All answers›Online Tutoring Platforms

How do I use Zoom for online tutoring?

Yes. Zoom works for online tutoring, and plenty of independent tutors teach on it every week. Set it up for lessons rather than meetings: give each student their own recurring link, keep the waiting room on, let the student annotate on what you share, and have the family install the Zoom app on the device the student actually uses. Plan around one limit before anything else: on Zoom's free plan, a meeting you host with a student in it ends at 40 minutes, so hour-long lessons need a paid plan on your side. Zoom runs the call well. Booking, getting paid and keeping a young child busy are jobs you'll cover with other tools.

This page is for tutors who run their own practice: you find the students, set the rates and choose the tools. If a tutoring company or marketplace gives you a Zoom link and rules of its own, follow theirs. We build Koala Go, a browser-based classroom for tutors, so the last section says where it fits. Everything before that is how we'd set Zoom up if Zoom is what you're teaching on. Zoom moves its menus around from time to time, so check its help center if a button isn't where we say.

Set Zoom up for lessons, not meetings

  1. Choose your plan by lesson length. On Zoom's free Basic plan, meetings you host with anyone else in them are limited to 40 minutes, one-to-one calls included. Paid plans (Pro and above) run up to 30 hours. The limit follows the host's plan, so it's your account that needs the upgrade, not the family's. Ending the meeting and starting it again gets you through a free trial lesson. In a paid weekly lesson it costs you the last few minutes every time.
  2. Give each student their own link. Your Personal Meeting Room is one permanent link for everyone. That's handy with a single student and awkward with back-to-back lessons, because the next student can arrive while the last one is still there. Zoom also lets you schedule a recurring meeting with "No Fixed Time", which keeps the same link as long as you keep using it. Make one per student and put it in the family's calendar invite once.
  3. Keep the waiting room on. The student waits until you let them in, so nobody walks into the end of someone else's lesson.
  4. Let the student write on what you share. Make sure annotation is switched on in your Zoom settings. Then, while you share your screen or a whiteboard, open More in the sharing toolbar and choose Enable annotation for others. The student opens the annotation tools on their side and can write, draw and stamp on the page you're teaching from.
  5. Let the student share their screen, if you'll need to see their work. On free Basic accounts, Zoom sets screen sharing to the host only by default. If you want to look at an essay draft or a homework portal on the student's own screen, change that before the lesson.
  6. Ask the family to install the Zoom app. Students can join from a link without a Zoom account, but Zoom's requirements for annotation and remote control list its desktop and mobile apps. Have the family install the app on the device the student will actually use, and do a five-minute test call before the first paid lesson.
  7. Tick "Share sound" before you play a video. It's in the screen share window, and under More while you're already sharing. Without it the student sees the video and hears nothing. "Optimize for video sharing" helps when the clip plays full screen.

The Zoom tools that matter in a lesson

  • Screen share with annotation. Share a PDF, your slides or a website, and both of you mark it up. Annotations sit on top of your screen rather than inside the file, so the student can circle, underline and add text over it, but they're marking a picture of your screen: they can't fill in the worksheet's own boxes or drag its pieces around. If you started the share, Save keeps a PNG or PDF of the page with the marks on it, which makes a quick record for the parent.
  • Zoom Whiteboard. A shared board you open in the meeting and can come back to later, so a student's board can carry over from week to week. The free plan includes Whiteboard Basic, with three whiteboards you can edit at a time. That runs out quickly with a full roster. Zoom sells its full Whiteboard plan separately and includes it in its Business plans.
  • Remote control. While you share your screen, you can give the student your mouse and keyboard so they click and type for themselves. Zoom's requirements: the student needs the desktop app on a computer, or the Zoom app on an iPad or Android device. It isn't supported on iPhones, only one person can have control at a time, and ChromeOS isn't one of the platforms Zoom lists, so test a Chromebook before you plan a lesson around it. Remember what you're handing over: Zoom's help page says the person in control can interact with your screen, including installing software or changing settings. Close anything private first, and click your own screen to take control back.
  • Writing by hand. A mouse makes poor handwriting. Zoom's desktop app can share an iPad's screen into the call (over AirPlay, or by cable to a Mac), so you can write in any note app with a stylus. It can also share a second camera, such as a document camera pointed at paper.
  • Small groups. Breakout rooms split a group so pairs can work on their own, and you can drop into any room. Focus mode, which Zoom describes as designed for learning, lets students see you but not each other, while you still see everyone.
  • Recording. Every Zoom plan, the free one included, can record to your own computer; recording to Zoom's cloud comes with paid plans. A local recording is a file you store and share yourself. Ask the parent before you record, and check what your local rules require. More on this in how to record online tutoring lessons.

Common problems tutoring on Zoom, and the fix

  • "The lesson ended at 40 minutes." The host is on the free plan. Upgrade your own account; the family doesn't need to.
  • "The student can't draw on my screen." Check annotation is on in your settings and choose Enable annotation for others while you share. If the student joined from a browser tab, have them try the Zoom app.
  • "I can't hand over control." Remote control has to be switched on in your Zoom settings, and the student needs the desktop app, or the app on an iPad or Android device. It won't work from an iPhone, and some things you can share, such as a Zoom Doc, don't support it.
  • "The student can't hear the video." Turn on Share sound, from the share window or under More while you're sharing.
  • "The next student walked into the lesson." Move each student onto their own recurring link and keep the waiting room on.

What Zoom leaves to you

Zoom is good at the call. The rest of a tutoring practice sits around it, and on Zoom you put that part together yourself:

  • Booking. Families need a way to pick a slot from your availability. Zoom sells this as a separate product, Zoom Scheduler, and plenty of tutors use Calendly or a tutoring management app instead. Whichever you use, check that the booking gives the family that student's link.
  • Getting paid. Invoices and payments live in another tool: Stripe, PayPal, Wise or a tutoring management app.
  • Lesson materials. Worksheets and slides live in your own files rather than in the meeting, so you'll keep a folder per student and open the right one each lesson.
  • A young child's attention. Zoom has reactions and an app marketplace, but the games, rewards and hands-on activities that keep a six-year-old with you for a whole lesson are usually something the tutor brings.

None of that is a reason to leave Zoom. It's the setup you'll be running, so price it honestly: a paid Zoom plan, plus a booking tool, plus whatever you invoice through. The tools tutors usually pair with a video call are on what apps tutors need to run their own tutoring.

When Zoom is the right tool, and when it isn't

Zoom suits you when:

  • You teach teenagers or adults, and the lesson is mostly talking, explaining and marking up a page together.
  • Your families already use Zoom for school or work, so nobody has anything new to learn.
  • You already pay for a Zoom plan for other work.
  • You want a backup for the day your main tool lets you down. Every tutor should have one.

Look at a tutoring classroom when:

  • Your students are young and need to do things in the lesson, not watch you do them.
  • Your students are on iPhones or Chromebooks, where Zoom's remote control isn't supported or isn't listed.
  • You're losing real time each week to the joins between the call, the booking tool and the invoices.
  • You teach students in mainland China. Test any tool from the student's side before you rely on it; teaching students in mainland China has what we've learned.

If you're weighing a move, the best Zoom alternatives for online tutoring compares six options by student age, subject and price, including when staying on Zoom is the right call.

Where Koala Go fits

Koala Go is the browser-based virtual classroom we build for online tutors. It runs the call too, and adds the lesson tools and office basics a solo tutor would otherwise put around Zoom. Here's how it lines up with the points above:

  • Lesson length and links. Koala Free doesn't put a time limit on lessons, and covers up to 4 students per session. You have one classroom link that stays the same every week. Students open it, type their name and wait in your waiting room, with no account and nothing to install.
  • A whiteboard the student works on. Students draw on the board and move the pieces you put on it. You can upload images on every plan, and PDFs and PowerPoints on Pro. Math tutors get manipulatives on the board: number rods, number lines and shapes on Pro, fraction bars and circles on Platinum.
  • A shared website instead of remote control. Our cobrowser is a real browser running in the cloud that you and the student use together. You decide who can click and type: a setting chooses whether students start with control, and you can switch each student on or off from their video tile. Because the shared browser isn't your computer, giving a student control doesn't give them your desktop. On Free a cobrowser session lasts ten minutes, then there's a wait before you can open the next one; Pro lifts the limit.
  • Something for young students to look forward to. The 3D Playground gives each student an avatar in a shared world, and the gems you award in class buy things to put in it. Tutors use it as a brain break, a reward, or the lesson itself.
  • Recording. Pro records to your own computer; Platinum adds cloud recordings of your classes.
  • Booking and invoicing. Scheduling comes with Pro: you set your weekly availability, families book from your invite link, and the booked lesson opens your classroom. Invoicing is on every plan: you invoice in your own currency and the parent pays online, 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.

Koala Pro is $25.99/month ($21.99/month billed annually), and Koala Platinum is $49.99/month ($39.99/month billed annually). We don't send lesson reminders, so the day-before message is still yours.

Some honest limits. Koala works on an iPad, but it's rougher there than on a laptop. Students in mainland China run into connectivity problems we're still working on. There's no graphing canvas or full equation editor, so advanced STEM tutors often keep a dedicated STEM whiteboard alongside us. And if your lessons are mostly conversation with adults, Zoom may be all you need.

You can try Koala Go in your browser at classroom.teachwithkoala.com and teach a real lesson on Koala Free before you decide. If you'd like our read on whether it suits your students, write to us at koala@teachwithkoala.com. We're a small team and we read everything.

Related answers

More answers on this topic