Preply for Kids: Our Honest Review as a Worldschooling Family
Is Preply good for kids? For our son, yes. After a year of online lessons in maths, Spanish, Russian and chess, Preply for kids has worked better for our family than any online school we considered. It suits children who can focus on a screen for 25 to 50 minutes, and families who want one-to-one tutoring without a school timetable.
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Our son is 10. He has been homeschooled and worldschooled for years, and we have travelled to more than 90 countries as a family. If the idea is new to you, start with what worldschooling actually is.
We have already written about how we keep up with academics while worldschooling. This post goes deeper into one part of that: how we use Preply, what it costs us, what went wrong once, and who we think it suits.
Our Preply Setup at a Glance
| Subject | Lessons per week | Lesson length | Cost per month | How it’s going |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maths | 2 | 25 minutes | About $39 | Working at a 7th-grade level at age 10 |
| Russian | 1 | 50 minutes | About $77 | Started a month ago, too early to judge |
| Chess | 1 | 50 minutes | About $68 | Big improvement in his game |
That comes to about $184 a month for four lessons a week. He also has a second weekly chess class with a private tutor outside Preply. We have used Preply for about a year, and the mix of subjects has changed along the way.
Why We Chose Preply
We started using Preply about a year ago, when we were spending a couple of months in Antigua, Guatemala. We wanted our son to get help with his Spanish while he was surrounded by it.
A full online school was never really an option. He didn’t want one, and we didn’t want to rebuild a school day around a laptop. He was happy to take a few classes, though. Preply let us do exactly that: a handful of one-to-one lessons a week, in the subjects that need structure, with tutors who fit our schedule wherever we were.
Spanish has since finished. Maths, Russian and chess are what he takes now.
📚 Keep track of the tutoring and everything else
Tutor lessons are only part of what a worldschooling child learns. We made our Worldschooling Learning & Travel Planner to keep both sides in one place: academic progress in subjects like maths, and the learning that happens through travel, experiences and your child’s own interests.
It’s 20 pages, and it works whether you follow a curriculum, use tutors like we do, or mix the two.
What Preply Is and How It Works for Kids
Preply is a marketplace. Independent tutors list their subjects, availability and prices, and you book them directly. Preply itself doesn’t teach. It runs the platform, takes payments and offers customer support. Lessons happen in Preply’s own video classroom, which works in a browser or the Preply app.
Language learning is still its biggest category. Most Preply reviews online are written by adults learning a language for themselves. But you can find tutors for maths, chess, music and plenty of other subjects, and many of them specialise in teaching children.
Trial lessons
Every new tutor starts with a trial lesson of 25 or 50 minutes. You pay for it, but the tutor doesn’t receive that fee. Preply’s commission model keeps 100% of every first lesson with a new student. After that, Preply takes between 18% and 33% of each lesson, depending on how many hours the tutor has taught.
If a trial disappoints, you can ask for a free trial replacement with a different tutor. Each account gets up to two of these in total.
Subscriptions and plans
After the trial, you subscribe to that tutor. Here is how a Preply subscription works:
- Each subscription is with one tutor. Three subjects with three tutors means three subscriptions.
- You are charged every 28 days for a set number of lessons. The minimum plan is four lessons per cycle.
- You can’t buy single lessons. You can top up with extra lessons if you run out mid-cycle.
- Unscheduled lessons expire at the end of each cycle.
- You can pause once per cycle for up to 20 days, change your plan, or cancel with no fee.
- You can split a plan into 25-minute lessons. That is how our maths works: two short lessons a week for the price of one long one.
Accounts and age rules
There is no separate child account. The account, the subscriptions and the payments sit with the parent. Preply’s Terms of Service say the platform is for adults. Teenagers aged 13 to 17 can use it only under a parent’s supervision. The terms also say account holders shouldn’t let anyone under 13 use the service.
In practice, this has never been an issue for us. Preply lists thousands of tutors who teach children, including young ones. We tell every tutor upfront that the lessons are for our son, and we give his age. Whether they take on a younger child is up to each tutor. If your child is under 13, read the current terms yourself before you book.
How We Choose a Tutor for Our Son
With so many tutors listed, the filters do most of the work. This is our checklist:
- Subject: start here, then narrow down.
- Availability: filter for times that work in your time zone.
- Super Tutor and Professional tutor: we select both filters.
- Experience with kids: where possible, we choose someone who specialises in teaching children.
- Country: this can matter for a language, for accent and everyday usage.
- Speaks English: so our son can ask questions when he gets stuck.
- Their local time: check that your lesson falls in the tutor’s daytime, not the middle of their night. We learned this one the hard way (more below).
Then we book a trial lesson. It shows us far more than a profile can: how the tutor talks to a child, how they pitch the level, and whether our son comes out of it smiling.
Price depends on the subject, the tutor and where they are based. Tutors who specialise in kids usually charge more. In our case, prices range from about $9 to $18 for a 50-minute lesson.
Maths on Preply: Our Experience
Maths is the subject he has taken longest on Preply, and it is where we have seen the clearest progress. At 10, he is now working on 7th-grade maths.
His tutor charges about $9 for a 50-minute lesson. We split that into two 25-minute lessons a week, so maths costs us about $9 a week, or around $39 a month. It is by far the cheapest subject we pay for, online or in person.
His tutor worked out where his gaps were and built his lessons around them. Homework only comes when they didn’t finish something in class, and it never takes him long.
To be honest, our son doesn’t like maths. That has nothing to do with the tutor. He just isn’t a fan of the subject. But the tutor does a good job of making sure he keeps moving forward, and that is exactly what we need from a Preply maths tutor for kids.
Learning Russian on Preply
Russian is the newest subject. He started about a month ago, with one 50-minute lesson a week at about $18 a lesson.
He already knew some Russian, because I speak it at home. It is also useful day to day in Tbilisi, where we now live. His tutor sometimes gives him easy homework.
It is too early to say how much he is progressing. So far he enjoys it, and languages are one of his favourite things to learn online.
Chess Lessons Online
Chess is the subject he loves most. He has one 50-minute lesson a week on Preply, at about $16 a lesson. He also has a second weekly class with a private chess tutor outside Preply. That tutor is an International Master, so his lessons cost more: about $33 for a one-hour class.
His game has improved a lot since he started. He also plays in over-the-board chess tournaments here in Georgia.
Along with languages, chess is the subject he enjoys most online.
The Tutor Who Didn’t Work Out
Not every tutor has been a success. Our son really enjoyed his Spanish tutor, who was based in Venezuela. Because of the time difference, his lessons fell at night for the tutor. We booked them within the hours the tutor offered. We never asked him to make himself available just for us.
Even so, he often didn’t show up, and later told me he’d had a power outage. I let it slide. Power cuts do happen in Venezuela.
Then, in one lesson, he fell asleep completely, and we couldn’t wake him up. Our son had already told me that the tutor seemed to be nodding off in an earlier lesson. After that, I started to wonder whether the “power outages” had really been missed lessons.
Preply handled it really well. They refunded the last two lessons and gave us a free trial lesson with any tutor we wanted. By then we had left Spanish-speaking countries, so we used it to start Russian instead.
The lesson for other parents: Preply’s support can fix a bad experience, but it can’t vet a tutor’s working conditions for you. Check where your tutor is, and what time it will be there.
How Lessons Work in Practice
Our setup is simple. He uses a laptop, and all of his lessons run directly in the Preply classroom. At home he doesn’t need headphones. When we’re out, for example in a café, he wears them.
Homework is light and occasional. His maths and Russian tutors set small tasks now and then, and they never take him long. Progress is easiest to see in maths, where his tutor tracks the level he is working at.
Using Preply While Travelling
This is where Preply really earns its place for a worldschooling family. We have kept lessons going across time zones, from Central America to Georgia.
Time zones: each move shifts every lesson. Before a big change, look at your tutor’s calendar again and adjust anything that now falls at a bad hour, for you or for them.
Wi-Fi: occasionally the tutor’s connection drops. It doesn’t happen often. On our side, a backup data plan helps when accommodation Wi-Fi is weak. We compared two options in Airalo vs Nomad. New Airalo customers get 15% off with code NEWTOAIRALO15 (valid until December 31, 2026).
Rescheduling and cancelling: under Preply’s cancellation policy, you can cancel or reschedule for free up to 12 hours before a lesson. Inside that window, a cancelled lesson is still paid. Your tutor can still move it if you both agree on a new time. On travel days, check the next day’s lessons the evening before.
What Our Son Thinks
He loves his chess and language lessons. Those are the ones he looks forward to most.
Maths is a different story. He doesn’t like it, and probably wouldn’t in any format. We used to teach him maths ourselves, and it was a constant battle, because he simply didn’t want to do it. With a tutor, that has changed. He is far more open to it, even though it is still not his favourite subject.
Taking maths out of the parent-and-child dynamic has been one of the best things Preply has done for us. What matters to us is that he keeps progressing, and his tutor makes sure he does.
What Preply for Kids Costs: Our Real Numbers
Tutors set their own prices on Preply, so costs vary a lot. Here is what we pay per lesson:
- Maths: about $4.50 for 25 minutes (about $9 for 50 minutes)
- Chess: about $16 for 50 minutes
- Russian: about $18 for 50 minutes
In total that is about $184 a month, for four lessons a week. We pay in euros, so these figures are converted at 1 EUR = 1.1152 USD (27 October 2026) and rounded. We think that is very reasonable for one-to-one teaching.
For comparison, the full-time online schools we came across cost several hundred dollars a month, and some cost up to $1,000. On Outschool, the membership plan for about four group classes a week costs $240 a month, according to its pricing page. His private chess tutor outside Preply charges about $33 for a one-hour class, which averages around $135 a month. You can see how Preply fits into our wider budget in our post on living in Tbilisi with kids.
Pros and Cons of Preply for Kids
Pros
- One-to-one attention, with lessons built around your child’s gaps
- A huge choice of tutors and subjects, including maths and chess
- Much cheaper than a full-time online school
- Works anywhere with a decent connection, across time zones
- Free rescheduling up to 12 hours before a lesson
- Far less screen time than a full online school day
- Support handled our one bad experience fairly
Cons
- No classmates, so no social side
- Tutor quality and reliability vary, so the trial lesson matters
- One subscription per tutor, and unscheduled lessons expire every 28 days
- Late cancellations, inside 12 hours, are still charged
- Tutors who specialise in kids usually cost more
- Preply’s terms are written for adults and teenagers, not young children
The social side is the biggest trade-off for us. In an online school he would at least see the same classmates every day. We cover friendships in other ways, which we wrote about in how worldschooling kids make friends.
Other Options We Looked At
We haven’t used any of these. This is a short summary of how they work, not a review.
Outschool: Outschool runs live, small-group online classes for ages 3 to 18. Teachers price their own classes in credits, and classes run on Zoom. Membership plans start at $60 a month, which Outschool says covers about one group class a week, and go up to $600 a month for about ten. The group format gives kids classmates, which Preply doesn’t. You give up some one-to-one attention in exchange.
A local in-person tutor: this can work well when you stay somewhere for a while. In Tbilisi, our son does robotics, singing, swimming and taekwondo in person. For academics, though, a local tutor ends when you move on. That is exactly when Preply keeps going.
A full-time online school: this gives you a complete curriculum and a fixed timetable. It also means many more hours on a screen and a much higher price. Our son didn’t want one, and the cost was hard to justify for the few subjects we wanted covered.
Who Preply Is (and Isn’t) Right For
We would recommend Preply to kids and adults alike. For children, we think it works best for older kids. Younger children shouldn’t spend too much time on screens, and a 50-minute video lesson asks a lot of a small child.
Preply is a good fit if:
- You homeschool or worldschool and want structure in a few key subjects
- You move between countries and need lessons that move with you
- Your child is learning a language, or has a niche interest like chess
- You want to control the budget lesson by lesson
It may not suit you if:
- You want a complete curriculum handled by someone else
- Your child needs classmates and group work
- Your child is very young or struggles with screens
- Your schedule is so irregular that you’d lose lessons to the 28-day cycle
If you are using Preply for homeschool, check the rules where you live or hold citizenship too. Our guide to whether worldschooling is legal covers the basics. For the rest of the tools we use, see our worldschooling resources guide.
Preply for Kids: Frequently Asked Questions
It has been very good for our 10-year-old. He takes maths, Russian and chess with Preply tutors and has made clear progress, especially in maths. We think it suits older children best, because younger kids shouldn’t spend long stretches on screens.
Preply’s Terms of Service say the platform is for adults. Teenagers aged 13 to 17 can use it under a parent’s supervision, and the terms say account holders shouldn’t let anyone under 13 use the service. There is no separate child account. In practice, we tell each tutor upfront that the lessons are for our son and give his age, and it has never been an issue.
Tutors set their own prices. We pay about $9 to $18 for a 50-minute lesson, and our maths tutor costs about $4.50 for 25 minutes. Plans renew every 28 days with a minimum of four lessons per cycle, with a separate subscription for each tutor.
Our experience has been good. Preply can ask tutors to verify their ID and qualifications, but its terms say it cannot confirm every user is who they claim to be. Choose tutors with strong reviews and experience teaching kids, and use the trial lesson to judge them.
Yes, for free, up to 12 hours before the lesson starts. Inside 12 hours, a cancelled lesson is still paid, although your tutor can move it if you both agree on a new time.
If a trial lesson disappoints, you can ask Preply for a free trial replacement with another tutor, up to two per account. When our Spanish tutor kept missing lessons, Preply refunded the last two lessons and gave us a free trial with a new tutor.
For us, yes. It covers the subjects that need structure, like maths and languages, without recreating a full school day. It works best alongside other learning rather than as a complete curriculum.
Our Verdict
Preply has become the academic backbone of our son’s week. It gives him structure in maths, a new language and the chess he loves, all from a laptop, wherever we happen to be. It isn’t perfect. Tutor quality varies, the subscription model needs a little attention, and it won’t give him classmates. But for a worldschooling family, it is the most flexible and affordable option we have found.
If you want to try it, start with a trial lesson in the subject your child needs most, and use our checklist above to pick the tutor.
