Best Tutoring Scheduling Software in 2026: What Each Costs as You Grow

The best tutoring scheduling software in 2026, by type of business

No single platform wins for every tutoring business. Here is who each one suits, with the tradeoff that comes with it.

Five platforms are priced here, one for each billing model we found on vendor pages. Other tools that ranking guides name, such as Tutorbase, Classcard, Calendly and Cal.com, were not priced first-party for this guide, so they are left out rather than quoted second-hand.

TutorBird: lowest-cost all-in-one for solo tutors and small teams

TutorBird costs $16.95 a month for the first tutor and $4.95 for each additional tutor or staff member, the price its pricing page shows US visitors. That page promises "All Features Included in One Simple Price": student records, a calendar with attendance, make-up credits and lesson notes, automatic invoicing and online payments, payroll tracking, a student portal where families book within your availability, and a website builder. SMS reminders cost nothing extra, students are unlimited, and the 30-day free trial needs no card.

Tradeoff: the per-person fee counts staff as well as tutors, so a front-desk coordinator adds $4.95 a month too. TutorBird also offers a full refund if you cancel within your first 90 days.

Teachworks: for centers that bill lessons, run payroll and add branches

Teachworks charges a plan fee plus a fee for every student lesson: Starter is $16.49 a month plus $0.320 per student lesson, Growth $47.99 plus $0.189 and Premium $187.99 plus $0.065, charged in US dollars after each month based on that month's usage, per its pricing page. Students, teachers and user accounts are unlimited on every plan. Premium includes five branch accounts and charges $35 a month for each added branch, and API access starts on Growth. Its calendar schedules repeating lessons for individuals or groups and records attendance, wages and lesson notes.

Tradeoff: the bill rises with every lesson you teach, and a lesson with two students counts as two student lessons. The free trial runs 21 days.

TutorCruncher: for agencies that pay a roster of tutors

TutorCruncher is built for tutoring companies that collect from families and pay tutors: automatic payments and payroll, split payments, lesson reports and email and SMS lesson reminders. Its US pricing page lists Pay as you go from $30 a month, Startup from $80 and Enterprise from $240, exclusive of tax. Card payments taken through TutorCruncher cost 3.85% on Pay as you go and 3.5% on Startup, with an extra 1.5% on international cards and a 2% fee on American Express, prepaid and some other cards.

Tradeoff: the base fee is not the whole bill. TutorCruncher charges a fee of 1% on Pay as you go, 0.65% on Startup and 0.5% on Enterprise on lessons that are not paid through its integrated online payments, and its US pricing calculator adds the same 1% or 0.65% of monthly revenue to the base fee as a "Revenue %" line. SMS is charged per message, each extra branch is $50 a month, and the free trial lasts two weeks.

Setmore: a free start, with repeating lessons on Pro

Setmore Free costs $0 for up to 4 users, with unlimited appointments, email confirmations and one email reminder per booking, and it takes both one-on-one services and group classes. Pro costs $12 per user a month on monthly billing or $5 per user billed annually, and adds recurring appointments, SMS reminders with 500 credits a month per Pro team member, deposits, two-way calendar sync and video appointments, per Setmore's pricing page. Our Setmore pricing breakdown goes further.

Tradeoff: Setmore counts each staff calendar as a user even if that person has no login, so a tutor who only needs to appear on the schedule still costs a seat on Pro.

Acuity Scheduling: a booking page priced by calendar count

Acuity Scheduling prices by the number of calendars, one per tutor or location: Starter is $20 a month for 1 calendar, Standard $34 for up to 6 and Premium $61 for up to 36, or $16, $27 and $49 a month billed annually, in US dollars before tax, per its pricing page. Every plan takes payments through Stripe, Square, PayPal or Venmo and sends email reminders; Standard adds text reminders, packages and memberships, gift certificates and a waitlist. See our Acuity Scheduling pricing comparison for the detail.

Tradeoff: the seventh calendar moves the bill from $34 to $61 a month, Starter's plan card lists no text reminders, there is no free plan (only a 7-day trial), and Acuity's pricing page does not list tutor payroll.

What tutoring platforms cost, and the unit each one bills on

Here is each platform's published rate card, read first-party on October 2, 2026. The billing-unit column matters most, and it is the column most ranking guides leave out.

Table 1. Published rates read on each vendor's pricing page on October 2, 2026, in US dollars. Card processing, SMS add-ons and extra branches are not included.

Two things stand out. The paid entry prices sit between $12 and $30 a month, which makes the market look uniform. It is not: no two of these platforms bill on the same unit, so the entry price says little about what you will pay in month twelve.

Which meter will your tutoring business grow on?

Work out which number will rise over the next year, then look hard at the platforms that charge for it.

Adding tutors

Per-person pricing is the meter to watch. Setmore Pro at $12 per user is $60 a month for 5 tutors and $144 for 12 on monthly billing, and every staff calendar counts. TutorBird's $4.95 per extra tutor climbs more gently: $36.75 for 5 tutors and $71.40 for 12. Acuity steps by calendar tier rather than by person. For how per-seat pricing works across booking tools, see our guide to appointment software with no seat fees.

Adding lessons

Per-lesson pricing is the one to model. Teachworks adds $0.320, $0.189 or $0.065 per student lesson to its plan fee, and its FAQ sets the counting rule: a lesson with 1 student is 1 student lesson, a lesson with 2 students is 2, and cancelled lessons are not counted. On Growth, 100 one-to-one lessons cost $66.89 a month; the same 100 lessons taught to pairs count as 200 student lessons and cost $85.79.

Collecting more revenue

TutorCruncher is the platform to model with your own numbers. Its US calculator adds 1% of monthly revenue on Pay as you go and 0.65% on Startup to the base fee, so Startup costs less once revenue passes about $14,286 a month. The pricing page ties that rate to lessons not paid through TutorCruncher's integrated online payments and charges 3.85% or 3.5% on card payments taken through them. It does not spell out how a mix of card and offline payments is billed, so confirm that with TutorCruncher before you sign. A center billing $20,000 a month that collects outside TutorCruncher would pay $210 a month on Startup, against an $80 headline.

Opening another location

Branches have their own price on both operations platforms. TutorCruncher charges $50 a month per extra branch. Teachworks includes five branch accounts on Premium and charges $35 a month for each one after that. TutorBird's and Setmore's pricing pages print no branch fee, and Acuity counts a location as a calendar.

Sending more text reminders

Text reminders are where small fees hide. TutorBird includes SMS reminders in its price, Setmore Pro includes 500 SMS credits a month per Pro team member, Acuity lists text reminders from Standard up, and TutorCruncher charges per message. To size the texts a schedule needs, see how to count the reminder texts your plan must cover.

What the bill looks like at 1, 5 and 12 tutors

Here are three worked examples priced from the same rate cards: a solo tutor teaching 60 one-to-one lessons a month, a small center with 5 tutors and 400 lessons, and a growing center with 12 tutors and 1,200 lessons. Each figure is the monthly bill on monthly billing, before tax and card processing. TutorCruncher's revenue fee needs a lesson price, so the example uses a hypothetical $50 lesson.

Table 2. Worked example, not a measured average. Monthly billing in US dollars, computed from the Table 1 rates read October 2, 2026; card processing, SMS add-ons and taxes excluded. TutorCruncher figures assume families pay outside TutorCruncher, so only its 1% or 0.65% fee applies; lessons paid by card through TutorCruncher carry its 3.85% or 3.5% card fee, which is not modeled. On annual billing Setmore Pro would be $5, $25 and $60.

The spread is the point. For a solo tutor the bills run from $12 to $60, and the choice barely matters in dollars. At 12 tutors and 1,200 lessons they run from $61 to $470, and the gap comes from the billing model, not from how well each platform books a lesson.

The honest counterpoint: the two most expensive bars also do the most. Teachworks and TutorCruncher run tutor payroll, which neither Acuity's nor Setmore's pricing page lists. Whether that is worth $204.99 to $409 a month more than the Acuity bill in the 12-tutor example depends on whether you employ tutors or simply book your own lessons.

Where Teachworks plans cross over

Teachworks' three plans trade a higher monthly fee for a lower per-lesson rate, so each pair of plans crosses at a lesson count. Teachworks bills after each month based on that month's usage and lets you upgrade or downgrade at any time, so it pays to know where your count sits. The crossovers come straight from the published rates.

Starter and Growth cross at 240.5 student lessons a month: from 241 lessons, Growth costs less despite its higher fee. Growth and Premium cross at 1,129 student lessons. A center teaching 400 student lessons on Starter pays $144.49 when Growth would cost $123.59, which is $20.90 a month or $250.80 a year for not switching. The reverse mistake costs more: at 600 student lessons, Premium is $226.99 against $161.39 on Growth.

Table 3. Teachworks monthly bill by plan, computed from the plan cards on its pricing page read October 2, 2026 (US dollars).

One more trap: Teachworks' pricing page code also carries an older set of figures, $15, $45 and $175 a month with $0.25, $0.15 and $0.05 per student lesson and $30 per extra branch, and a plan calculator in that code holds a Starter price of $15 a month. At least one top-ranking guide, from tutoring software vendor Classcard, quotes those older numbers. Budget from the plan cards: on Growth at 400 student lessons, the older set gives $105 a month against $123.59 on the cards, 15% less.

Free plans and trials for tutors

Only one platform in this set has a free plan. Setmore Free costs $0 for up to 4 users with unlimited appointments and email reminders, while recurring appointments, SMS reminders and deposits stay on Pro. Weekly standing lessons are the core of most tutoring schedules, so check that limit first.

The others offer trials: TutorBird for 30 days with no card, plus a full refund if you cancel within your first 90 days; Teachworks for 21 days; TutorCruncher for two weeks; and Acuity for 7 days with no credit card.

SimplyBook.me also publishes a free plan, but its pricing page showed only Canadian dollar prices to our reader on October 2, 2026, so it is not priced here.

Which tutoring features each platform lists

Tutoring adds needs that a plain booking page may not cover: lessons for pairs or small groups, standing weekly slots, reminders families read, and a way to pay tutors. Table 4 shows what each platform's own pages list. "Not stated" means the pages we read do not mention it, not that the product lacks it.

Table 4. Features as listed on each vendor's pricing, feature and help pages read October 2, 2026 (all listed under Sources). "Not stated" means not on the pages read.

Tutoring management platform or booking tool?

The roundups mix two kinds of product, which is why their rankings disagree. Tutoring management platforms (TutorBird, Teachworks and TutorCruncher) run the back office: family invoicing, tutor pay, attendance and lesson records. General booking tools (Setmore and Acuity) run the front door: a public booking page, availability, reminders and payment at booking.

The test is one question: do you pay other people to teach? If you do, matching tutor pay to delivered lessons by hand stops working after a few tutors, and a management platform earns its meter. If you teach every lesson yourself, or your tutors are paid outside the software, a booking tool covers scheduling for less, and our wider roundup lets you compare general booking tools across industries.

The costly mistake is buying a management platform because it topped a list, then paying a per-lesson or revenue meter for payroll features nobody uses.

Where Twizzlo fits a tutoring business

Twizzlo is web-based booking software for appointment-based businesses, so it sits with the booking tools and books lessons as one-to-one appointments. Families book from your link, prepay the full lesson price online if you require it and reschedule within your booking rules; each tutor gets a schedule, and each client profile keeps notes and visit history. Twizzlo's tutoring scheduling software page shows the setup for tutors. Both plans include unlimited staff and locations. Online payments carry your Stripe processing rate plus a 1.5% Twizzlo platform fee.

Twizzlo Free

Twizzlo Free is $0 a month for up to 150 bookings, free forever rather than a trial, with email confirmations and reminders but no SMS. A solo tutor teaching 60 lessons a month fits inside it.

Twizzlo Business Pro

Twizzlo Business Pro is $29.99 a month per business for unlimited bookings, with 50 SMS a month included and $0.03 for each SMS after that. It includes every Twizzlo feature and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Adding a tutor or a second location does not change the price.

What Twizzlo costs in the same three examples

Using the same three tutoring businesses, with one SMS reminder per lesson on Business Pro:

Table 5. Worked example from Twizzlo's pricing page, read October 2, 2026. The platform fee is 1.5% of online payments; Stripe processing is charged at your own Stripe rate and is not shown.

The last column is the one to watch: when every family prepays online, the 1.5% platform fee is the largest line in the bill, larger than the subscription.

What Twizzlo's features page does not list

Twizzlo's features page does not list recurring lesson series, group lessons, lesson packages, video lesson links, family invoicing or statements, tutor payroll, attendance tracking or a separate parent portal. A center that needs those should start with the tutoring management platforms above. Twizzlo fits one-to-one tutoring where families book and pay lesson by lesson: see Twizzlo's features page and Twizzlo's pricing page, or start on the Free plan.

How to choose in four questions

1. Do you pay other people to teach? If yes, shortlist TutorBird, Teachworks and TutorCruncher. If no, start with a booking tool.

2. Count student lessons the vendor's way. Below 241 a month, Teachworks Starter is its cheapest plan; from 241 to 1,129, Growth; from 1,130, Premium.

3. Count calendars, not logins. Setmore bills every staff calendar as a user, and Acuity jumps from $34 to $61 at the seventh calendar.

4. Follow the money. If families pay inside the platform, revenue and card fees can pass the subscription, so get them in writing before you sign.

To see general booking tools side by side, browse our booking software comparisons.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and methodology

Method: prices, plan limits and features were read on each vendor's own pricing, feature or help pages on October 2, 2026, in US dollars; TutorBird's US price is the US entry of the price table on its pricing page, and taxes are extra where the vendor says so. Tables 2 and 5 and Figure 1 are worked examples for three hypothetical tutoring businesses; TutorCruncher's revenue fee and Twizzlo's platform fee use a hypothetical $50 lesson, and the TutorCruncher figures assume families pay outside TutorCruncher. No product was tested hands-on.

How Twizzlo researches and compares software is set out in our editorial policy.

• TutorBird pricing page: price per tutor and staff member (US entry), features, SMS reminders, trial and refund, read October 2, 2026.

• TutorBird calendar and attendance page: groups, Student Portal booking, attendance, make-up credits, lesson notes and reminders, read October 2, 2026.

• TutorBird getting started guide: lessons set to repeat each week, read October 2, 2026.

• TutorBird integrations page: Zoom and other meeting links on the calendar, Lessonspace, read October 2, 2026.

• TutorBird invoices and payments page: packages of tutoring hours, read October 2, 2026.

• Teachworks pricing page: plan cards, per-student-lesson fees, counting rule, branches, currency, trial and the older figures in the page code, read October 2, 2026.

• Teachworks calendar page: repeating lessons, individuals or groups, website booking, attendance and lesson notes, read October 2, 2026.

• Teachworks integrations page: online lessons through Zoom, Google Meet and Skype, read October 2, 2026.

• Teachworks billing page: prepaid packages of hours, read October 2, 2026.

• TutorCruncher US pricing page: base fees, card and offline-payment fees, built-in video, branches, SMS and trial, read October 2, 2026.

• TutorCruncher US pricing calculator: base fee plus the Revenue % line (1% Pay as you go, 0.65% Startup), read October 2, 2026.

• TutorCruncher help: repeating lessons: weekly or daily repeating lessons, read October 2, 2026.

• TutorCruncher help: clients booking lessons: booking from the client dashboard and the website, read October 2, 2026.

• TutorCruncher help: Zoom: tutors add their own Zoom accounts, read October 2, 2026.

• TutorCruncher help: packages: packages that clients buy, read October 2, 2026.

• Setmore pricing page: Free and Pro limits, per-user prices, the staff-calendar user rule, SMS credits and features by plan, read October 2, 2026.

• Acuity Scheduling pricing page: plans by calendar count, monthly and annual prices, trial and plan features, read October 2, 2026.

• Acuity help: recurring appointments: clients booking repeating appointments, read October 2, 2026.

• SimplyBook.me pricing page: free plan listed; Canadian dollar prices only from our location, so no figure used, read October 2, 2026.

• Classcard's guide to online tutoring scheduling software (cited by name, not linked): the older Teachworks figures it quotes, read October 2, 2026.

• Twizzlo's pricing and features pages (twizzlo.com/pricing/ and twizzlo.com/features/): Twizzlo plans, the 1.5% platform fee and features, read October 2, 2026.

Vendor prices change. Everything above was read from each vendor's own page on October 2, 2026; check the live pricing page before you sign up or switch.