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How do I choose virtual classroom software for online tutoring?

To choose virtual classroom software for tutoring, teach one real lesson on it, with a real student on the device they actually use, and check eight things: how the student joins, whether they can write on the board, whether your own materials open inside the lesson, whether you can use a website together, how it runs on a tablet or a weak connection, what keeps a young student engaged, where recordings go, and how families book and pay. Pick software with a free plan you can teach a real lesson on, so the test costs nothing. Virtual classroom software and a virtual classroom platform are the same thing here: one browser link where the video, the whiteboard and your lesson materials live together.

One warning before you compare. A lot of what you'll find when you search for virtual classroom software is written for corporate training teams and universities, where a class can be dozens or hundreds of people and the priorities are registration pages, breakout rooms, attendance reports and an LMS. A tutor teaching one to four students needs a different shortlist. This page is for tutors who find their own students and teach their own lessons, and for small tutoring companies. We build Koala Go, one of these classrooms, so the page ends with an honest map of where it passes these tests and where it doesn't. Everything before that is the checklist we'd give you whichever software you pick. If you're still deciding whether you need a virtual classroom at all, start with what a virtual classroom is, and how it differs from Zoom.

Software built for training vs. software built for tutoring

Built for training and universities Built for tutoring
Class size Dozens to hundreds of learners One student, or a small group
How people get in Registration pages, accounts, company sign-on A link the parent taps
The main surface The presenter's slides and a grid of faces A whiteboard you and the student both write on
Engagement Polls, quizzes, Q&A and chat Something for the student to do and earn, especially for younger children
What sits around the class An LMS, a course catalog, completion reports Booking, invoicing and updates for families
Devices Work laptops Family tablets, Chromebooks and a parent's laptop

Neither column is better. They're different jobs. If a product's own page leads with webinars, compliance training or LMS integration, it was probably built for the left column. That doesn't rule it out, but test it harder on the eight things below.

The eight things to test in one real lesson

Use a lesson you teach every week, not the vendor's demo, and a real student, or a friend's child if you'd rather not experiment on a paying family. Tell the parent it's a trial of a new room.

1. How the student gets in

Send the link the way you would for real, to the device the family uses.

  • Check: Can the student join from a link without making an account or installing an app? Is there a waiting room, so a student who arrives early doesn't walk into someone else's lesson? Is it the same link every week, so the parent can save it once?
  • Red flag: the parent has to create an account, download something, or hunt for a new link before every lesson.

2. What the student can do on the board

  • Check: Can the student write, type and move things on the same board you're teaching from, without you sharing your screen? Can you switch their pen off when you need their attention, and back on when it's their turn?
  • Red flag: the student can only watch, or every turn on the board starts with a request for control.

3. Your own materials, inside the lesson

  • Check: Upload the PDF or slides you actually teach from. Do they open on the board so you can both write on them? Is the lesson saved, so next week opens where this one ended? Which file types work on the free plan, and which need a paid one?
  • Red flag: your materials only appear through screen share, or have to be set up again every week.

4. Websites you use together

If you teach with reading platforms, online games or worksheet sites, try one in the trial.

5. Tablets, Chromebooks and weak connections

  • Check: Run the trial on the student's own device, not your laptop. Does it work in the browser they already have? Can they use the board with a finger? How does the call behave when the Wi-Fi dips? Ask the vendor what happens when a connection drops mid-lesson, and how it handles students in the countries yours live in.
  • Red flag: it only performs on a recent laptop on a fast line.

6. Something for a younger student to do

  • Check: Younger children need a reason to stay with you for the whole lesson: rewards they earn, something to move or build, a character that's theirs. Watch whether the student's attention holds longer than it does on your current tool. For teenagers and adults this matters less, and a clean board with steady video often wins. More on how this works on what a gamified virtual classroom is.

7. Recordings and lesson notes

8. Booking, billing and families

  • Check: Can a family book from your availability, shown in their own timezone? Does the booking open the lesson room? Can you invoice from the same place, and can a parent in another country pay without trouble? What does each invoice cost you, counting the software's fee and the card fee? Does the software send lesson reminders, or will you? The scheduling side is covered in full on how to schedule online tutoring lessons.

Two questions to put to any vendor before you pay: what does each plan cap (students per session, lesson length, file uploads, saved lessons), and who answers when something breaks in the middle of a lesson?

How to score the trial

Straight after the lesson, while it's fresh, answer three questions. Did the student's attention hold longer than on your current tool? Did you switch windows or apps during the lesson? Could the parent manage the join on their own next week? If the answers are yes, no and yes, the software is doing real work for you. If they come out the other way, keep looking, however good the feature list reads.

If you run a tutoring company

A company with several tutors adds four questions to the eight above:

  • Your brand. Can the classroom carry your name and logo, on your own domain, so families see your business rather than the software's? See white-label online classroom software.
  • Oversight. Can an admin see every tutor's lessons, attendance and recordings in one place?
  • A shared lesson library. Can a lesson one tutor built be handed to another tutor, so nobody rebuilds it from scratch?
  • Your booking system. If you already run one, can it create lessons through an API and get the join links back? See whether a classroom platform has an API for your booking system.

Koala for Business is our version for tutoring companies: a branded classroom on your own domain or a Koala subdomain, a dashboard with your tutors' lessons, attendance and recordings, Copy Activities to give one tutor's lessons to others, and a REST API whose reference is public at business.teachwithkoala.com/docs/api. The standard API is included in the plan; custom development is quoted separately. The management side, from rosters to parent access, is on tutoring business management software.

Where Koala Go passes these tests, and where it doesn't

Koala Go is the browser-based virtual classroom we build for online tutors. 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). Against the eight tests:

  • How students get in. Students open your link, type their name and wait in your waiting room until you let them in. There's no account to make and nothing to install, and your room link stays the same every week.
  • The board. You and your students write, type and move things on the same whiteboard. From each student's video tile you can switch their pen on or off.
  • Your materials. Free takes image uploads; Pro adds PDF and PowerPoint. Lessons are saved as activities, so next week opens where you stopped: Free keeps up to 3, Pro and Platinum as many as you like. Math tutors get Math Tools on the board: number rods, number lines, basic shapes and math symbols on Pro, plus the full 2D and 3D shape set, fraction bars and circles, a number roller and advanced symbols on Platinum.
  • Websites together. The cobrowser is a live browser inside the lesson that you and the student both use, rather than a screen share, and you choose whether each student can control it. Free has a time-limited cobrowser; Pro removes the limit.
  • Tablets and connections. Koala Go runs in the browser on laptops, Chromebooks, iPads and Android tablets, and we keep the video deliberately light so an inexpensive tablet can keep up. It's rougher on an iPad than on a laptop, freezes still happen on weak connections, and students in mainland China run into connectivity problems we're still working on. The details and workarounds are on teaching students in mainland China.
  • Something to do. The 3D Playground, a shared world where each student walks their own avatar. The gems you award in class buy items for it. Many tutors use it as a brain break or a reward, and some teach whole lessons in it.
  • Recordings and notes. Pro records the lesson to your own computer when you press Record. Platinum adds cloud recordings, which run on their own while a student is in the room, and auto-generated class notes: an AI-drafted lesson report you review, then download as a PDF or email to the parent.
  • Booking, billing and families. Invoicing is on every plan. You invoice in your own currency, the parent can pay in theirs through the payment platform, and families in mainland China can pay with WeChat Pay. 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. Pro adds our scheduling portal: you set weekly availability, send each family an invite link, they book in their own timezone, and the booked lesson opens your classroom. Platinum adds booking-policy controls and two-way Google or Outlook calendar sync. We don't send lesson reminders, so the day-before message is still yours.
  • When something breaks. Koala Pro includes live support from a real person on our team.

Where it isn't the right pick: no Koala plan is built for groups larger than four students, so whole classes, webinars and corporate training belong on the large-audience software in the left column above. There's no graphing canvas or full equation editor, so advanced STEM tutors often keep a dedicated STEM whiteboard alongside us. The Playground is still being built out, and requested features like timers are on the roadmap rather than shipped. And if you teach adults on simple one-to-one calls, a video app and a shared document may be all you need.

The trial costs nothing. Open classroom.teachwithkoala.com in your browser and teach one of this week's lessons on Koala Free. If that lesson lives in a PDF or a slide deck, uploading it needs Pro, but you can test joining, the board, the cobrowser and the Playground for free. For our honest read on whether Koala Go fits your subject and your students, write to koala@teachwithkoala.com.

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