Terms & Conditions

You must be at least 18 years old and based in the United Kingdom to use TutorStudio as a tutor. By signing up, you confirm that you meet these requirements.

• You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure.
• You must provide accurate information and keep your profile up to date.
• You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.
• We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or that are used for unlawful purposes.

TutorStudio offers a Free plan and three paid subscription tiers. No payment card is required to start using the Platform.

No hidden fees. On every plan, TutorStudio absorbs Stripe's standard processing fee on UK and EEA card payments — what you charge is what lands in your Stripe balance, gross. International card processing fees (typically 3.25% + 20p, charged by Stripe on cards issued outside the EEA) are passed through to you in the standard way. See Section 5 for the full fee picture.

Free plan. £0/month. TutorStudio retains a 20% commission from every payment processed on your behalf via Stripe Connect, deducted automatically at the time of payment. Up to £200/month of payment volume included. Suitable for trying the Platform with one or two students before committing.

Paid plans. Paid plans take 0% commission and are billed monthly in advance. Pricing shown is the headline subscription; there are no per-transaction fees on UK/EEA card payments on top.

• Starter — £14.99/month, up to £350/month payment volume, 0% commission.
• Growth — £39.99/month, up to £1,000/month payment volume, 0% commission.
• Professional — £99.99/month, up to £2,500/month payment volume, 0% commission.

Quota top-ups of £250 additional payment volume are available for £7 at any time on paid plans. Unused quota does not roll over between billing periods.

Cancelling a paid subscription at any time will return your account to the Free plan at the end of the current billing period. No refunds are issued for partial months.

We may change pricing or commission rates with 30 days' notice. Continued use after the notice period constitutes acceptance of the new pricing.

TutorStudio uses Stripe Connect to process payments from parents on your behalf and transfer funds to your bank account. By enabling payouts, you also agree to Stripe's Connected Account Agreement.

When a parent pays an invoice through the Platform, the payment is collected by TutorStudio via Stripe and transferred to your connected bank account. Payouts are processed on Stripe's standard schedule (weekly on Fridays for UK accounts).

You are responsible for:

• Completing Stripe's identity verification (KYC) accurately and honestly. Providing false information to Stripe is a criminal offence.
• Declaring all income received through the Platform to HMRC and paying any tax owed. TutorStudio is a software tool, not a tax adviser.
• Handling disputes, complaints, or refund requests from parents in a timely and fair manner.
• Ensuring that the lessons and services you invoice parents for are delivered as agreed.

Fees you bear in normal operation:

• UK and EEA card processing fees on payments to you are absorbed by TutorStudio on every plan. You see the full gross amount of each payment in your Stripe balance — there is no per-transaction Stripe fee deducted from your earnings on UK or EEA cards.
• International card processing fees (non-EEA) are passed through to you. Stripe charges approximately 3.25% + 20p on cards issued outside the UK / EEA; that fee is deducted from your balance the same way Stripe charges any merchant. We may revisit this in future, but absorbing non-EEA fees is not currently included in any plan.
• Stripe's original processing fee on refunds is not returned by Stripe when you refund a payment, and is passed through to you on every plan and every card type. TutorStudio absorbs UK/EEA processing fees only on payments that complete successfully — if you subsequently refund that payment, Stripe keeps its original fee and the cost moves to you. This applies whether the refund is full or partial. See Section 6 for the full refund mechanics.
• Stripe's £20 chargeback fee if a parent disputes a charge with their bank (refunded by Stripe only if you win the dispute). This is passed through to you on every plan.
• TutorStudio commission on payments processed, if you are on the Free plan (20%), or your monthly subscription if you are on a paid plan. Paid plans take 0% commission on payments.
• Any costs of paying refunds you record as “external” (e.g. bank transfer fees from your own bank) — TutorStudio does not move money on your behalf in offline-refund flows.

You can issue a full or partial refund to a parent at any time using the refund tool on the invoice or package page. Stripe-processed refunds reach the parent's original payment method within 3–5 business days.

Stripe's processing fee is not returned on refunds. When a parent originally pays you, Stripe deducts a processing fee (typically 1.5% + 20p for UK cards, higher for European or international cards). When you refund the payment, Stripe returns the principal to the parent but does not return its original processing fee. That fee remains as a small cost to you regardless of whether the refund is partial or full. This is standard across every card-payment platform; TutorStudio cannot recover it on your behalf.

Platform commission is returned proportionally. On the Free plan, the 20% TutorStudio commission applied to a refunded payment is returned to the parent in the same proportion as the refund. We do not retain commission on refunded transactions.

Stripe Connect balance. Stripe-issued refunds are debited from your Stripe Connect balance. If your balance is insufficient to cover the refund, TutorStudio will block the Stripe refund and direct you to record an offline refund instead (e.g. by bank transfer paid directly to the parent). This is to prevent Stripe from creating a negative balance on your account, which on some account configurations can lead to Stripe debiting your linked bank account directly to recover funds.

Offline refunds (“Mark refunded externally”). When you record a refund as offline, TutorStudio updates its records to mark the credit as refunded but does not move any money on your behalf. You are solely responsible for paying the refund to the parent (e.g. by bank transfer) and for communicating with the parent about it. Offline refunds cannot be reversed within TutorStudio. Do not also retry a Stripe refund after recording an offline refund — under some Stripe account configurations the Stripe refund may still process at a later time, resulting in the parent being refunded twice.

Disputes and chargebacks. If a parent disputes a charge with their bank, Stripe charges a £20 dispute fee (refunded if you win the dispute, retained by Stripe if you lose) and the disputed amount is held by Stripe until the dispute is resolved. You are responsible for maintaining evidence of lesson delivery and for responding to disputes through the channels Stripe provides. TutorStudio surfaces dispute status in your dashboard but does not represent you in disputes.

Communication with parents. Issuing a refund within TutorStudio sends an automated refund-confirmation email to the parent. You remain responsible for any additional communication with the parent regarding the reason for the refund, the amount, and the timeline.

You are the data controller for the personal data of your students and parents that you enter into TutorStudio. You are responsible for:

• Having a lawful basis for processing that data (e.g. contractual necessity or consent).
• Informing students and parents how their data will be used.
• Responding to subject access or deletion requests from students and parents.

TutorStudio processes this data on your behalf as a data processor. See our Privacy Policy for more detail.

You must not use TutorStudio to:

• Invoice parents for lessons or services not rendered.
• Process payments for anything other than legitimate tutoring-related services.
• Engage in money laundering, fraud, or any other illegal activity.
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to other tutors' data or platform systems.

We aim to keep TutorStudio available at all times but cannot guarantee uninterrupted service. We are not liable for any loss of earnings or other losses arising from planned or unplanned downtime.

To the extent permitted by law, TutorStudio's total liability to you for any claim arising out of or in connection with the Platform shall not exceed the total subscription fees you paid in the 3 months preceding the claim.

We are not liable for: loss of profits; loss of data; indirect or consequential losses; or losses arising from third-party services (including Stripe, HMRC, or payment card networks).

Cancelling a paid subscription. You can cancel your paid subscription at any time from the Settings page. Your paid-plan access continues until the end of the current billing period; we do not offer partial-month refunds. At period end, your account drops to the Free plan automatically — your students, parents, lessons, invoices, and historical data are retained. From that point onwards, the 20% commission applies to new payments, the Free-plan quota cap is enforced, and Free-plan feature limits apply.

Deleting your account. You can permanently delete your TutorStudio account from the Settings page's Danger Zone. Deletion requires your password and (if enabled) your authenticator code, and a literal typed confirmation — we want this to be deliberate. Once you confirm, the action is irreversible.

What deletion does:

• Cancels your TutorStudio subscription immediately (no further charges).
• Permanently removes every student, parent, lesson, invoice, and package on your account.
• Disconnects your Stripe Connect account from TutorStudio. Your Stripe balance and historical Stripe payment records remain with Stripe — see Stripe's account-closure terms.
• Disconnects your Google Calendar integration and removes lesson events TutorStudio created on your calendar (best effort).
• Sends you a confirmation email at the address on file.

What deletion does NOT do:

• It does not refund parents on your behalf. Parents who paid you for unused credit need to be refunded by you (via TutorStudio's refund flow) before deletion is permitted — see below.
• It does not remove data Stripe holds about your historical transactions. Stripe is the merchant of record for those payments and retains records per its own retention policy.
• It does not affect your bank account — any Stripe payouts already in progress will continue per Stripe's schedule.

Pre-flight checks. To protect parents, deletion is blocked while there is outstanding money state on your account. Specifically, you cannot delete your account while you have:

• Open invoices (parents who still owe you money). Mark them paid or void them first.
• Active or draft packages (parents who've paid for credit they haven't yet used). Refund these to the parent first, or wait for the parent to consume the credit.
• Open disputes / chargebacks. Wait for Stripe to resolve the dispute before deleting.

The deletion confirmation page enumerates any blockers and links to where you can resolve each. Once all blockers are cleared, deletion proceeds normally.

Termination by us. We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms, with or without notice depending on the severity of the breach. In rare cases of fraud or risk to parents, we may also force-cancel pending payments and require you to settle outstanding parent obligations before regaining access.

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify you by email at least 14 days before material changes take effect. Continued use of the Platform after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

For questions about these Terms, email [email protected].