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For tutors & coaches

Before you sign that tutoring contract, check these four things.

A tutoring or coaching agreement — whether direct with a family or through a platform — usually looks simple: sessions, a rate, a schedule. What it often leaves vague is what happens when a session is cancelled last-minute, who's liable if something goes wrong during a lesson, and whether you're free to keep a client if the platform relationship ends. Here are the four worth checking.

The four things worth settling in writing

  1. Payment & cancellation policy — Look for what happens on a late-cancel or no-show — a fair agreement pays you for the session (or a partial fee) if cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice; a silent contract usually means you absorb the loss.
  2. Scope of sessions — Open-ended language (“tutoring and related academic support as needed”) can expand a one-subject engagement into unpaid extra work — a defined subject, level, and session length keeps the scope where you agreed to it.
  3. Liability — If sessions happen in a home or involve minors, check who's responsible if something goes wrong during a session — this is worth a clear line in writing, not an assumption.
  4. Non-solicitation / non-circumvention — If you're working through an agency or platform, check whether it restricts you from continuing with a client directly after the engagement ends — an unbounded version of this clause can cost you a client relationship you built yourself.
Illustration of an open book with an orange checkmark on the right page
Tutoring Agreement.pdfPage 1 of 3
Example
Low risk— mostly standard terms — low concern

This tutoring agreement is short and mostly ordinary, but it is silent in the places that decide what a cancelled session costs you and how wide the work can grow.

Lower riskHigher risk
Against youMedium · Payment

No fee for a late cancellation

A session cancelled an hour beforehand is time you have already set aside and usually cannot re-sell, so a blanket no-fee rule puts every late cancellation on you.

Ask for

Ask for a notice window — commonly 24 hours — with the session payable in full, or at a reduced rate, inside it.

  • Sessions are described as open-ended supportMedium · Scope
  • Responsibility for a minor is defined by who is presentLow · Liability
See the full sample analysis →

Check the agreement before the first lesson

Tutoring agreements are short, which is exactly why the gaps in them are easy to miss — a cancelled session, an expanding subject list, a client you are not sure you may keep. Free: your first analysis, no card, no deadline to use it. Every analysis returns a clause-by-clause risk read, the protections this kind of agreement usually has that yours may be missing, and a “Read these first” summary of the heaviest issues — plus a PDF you can keep for your records.

Analyze my contract — free
  • Encrypted in transit & at rest
  • Files auto-deleted after 30 days
  • Never used to train models
  • Informational — not legal advice

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