Jonas has been tutoring for five years. He teaches maths and physics to secondary school students, from year 7 through to year 12. For a long time, his workflow was simple enough: students would text him, he would add the session to Google Calendar, and he would try not to forget anything. Sounds reasonable, but in practice it was messy.
Every week he spent roughly four to five hours just coordinating times, sending reminders, and keeping track of who had paid and who still owed him. Lessons would occasionally overlap. Students would forget to show up because there was no reminder other than their own memory. And every time Jonas tried to take on a new student, he had to manually scan his entire week looking for a gap, then go back and forth over messages to confirm.
What changed
In January, Jonas decided to try Tutlio. He spent about an hour during the first week setting up his working hours and lesson types. After that, things started running almost on autopilot.
Students now book themselves through a link Jonas shares with them. The system sends automatic reminders 24 hours before each session. Payments are tracked in one place, so Jonas can see at a glance who has an outstanding balance and who has paid ahead.
The numbers speak for themselves
Within the first month, admin time dropped from four to five hours a week to about half an hour. Jonas started accepting more students because he could clearly see where he had availability. No-shows went down by nearly 60 percent, because the automatic reminders did their job.
After three months, the results looked like this:
- Student count went from 15 to 22
- Monthly income rose from 1,200 EUR to 1,560 EUR
- That is a 30 percent increase without raising the hourly rate
And that is the important part: Jonas did not charge more per hour. He simply managed to fit more lessons into his schedule because the chaos of manual coordination was gone.
In Jonas's own words
"I used to think tools like this were too expensive or too complicated. But when I actually calculated how much time I was spending writing messages and checking payments, I realised it was costing me money. Now I can focus on what I actually enjoy doing: teaching."
Three things Jonas recommends to other tutors
- Set clear working hours and do not bend them for every individual student. When you have a defined schedule, students adapt to it.
- Let students book available slots themselves. It saves your time, and it also reduces no-shows because people pick a time that genuinely works for them.
- Review your stats every month. If you notice that lessons at a certain time are frequently cancelled, maybe it is worth removing that slot and offering a different one instead.