The rate
You set it.
No platform floor or ceiling — your rate, your call.
The platform fee
0%.
You keep what the parent pays.
The window
5–9am IST.
US kids after school. Evenings India, mornings US.
Apna vs the rest
- ✓Apna pays in dollars — the others pay in rupees. Parents are American. Money arrives in USD. What you earn is whatever rate you set — at ₹83/$, every $10 is about ₹830.
- ✓Apna takes 0% — most platforms take 18–33%, or set the rate for you. You price your time. Nobody else gets in between.
- ✓Apna shows your profile to parents — most platforms queue you in a dispatcher. Parents browse, message, book you directly. No auto-assignment.
- ✓Apna is tiny — the others are huge. Small first cohort. You'll know the founder by first name.
Why this exists
A small platform, for a specific kind of teaching.
Apna Tutor was built by one NRI parent who couldn't find a good tutor in India for his own kids. Not a dispatcher. Not a content mill. A marketplace where parents browse, and where the teacher shows up as a person — bio, subjects, rates, and a short demo video.
We don't teach you a curriculum. You list what you already teach well — Hindi reading, Devanagari, early math, phonics, homework help, whatever fits. Parents who need that find you.
Three levers that move your earnings.
Typical online-tutor pay in India sits around ₹250–400/hr. On Apna, three things are different — and they stack.
Paid in USD
₹83 per $1.
Parents are American. A $20 session lands at ~₹1,660 in your account — before you've touched your rate.
You set the rate
No floor. No ceiling.
Most platforms price your time for you. Apna doesn't. Charge what you're worth — raise it whenever you like.
0% to the platform
You keep it all.
A $25 session at 0% commission is ₹2,075 to you. The same session at a 25% platform cut is ~₹1,556. Stack that across a month.
₹83/$ used for illustrative conversions. Actual FX depends on your bank / transfer provider.
How it works
From "tell me more" to your first paid session.
We review every profile ourselves before it goes live. It takes a few days, not a single click. As the cohort grows, the bar tightens.
Apply.
Sign up and fill out a short profile — subjects you teach, your rate, a photo, a two-minute demo video, your website or LinkedIn. Twenty minutes.
Reviewed.
We read your profile, watch your demo, and check your link. As the cohort grows we’ll move to a live interview step; today it’s a profile review by a human, usually inside three to seven days.
Live.
If it’s a yes, your profile goes live in search. Parents browse, message you, and arrange a session over WhatsApp.
Paid.
After each session, you and the parent settle directly (Zelle, Wise personal, UPI — whatever works). Platform-handled USD payouts via Wise are on the roadmap; you’ll see the exact fee breakdown before they apply.
Parents trust Apna because every profile is reviewed by a human before it shows up in search. As the cohort grows, the bar moves up — including a live interview step.
A few things worth knowing first.
It's early. We're running a small closed beta with a handful of families. You may have weeks with no bookings. That's real. We're building demand and supply in parallel.
The hours are tight. US school ends around 3–6pm their time, which is 12:30–4:30am IST east coast, 5:30–9:30am IST west coast. Most of our working window is 5–9am IST. If early mornings don't fit your life, this isn't the right platform yet.
Payment is offline during the beta. Every session settles directly between you and the parent — Zelle, Wise personal, bank transfer, whatever you agree on. Apna takes nothing and touches no money. Platform-handled card payment is on the roadmap; when it ships you'll see the fee breakdown before it applies to any session.
Vetting is a profile review today. A human reads your bio, watches your demo, checks your link. As we grow, vetting tightens to include a live interview step. Either way, no auto- approval — every profile is read by a person.
Questions tutors ask us.
How much do Apna tutors actually earn?
You set your own rate — there’s no platform floor or ceiling, and Apna takes 0%. Typical online-tutor pay in India sits around ₹250–400/hr on most Indian platforms; on Apna, parents pay in USD, so at ~₹85/$ even a modest $10 session lands at roughly ₹850 in your account. Whatever rate you name is what you earn, minus any bank or transfer fee if a parent pays via card. Three sessions a week, ten a week, whatever rate — do the math for your own life. We don’t publish averages because we don’t have enough data yet.
Why 0%? What’s the catch?
Apna was built by an NRI parent, not an investor-backed company. We don’t have a take-rate because we don’t need one — the founder pays the small hosting bill himself while we’re tiny. If that changes later, we’ll tell you before it changes, not after. You’ll never see a fee appear on a session you already agreed to.
I got approved but no parent has messaged me in two weeks. Did I do something wrong?
Probably not. This is a closed beta — we have a small handful of families right now, and supply sometimes runs ahead of demand for a given subject. If you’re in a slow category (say, fifth-grade math when most parents want Hindi reading), you’ll wait. We tell every approved tutor this up front. If a month goes by with zero messages, we’ll personally reach out and help — either with profile tweaks or by flagging your listing to new parents.
Do I have to work 5–9am IST? Can I do evenings India time?
The majority of our parents are in the US Pacific and Eastern time zones, which means 5–9am IST is where the demand is. A few families on the US east coast book evening IST slots (their after-dinner time is your late evening), but those are rare. If mornings don’t work for your household for three or more sessions a week, we’ll probably ask you to come back when we’ve grown into more time zones. We’d rather say that than waste your interview.
I already teach on Vedantu / UrbanPro / Preply. Can I also be on Apna?
Yes. Apna is non-exclusive. Many of our beta tutors also have listings elsewhere. We only ask that when you’re teaching an Apna parent’s kid, your availability is real — don’t double-book a slot you promised us. Most tutors who join find Apna replaces one or two low-paying platforms over time, not all of them.
How do I actually get paid, and in what currency?
During the beta, every session is offline — you and the parent settle directly (Zelle, Wise personal, bank transfer, UPI if the parent’s routing through one, whatever works). Apna takes nothing and touches no money. Platform-handled card payment is on the roadmap but not live yet; when it ships, you’ll see the exact fee breakdown before it applies to any session.
What if a parent cancels, or doesn’t pay?
For offline sessions, our cancellation norm is 24 hours notice — parents can reschedule freely, but last-minute cancels should be paid at half rate. We make this clear to parents at booking. For no-shows and non-payers: report it through your dashboard and we’ll investigate by hand. Because we’re small, these cases are handled by a human within 24 hours, not a ticket queue. No arbitration forms.