Tutor Policy

To offer Tutoring Services on the Heylama marketplace, you must read, understand and agree to be bound by the Heylama Tutor Policy.

The terms used in this policy follow the definitions provided in the Heylama Terms of Service.

In case you do not accept this Tutor Policy in its entirety, you’re not authorized to offer tutoring services on the Heylama Platform. To publish your tutor profile, hold tutoring lessons and receive your earnings, you must accept this Tutor Policy in full.

This Tutor Policy serves as a guideline for Heylama Tutors and attempts to set the expectations for what constitutes ethical, open-minded, and professional behavior and communication. Heylama tutors and students come from all over the world, and we strive to ensure to build a learning environment that promotes tolerance towards all cultures and backgrounds.

If you decide to teach on Heylama, you hereby agree and acknowledge that you accept this tutor policy and that your relationship with Heylama is limited to being a registered user of the platform and an independent, third-party tutoring service provider and not an employee or partner of Heylama for any reason. You act solely on your behalf and for your own benefit and do not represent Heylama or act on behalf of Heylama. While we do our best to ensure a safe, high-quality and friendly experience for all users, Heylama does not control and has no right to control your profile information, your listing (“lesson type offerings”), your activities associated with your profile or listed lesson types (services), or any other matters related to any services that you provide. As an independent tutor on our platform, you agree to take a full responsibility for observing and abiding by your local tax and social security regulations.

1. Tutor Registration: joining Heylama as a tutor

To become a Tutor, you must submit a Tutor Application accessible on our website and pass a personal interview. The Heylama Tutor Operations team reviews tutor applications runs personal interviews and decides whether to approve or reject your application. The approval decision criteria include but are not limited to, your experience, your education, the languages you speak, the accuracy of the information provided in the application, and others.

If your Tutor Application is approved, you will be granted access to the Heylama platform and your dashboard and start setting up your tutor profile and payment account with our payment service provider. Please keep in mind that the account setup and verification with our payment service providers depend on the terms and conditions of these providers. You must comply with their requirements to finish the KYC and payment account set successfully.

Once you set up your profile, including lesson types and availability, and your payment profile, you’ll be able to publish your account and start accepting students.

2. Your tutor profile and description of tutoring services

You have full control over writing your profile and service descriptions (“descriptions”). As long as they meet the conditions set in the Terms of Service and this Tutor Policy, descriptions will be published and visible to the platform users. You agree to follow the following rules:

Write a clear description of the lessons and tutoring services you can provide
To set realistic expectations that you can satisfy or exceed
Do not offer services with the intent to commit fraud or mislead the students.
Do not circumvent the platform to improve your ratings or reviews artificially
Do not include any personal information on your profile, including, but not limited to, email, phone number, social media profile links, Skype, Instagram, Twitter, or Telegram handles.

3. Lesson requests

Once students decide to book a lesson with you and order it, the system will generate a lesson request that you, as a tutor, need to accept. Once you receive a lesson request from a student, you agree:

Manage all lesson requests exclusively on the Heylama platform
React to lesson requests or any other communication from students or Heylama as promptly as you possibly can
To accelerate dispute resolution, you agree to maintain a record of all important details of the communication between you and your students. If disputes arise, Heylama will investigate from the perspectives of both the student and tutor and having screenshots or any other details corroborating your statement would be highly appreciated.
To offer the best student experience, you agree not to ignore lesson requests but always respond with “accept,” “decline”, or “reschedule” options.
Keep your availability up to date to ensure that lesson requests are not canceled unnecessarily.

4. Lesson policy

As a tutor, you agree to comply with all the following policies related to providing live lessons:

Once you confirm a lesson, you enter into a commitment with your student. You agree to communicate with each Student in case of any changes proactively. If you cannot attend the lesson, you commit to rescheduling the lesson first and cancel the lesson only as a last resort.
You’re responsible for notifying your students of any changes or your unavailability. Take proactive and early steps to communicate with your students, especially if they already have booked lessons with you.
Be on time. You agree to adhere to the highest professional standards and join your lessons on time. We recommend joining 2-5 minutes ahead of time when possible. If you know that you’re running late, you commit to proactively communicating it to your students
Initiate proactive communication with new students. First-time students might need extra support. You commit to initiating proactive communication with all your new students.
Stay online for the entire lesson duration even if the students didn’t join. Unless otherwise agreed with the student, you must stay online for the entire duration of the booked lesson. If you agreed with the student that the lesson wouldn’t take place, you must make and maintain a record (screenshot, messages, email, etc.) confirming this agreement. That said, you’re NOT expected or required to make up for the lost time if the student joins late
As a tutor, you can reschedule lessons at any moment, even on short notice or after it happened (for example, when your student couldn’t come). If the student fails to show up and asks you to reschedule the lesson, it’s entirely up to you whether to agree or reject this request.

5. Cancellation and rescheduling

Accepting a lesson is a commitment between you and your student. If you can’t deliver the tutoring service, you have to act promptly:

You agree to proactively communicate with the student and agree on the best course of action
You must inform your student that the lesson can’t take place
You must try to find a better time in the future and initiate rescheduling
You must resort to lesson cancellation only if rescheduling fails
If the time until the lesson is less than 24 hours, you commit to cancel or reschedule only after informing the student
Canceling or rescheduling lessons scheduled to take place in the lesson than 24 hours must happen only if initiated by the student or in emergencies.

6. Payment and Earnings

6.1 Fees Structure

6.1.1. Tutors engaged on the Heylama platform are considered independent tutors and not employees or contractors of Heylama. As such, tutors are responsible for managing their own schedules, lesson plans, and related activities.

6.2.2. Heylama acts as an intermediary between tutors and students, providing the platform and services necessary for conducting lessons and facilitating payments. In exchange for these services, Heylama charges a fee for each lesson conducted by the tutor ("Heylama Fee").

6.2.3. The Heylama Fee is determined on an individual basis for each tutor and may range between 15% to 30% of the lesson fee. The specific Heylama Fee percentage applicable to a tutor shall be communicated and agreed upon between Heylama and the tutor prior to the commencement of the tutor's services on the platform.

6.2.4 Tutors's earnings shall be paid via Stripe, a third-party payment processing service. Payments shall be made on a monthly basis, subject to applicable transaction fees imposed by Stripe or other relevant financial institutions. Tutors are responsible for ensuring they have an active and valid Stripe account in order to receive payments.

6.2.5. It is the responsibility of each tutor to comply with all applicable tax regulations and reporting requirements in their jurisdiction. Tutors acknowledge that they are responsible for any taxes, levies, or fees associated with their earnings from the Heylama platform, and agree to indemnify Heylama from any liability resulting from the tutor's failure to properly manage their tax obligations.

6.2.6. Heylama reserves the right to modify the fees and compensation structure at its sole discretion. In the event of any changes to the fees or compensation structure, Heylama shall provide reasonable notice of 30 days to affected tutors.

6.2 Platform circumvention

As a tutor on the Heylama marketplace, you commit not to circumvent the platform and handle all financial matters exclusively via the payment service provided by Heylama. Circumvention of the platform leads to immediate suspension from the platform.

6.3 Tracking your earnings

You can track your earnings on your personal Stripe dashboard. When receiving monthly earning payouts, Stripe might incur foreign exchange and other transaction fees which we don't control. You hereby accept the associated cost of receiving your earnings via Stripe.

6.4 Promotions, Vouchers, and Discounts

Heylama reserves the right to periodically run promotional campaigns and offer vouchers, discounts, or other incentives (collectively, "Promotional Offers") to new and existing students as a means of encouraging engagement, activating leads, and increasing the likelihood that these new students will become regular users of the platform.

By agreeing to these Terms and Conditions, you acknowledge and accept that Heylama may, at its sole discretion, provide Promotional Offers to new students without prior notice to, or consent from, tutors. Tutors further acknowledge that their participation in the Heylama platform may involve interactions with students who have utilized such Promotional Offers.

You as a tutor shall not be entitled to additional compensation or reimbursement as a result of students using Promotional Offers. The fees and compensation structure for tutors as outlined in Section 6.1 of this Tutor Policy shall remain applicable regardless of any Promotional Offers made available to students.

The specifics, eligibility criteria, and terms and conditions of any Promotional Offer shall be determined by Heylama at its sole discretion and may be subject to change or cancellation at any time without notice.

7. Privacy and additional guidelines

You commit to respect student privacy and not request personal data not relevant for learning purposes, including, but not limited to, bank account information, home address, Tax ID, Passport data, birth date, and phone numbers.
You commit to remain careful with your personal information and not share any personal data not related to the learning process. You agree to safeguard your access password and email and not share sensitive data with your students.
You commit to remaining vigilant of phishing and account hijacking attempts over email or any other channel. If you notice any suspicious communication, you agree to contact Heylama immediately.
You commit to maintaining all the payment history and invoices in connection with your Tutor Services.
You agree to cooperate with Heylama to resolve disputes and anti-fraud investigations or actions.
You commit to reporting any violation of the Heylama Terms of Service and Policies.

8. Tutor content

As a tutor on the Heylama platform who offers tutoring services, you’ll create several types of content, including Profile Content (such as your profile video, profile descriptions, and lesson descriptions), Learning Content (such as flashcards, exercises, links, or grammar explainers), and other types of content (such as communication threads with students or updates for your students). Unless specified, we refer to every content type above as “Content”.

Profile content

You grant Heylama the license to view, use, copy, modify, distribute, publish your profile content for marketing, advertising, and promoting the Heylama platform. This means that your profile content will be visible to all Heylama users and may be presented to users in any way Heylama decides to maximize the success of the platform and your profiles.

Learning Content

Once you create the learning content, you own the copyright to your content.

Other tutors cannot view, use or copy your learning content without your permission. If you share your learning content with the community, you grant other tutors a right to view, copy, use or modify your original content.

You hereby grant Heylama the right to view and analyze your learning content. Heylama won’t use, copy or modify your learning content that’s not shared with the community.

When you share any content with your students, you also give them the right to view, copy or use your content.

9. Prohibited activities

You agree not to:

Offer free lessons in exchange for positive ratings or reviews
Forge or falsify your educational background or any other type of credentials
Invite or accept invitations to offer tutoring services outside the platform. Please politely remind students that they can learn with you if they book you on the platform. You commit to reporting students who violate this policy.
Advertise or promote language learning services not affiliated with Heylama.
Share plagiarized content with the community or on your feed without crediting the source.

10. Violation of this Tutor Policy

Heylama platform strives to build the world's most effective online language learning experience. As a tutor on the platform, you are expected to deliver Tutoring Services that meet or exceed student expectations.

You’re considered in breach of this tutor policy if you

Violate any Heylama terms of service or tutor policy
Consistently cause unacceptable levels of student dissatisfaction (measured by, but not limited to, ratings, reviews, written or other feedback)
Fail to deliver the tutoring services that you confirmed
Do not try to resolve any disputes with students proactively

As a platform, Heylama reserves the right to perform any of the below actions concerning your Tutor account at any time without any prior notification:

Suspend your Tutoring account
Close your Tutoring account
Cancel a specific or all Tutoring services in any status
Disconnect your payment account
Contact law enforcement or seek legal help

11. Contacting Heylama

Email: support[at]heylama.app

Support chat: contact us via the support chat in the app

Direct contact: or contact your Tutor Operations account manager