro and 0% on Platinum, on top of the payment platform's own fees.
  • Lesson materials (every plan). Lessons are saved as activities (your slides plus their own Playground), so next week starts where this week ended. Free keeps up to 3 activities, Pro and Platinum keep as many as you like. The Koala Marketplace has activities other teachers have published that you can copy into your account. Math tutors get Math Tools on the whiteboard: number rods, number lines, shapes and math symbols on Pro, plus fraction bars and circles, a number roller and advanced symbols on Platinum.
  • Parent updates (partly, on Platinum). Platinum turns cloud-recorded lessons into auto-generated class notes: an AI-drafted lesson report you review in your portal, then download as a PDF or email to the parent. We don't run a parent messaging inbox for independent tutors, so the quick note after each lesson still goes out on WhatsApp, email or whatever the family uses.
  • Records (partly). The portal lists the families connected to you and their booked lessons, and your invoice list shows which invoices are paid. Platinum adds prepaid lesson packages that bookings draw down from. Koala isn't accounting software (no expenses or tax reports), and it isn't a CRM.

Some honest limits. Koala works on an iPad, but it's rougher there than on a laptop. Teaching students in mainland China has known connectivity problems we're still working on; teaching students in mainland China has the details and workarounds. There's no graphing canvas or full equation editor, so advanced STEM tutors often keep a dedicated STEM whiteboard alongside us. And if you teach adults on simple one-to-one video calls, a video app plus Stripe or PayPal invoices may be all you need.

If you're adding tutors and running a company rather than a solo practice, the question changes from "which apps" to "which management software". We cover that, including Koala for Business, on tutoring business management software.

What we'd set up at each stage

  • Your first few students: one free classroom, invoices from the same place or from Stripe or PayPal, your phone for messages, and a spreadsheet. Don't pay for anything yet.
  • A full week of regular students: join booking up with your classroom, so families book from one link and that link opens the lesson. Write down a cancellation policy now (see how to handle no-shows and late cancellations).
  • Prepaid packages and a firm notice period: move the spreadsheet into an app that counts package lessons and holds families to your notice period, so you stop enforcing it by hand.
  • A second tutor: look at tutoring-business management software, because rosters, pay and shared schedules are a different job from running your own lessons.

Questions about whether Koala Go fits your subject and your students are welcome at koala@teachwithkoala.com. You can also try it without installing anything at classroom.teachwithkoala.com.

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