Quick Answer
A tutoring subscription charges a fixed monthly fee to hold a student's regular lesson slot. Billing continues through school holidays because the slot remains reserved, not because sessions are being delivered. Students stay enrolled until they cancel, giving tutors predictable monthly income regardless of how many lessons actually run in a given month.
The structural problem with per-session tutoring is that every lesson is a purchasing decision. A student who feels prepared stops booking. A family going through a busy period skips a week, then two. The subscription model removes that decision point. The slot becomes an ongoing commitment, billed monthly and held automatically.
How does the spot-holding model work?
In a tutoring subscription, the monthly fee pays to hold the student's regular lesson slot, not for a specific number of lessons delivered that month. Friday at 4pm is their slot. As long as the subscription is active, that time is reserved for them. Billing continues through school holidays, exam breaks, and bank holidays because the slot remains reserved.
Session credits are still useful operationally. Each plan allocates a number of bookable sessions per billing period, and the booking calendar enforces that quota. But unused credits expire at renewal. A student who misses a session does not receive a refund; they held the slot and chose not to use it. This must be stated clearly at sign-up and is standard practice across tuition memberships.
How Bizzly handles this
Session quota tracking is tied directly to the Stripe billing cycle. Students with an active subscription can book up to their plan allocation. Lapsed plans block new bookings automatically, with no manual management required.
How should I price tutoring subscriptions by frequency and level?
Tutoring subscriptions typically tier by two axes: session frequency (weekly, fortnightly, twice-weekly) and level or subject (GCSE, A-level, primary). These produce different time commitments and preparation requirements, which justifies different monthly prices. A-level Chemistry involves more preparation per session than primary literacy, so the monthly price should reflect that.
Weekly GCSE Maths
1 session/week
£120/month
A-level Chemistry
1 session/week
£145/month
Twice-weekly GCSE
2 sessions/week
£200/month
Primary literacy
1 session/week
£80/month
An introductory taster session sold outside the subscription reduces the barrier to first contact. New students pay for a single lesson before committing to a monthly plan. Once they subscribe, all subsequent bookings are gated behind the active subscription. The taster converts the enquiry; the subscription retains the student.
Does billing continue during school holidays?
The most common question from tutors considering subscriptions is what to do about school holidays. The answer is operationally simple: close your booking calendar during holiday periods. No sessions are available to book; monthly billing continues because the slot is still reserved. A tutor with 20 students at £80 per month earns £1,600 in August whether they teach three weeks or none.
The key is framing the model correctly at sign-up. Families who understand they are subscribing to hold a slot, not paying per lesson attended, rarely object to holiday billing. Any dispute almost always traces back to a sign-up process that used per-session language. Frame it as a membership for the student's regular time slot from the start.
How do I handle exam season and the pause option?
Exam season creates a natural churn pressure: students finishing GCSEs in May have no obvious reason to continue until September. A pause option changes the dynamic. A student who pauses retains their slot and billing restarts when they return. A student who cancels gives up the slot and would need to re-join from a waiting list if demand is high. The slot-release consequence is the key retention lever: communicate it clearly and most students will choose to pause rather than cancel.
Set your pause allowance to cover predictable breaks: eight to twelve weeks per year covers exam revision and summer. Beyond that, a student who has not restarted billing is unlikely to return, and the slot should be available for someone new.
How Bizzly handles this
Subscription pauses are self-serve. The subscriber triggers the pause from their portal. Billing stops, upcoming bookings cancel automatically, and the subscription remains paused until the subscriber resumes manually. There is no auto-resume date, which means billing only restarts when they are genuinely ready to return.
How do I transition students from per-session to subscription billing?
Start with your five most reliable clients: students who attend every week without prompting, families who pay promptly. These are the easiest to convert because the subscription formalises what is already happening. Position the switch as a benefit to them: secured slot, predictable billing date, self-service management.
Avoid switching all students at once. A gradual rollout lets you refine onboarding messaging before it affects your entire client base. Give families one to two weeks to sign up before a reminder. Families who have not signed up after two reminders may be planning to stop anyway. The subscription switch often surfaces latent churn that was coming regardless.
Related resources
Tutoring subscriptions: common questions
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