Comparison · compiled August 2026
AltEd vs TutorBird and Teachworks
They are good tutoring businesses-in-a-box. But they are built around the tutor, and the family is only ever the payer. AltEd gives the family a record of their own — and still does your scheduling and billing.
The short answer
Two tools, two different jobs
Both of these are real recommendations. If the right answer for you is on the right-hand side, take it.
Choose AltEd if the family needs a record too
AltEd's reason to exist is that your students' education continues when your session ends. If the families you teach are home-educating — planning subjects, tracking hours, preparing for a local-authority conversation — a provider-only tool leaves them keeping a second, worse record in a notebook. AltEd is one record both sides can see.
- You teach home-educating families who need attendance, evidence and a printable education record — not just invoices.
- You are UK-based and want GBP, UK English and local-authority framing rather than a US product you translate in your head.
- You want prepaid session packs that consume themselves as sessions complete.
- You'd rather families settled a balance by card than chased a bank-transfer reference.
Stay with TutorBird or Teachworks if you only need the business side
If you are a solo tutor whose families want an invoice and nothing else, these are the safer, cheaper choice today, and we'd rather tell you that than sell you something you don't need. Our August 2026 analysis rates their scheduling and billing as done well, and they have years of refinement, support material and community behind them that AltEd simply has not had time to build.
- Cheaper on the base tier: roughly $15–17 a month, against AltEd's £19.
- Mature and proven — established products with a long track record; AltEd launched in 2026 and has a small user base.
- Purpose-built for the tutoring business: if the family-side record is irrelevant to you, you'd be paying AltEd for half a product you'd never open.
- A larger body of help documentation, integrations and third-party know-how.
Pricing
What each one costs
| AltEd | TutorBird & Teachworks | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free for one learner — no card, no time limit | Paid from the start; roughly $15–17/month base (as of August 2026) |
| Provider plan | £19/month, or £190/year — unlimited students and families | Base tier around $15–17/month; check current tiers and student limits on their site |
| Percentage of your revenue | None, ever | None that our analysis found — both price as flat subscriptions |
| Cost to the family | Free plan, or £6/month (£59/year) if they want unlimited learners and evidence exports | Not applicable — our analysis found no family-side product to buy |
| Card processing | Stripe's standard fees, passed through with nothing added on top | Card payment supported; the processor's fees apply |
Their prices are quoted in US dollars and ours in pounds, so the gap moves with the exchange rate; both sides also change tiers over time. Treat the figures above as a compiled snapshot from August 2026, not a quote.
Feature by feature
The honest matrix
Rows where AltEd loses are in here on purpose. So are the rows where we simply could not establish the answer.
- Yes — built and working
- Partial or unclear — partly there, or our research couldn't establish it
- No — not available
| Capability | AltEd | TutorBird & Teachworks |
|---|---|---|
| Session scheduling for the tutor | Yes. Two-sided tutoring sessions with recurrence, absence reporting and an approval flow. | Yes. Rated as done well in our analysis — this is their core, and they have been doing it for years. |
| Invoicing and a running balance | Yes. A provider↔family ledger: lesson pricing with volume discounts, automatic session charges, credits with approval, and a shared transaction history. | Yes. Billing is a core strength of both products. |
| Online card payments | Yes. Families settle a balance by card via Stripe; we never see or store card numbers. | Yes. Our analysis records online card payment across the provider tools. |
| Payment reminders | Yes. Reminders go to families with an outstanding balance. | Partial or unclear. Billing automation exists; we did not establish the exact reminder behaviour — check their site. |
| Prepaid session packs | Yes. Sell a block of sessions up front; each completed session consumes one. | Partial or unclear. Our analysis did not establish this either way for TutorBird or Teachworks. It does record prepaid packages as a known gap at TutorCruncher. |
| A learning record the family keeps | Yes. Curricula, lessons, assignments with marking and feedback, a gradebook and a resource library — owned by the family, not by you. | No. Our August 2026 review found no family-side records product; both are described as having no family/records side. |
| Attendance and hours as the family's own record | Yes. Days, hours and what was covered, logged per learner across everything they do — not only your sessions. | Partial or unclear. They track attendance against lessons for billing purposes. Our analysis found nothing that gives the family an education-wide hours record. |
| Portfolio evidence for local-authority reviews | Yes. Photo-and-note evidence entries tagged to subjects, per learner. | No. Not something either product sets out to do; our analysis found no evidence-capture feature and no UK local-authority framing. |
| Printable education record and transcript | Yes. A printable education record and transcript over the marks, hours and evidence. | Partial or unclear. Business reporting exists for the tutor. We did not find a student transcript or education record aimed at the family — check their site if this matters to you. |
| Two-way Google Calendar sync | No. We do not have it. AltEd publishes one-way iCalendar subscription feeds, so your AltEd calendar appears in Google, Apple or Outlook — but changes made there do not come back. | No. Our analysis records missing two-way sync as a long-standing top request at Teachworks. Nobody in this segment has solved it. |
| Multi-tutor staff management and payroll | No. AltEd has one provider account per business today. No staff sub-accounts, no tutor payroll. | Yes. Both serve small agencies as well as solo tutors, so multi-staff working is part of what they do. |
| Mobile experience | Partial or unclear. Responsive web, and it is genuinely usable on a phone — but there is no native app. | Partial or unclear. Our August 2026 review of public feedback flagged mobile as a weak point at TutorBird. |
| Maturity and user base | No. AltEd is young. Small user base, features still landing, and we have not earned a long track record yet. | Yes. Established products with years in the market — though our analysis also describes their roadmaps as stagnant. |
Reasons people switch
What tips the decision, when it tips
Your families keep asking you for the record
Home-educating parents need to show what a child has been learning. When your tool has no family side, that evidence gets rebuilt by hand from your invoices — usually the week before it's needed.
You want packs, not perpetual invoices
Selling ten sessions up front and letting them draw down is kinder to your cash flow and to the family's admin. AltEd does prepaid packs today.
You are in the UK and the product isn't
GBP, UK English, and language that assumes a local authority rather than a school district. Small things, but you stop translating.
Absences stop being an argument
A missed session raises an absence request the other side approves, so what happens to the charge is agreed in writing rather than negotiated over text messages.
How to move across
Switching, without a leap of faith
Step 1
1. Start free, in parallel
Sign in with your email — no password, no card. Set up one learner (or one family) alongside your current tool rather than instead of it. Nothing is cancelled and nothing is at risk.Step 2
2. Re-key what's live, not what's history
There is no automated importer today — we won't pretend otherwise. In practice you only need what's currently running: active students, the subjects they're studying, and your lesson prices. Past invoices are best left where they are, exported as PDFs for your records.Step 3
3. Connect the other side
Families invite providers (or providers invite families) and the other side consents. Consent is what grants access to a learner's records, and a family can withdraw it at any time — so nobody is handing over a child's data on trust.Step 4
4. Run one cycle on both
Schedule a fortnight of sessions in AltEd while your old tool still runs. Confirm sessions from both sides, watch the charges land in the ledger, and take one card payment. If the numbers agree, the switch is proven.Step 5
5. Close the old account — after you've exported
Download your invoices, client list and any reports from your existing tool before you cancel. Once you're on AltEd your records stay exportable too; leaving later should never cost you your history.
FAQ
Questions, answered
About this comparison
Everything on this page about TutorBird and Teachworks was compiled in August 2026 from their public pricing and product pages and from public review sites, as recorded in our internal market analysis. We have not tested their products first-hand. Pricing, plans and features change frequently and may differ by region or add-on — please check tutorbird.com and teachworks.com before making a decision. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we will fix it.
TutorBird & Teachworks is a trademark of its respective owner. AltEd is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by them.
Try it yourself
Try AltEd alongside TutorBird & Teachworks
Running both for a fortnight tells you more than any comparison table — including this one. One learner costs nothing and needs no card.
Free plan · No card needed · Built for UK home education