For Tutors

Scheduling Software for Tutors, Without the Group Chat

Parents and students book lessons from your live availability, get the video link and reminders by email, and pay when they book if you want them to.

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Parent and student booking

Hosted in the EU

Lesson fees at booking

Luka Breitig

Updated 5 October 2026

The Problem

Why do tutors lose their evenings to scheduling messages?

Tutoring happens in the hours after school, and so does the admin. One parent asks whether Thursday still works, another wants to move to Wednesday because of football practice, and a Year 11 student wants three extra sessions before mocks. Each answer means opening your diary, replying and waiting. Tymeslot puts your free times on one booking page. Parents or students pick a slot, the lesson lands in your calendar, and the confirmation and reminders go out without another message.

Why tutoring doesn't fit generic scheduling tools

A tutor's diary has its own shape: a few weekday hours after school, weekend mornings, a surge before exams and a lull in the holidays. The person booking is often a parent and the person turning up is their child. Generic tools assume the booker is the attendee and that every week looks the same. Tutoring business platforms go the other way, with invoicing, attendance and student records, and a monthly subscription to match.

Tymeslot does the scheduling. A parent books and adds the student as a guest, so both get the confirmation and reminders. A weekly limit on exam-preparation sessions stops the surge from taking over your week. Time off keeps school holidays off the booking page before anyone books into them. On Pro, a lesson can be paid when it is booked, so there are no invoices to chase at the end of the month. Each lesson is booked on its own; Tymeslot does not create a repeating weekly series.

Features

Everything Tutors need. Nothing they don't.

Scheduling features shaped around how your practice works.

👥

Parents Book, Students Get the Reminders

Turn on guests for a lesson type. A parent books and adds the student's email, and both receive the confirmation, the video link and every reminder. Older students can book for themselves through the same page.

⏰

Weekly Limits for Exam Season

Cap how many exam-preparation sessions can be booked per day, week or month. Once a week is full, that type's remaining slots for the week disappear from your page.

📅

School Holidays Blocked in Advance

Add half-term and holiday weeks as time off on your availability schedule, and set a booking horizon so nobody books beyond the term you have planned.

🎥

Video Links for Online Lessons

Online lessons get a Google Meet, Zoom or Microsoft Teams link as soon as they are booked, and the link is in the confirmation email.

💳

Lesson Fees at Booking

On Pro, connect your own Stripe account and set a fixed price per lesson type. The lesson is confirmed once payment clears, and the money settles in your Stripe account.

🔔

Reminders for Families

Send several reminders per lesson type, for example the evening before and 30 minutes before, so an after-school lesson does not get lost between pickup and dinner.

Before & After

See the difference

Same profession. Completely different scheduling experience.

Without Tymeslot

1 Parent messages to ask which slots are free this week

2 Back-and-forth to agree a day and time around school and clubs

3 You send the video link and a reminder by hand before each lesson

With Tymeslot

1 Parent opens your booking page and picks a lesson time

2 Adds the student as a guest and pays if the lesson requires it

3 Both get the confirmation, the video link and automatic reminders

Use Cases

Common scheduling scenarios

How other Tutors use Tymeslot every day.

Scenario 1

How do tutors keep a regular weekly lesson without rebooking by message?

Much tutoring runs on a fixed weekly slot. Tymeslot books each lesson separately, so the way to hold a regular slot is to let families book several weeks ahead in one go.

Create a 60-minute lesson type and set the booking horizon to six weeks, so a parent can book the next six Thursdays, one booking each, before anyone else takes them.
Set the slot interval to 60 minutes so lessons start on the hour and your evening stays in tidy blocks.
Each booking gets its own confirmation and reminders. A parent who needs to move one lesson does it from that lesson's email, and the others stay put.
At half term, remind families to book the next block of weeks.

Result: Regular students hold their slot for weeks at a time, and moving one lesson never needs a message.

Scenario 2

How do tutors handle the exam-season booking surge?

As GCSEs, A levels or the IB approach, every family wants extra sessions at the same time. Without limits, the diary fills past what you can teach well.

Create a separate 90-minute exam-preparation type and limit it to eight bookings a week.
Give it its own availability schedule with Saturday mornings open and a 48-hour minimum notice, so no session lands before you have prepared.
Regular weekly lessons keep their own schedule and are not affected by the exam-preparation limit.
After the exams, lower the limit or archive the type, and your normal week returns.

Result: You take on as much exam work as you can teach well, and regular students keep their usual slots.

Scenario 3

How do tutors make sure online lessons start on time?

An online lesson that starts ten minutes late because nobody could find the link is ten minutes nobody gets back. The link and the reminders should reach the parent and the student without you sending anything.

Add a video location to your lesson type. Tymeslot creates the meeting link as the lesson is booked.
Send a reminder the evening before and another 30 minutes before. Guests on the booking, such as the student, receive them too.
Families abroad see your free times in their own time zone, and their emails show the lesson time in that zone.
If the time stops working, the parent reschedules from the confirmation email and the new lesson gets its own link.

Result: Lessons start with the right link on the right screen, and you never paste a meeting link into a message again.

Starter setup

A starter setup for Tutors

Recommended settings to start from. You can change any of them in your dashboard.

Trial lesson

Duration: 30 min
Buffer: 15 min
Minimum notice: 1 day
Bookable ahead: 2 weeks
Payment at booking: None

Weekly lesson

Duration: 60 min
Buffer: 10 min
Minimum notice: 1 day
Bookable ahead: 6 weeks
Payment at booking: Full fee at booking

Exam preparation session

Duration: 90 min
Buffer: 10 min
Minimum notice: 2 days
Bookable ahead: 4 weeks
Payment at booking: Full fee at booking

Intake questions

Student's first name
School year and subject
Is the student preparing for an exam? If so, which one and when?
What would you like the lessons to help with?

When a parent books for a child, a first name and school year are all you need to prepare; leave out dates of birth and school names. Trial lessons, weekly lessons and exam preparation use different notice and horizon settings, so each needs its own availability schedule.

Intake questions and payments at booking are part of Pro on the managed service, and free when you self-host.

How payments at booking work Add booking to your website

Compare

Tymeslot compared with TutorBird, Calendly and TidyCal

Facts from each vendor's own pages, with the date we checked them.

Feature	Tymeslot	TutorBird	Calendly	TidyCal
Free plan	Yes: unlimited bookings and meeting types	No: 30-day free trial, no card needed	Yes, limited to 1 event type and 1 calendar	Yes: unlimited bookings and booking types
Entry price	Pro €9/month, flat; self-hosting is free	$16.95/month, plus $4.95 per extra tutor	$10/seat/month, billed yearly	Pro $12/month or $99/year; lifetime from $29
Hosting in the EU	Yes, in Germany	Processed in Canada, the US and other jurisdictions where its service providers operate	No: data is stored in US data centres	Not checked
Self-hosting	Yes: Docker, Cloudron or Railway	No: hosted service only	No: hosted service only	No: hosted service only
Open source	Yes, GNU AGPLv3	No: hosted service only	No: hosted service only	No: hosted service only
Booking page without third-party scripts	No ad trackers; reCAPTCHA on the booking form	Not checked	No: third-party scripts are referenced (Stripe, reCAPTCHA, Airbrake, Google Tag Manager)	No: third-party scripts load (Google Tag Manager, Stripe)
Deposit or payment at booking	Pro or self-hosted: a fixed amount via Stripe	Yes: deposit or registration fee charged at sign-up	Paid plans only: Stripe or PayPal at booking	Yes: Stripe or PayPal; 1% fee on Free and lifetime plans
Custom intake questions	Pro or self-hosted: 10 question types	Yes: custom sign-up form fields	Yes: up to 10 questions per event type, on all plans	Not checked
Signed data processing agreement	Enterprise plan only	Yes: published DPA covers TutorBird customers	Yes: accepted with the customer terms	Yes: DPA published on its website

How to choose

What to check before you choose

Check how the booking page shows times to students in other timezones.
Find out whether a weekly lesson can be booked once or must be booked each time.
See what the form asks when a parent books for a child.
Confirm whether payment before the lesson is possible, and on which plan.
Work out the monthly cost for a sole tutor, not only for a school.

Compare Tymeslot's plans

ROI Calculator

How much time could you save?

Adjust to match your practice and see your potential savings.

Calculate your time savings

Drag the sliders to match your practice.

200

minutes saved per week

173.3

hours saved per year

€7,799

annual value of saved time

Integrations

Which calendars and video apps do tutors use with Tymeslot?

Connects to the tools you already use. No extra setup.

Google Calendar

Outlook

Google Meet

Zoom

CalDAV

Nextcloud

Connect Google Calendar Collect payment at booking How calendar sync works Self-host Tymeslot

Pricing

Start free, upgrade when you're ready

Core scheduling is always free. No credit card required.

Free

€0 / month

Unlimited bookings and meeting types
Calendar sync (Google, Outlook, CalDAV)
Auto video rooms (Meet, Teams, Zoom, Jitsi, Nextcloud Talk and more)
Booking page at tymeslot.app/you
Email reminders & notifications
Both booking themes and website embeds

Pro

€9 / month

Everything in Free
Custom booking questions for intake
Payments at booking via your own Stripe account
Remove Tymeslot branding from booking pages
Booking analytics and automation

Start free, no credit card required

See full pricing, including free self-hosting

Booking Themes

See Tymeslot in action

Try both booking themes live - no account needed.

Quill

Professional Glassmorphism

Try Live Demo

Rhythm

Immersive Experience

Try Live Demo

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Tymeslot GDPR compliant for tutors who teach children?

When a parent books a child's lesson with a tutor on Tymeslot, the page they use is hosted in Germany and loads no advertising trackers or third-party analytics, so the booking is not tracked by an ad network. On tymeslot.app, Google reCAPTCHA loads once a client starts filling in the booking form, to block spam bookings; a self-hosted instance runs it only if you configure it. The booking holds the parent's contact details and whatever your form asks about the student, so keep the form to a first name, school year and subject. Confirmation and reminder emails go through Postmark, which records delivery and opens but not clicks. Your obligations towards the families you teach stay with you, and Tymeslot offers a signed data processing agreement on the Enterprise plan only, not on Free or Pro. Self-hosting keeps every booking on a server you run.

Can Tymeslot replace tutoring management software for invoices and student records?

No, Tymeslot is scheduling software for tutors: it books lessons, sends reminders and can take payment at booking, but it keeps no student records, progress notes, attendance or invoices. Tutors who want all of that in one product use a tutoring management system. Tutors who keep notes in their own documents and want families to stop messaging about times can use Tymeslot alone, and on Pro the lesson is paid before it happens, so there is no payment to chase.

Can parents book lessons for their children with Tymeslot?

Yes, a parent can book a lesson on Tymeslot for their child and add the student's email as a guest, so the parent and the student both receive the confirmation, the video link and the reminders. Neither needs an account. Turn on guests for the lesson type, and on Pro ask the booking questions you need, such as the student's first name and school year.

How do tutors stop students missing lessons?

Tutors using Tymeslot reduce missed lessons with reminder emails to the parent and any guest on the booking and, on Pro, with the lesson fee paid when the slot is booked. A reminder the evening before suits after-school lessons, and one 30 minutes before catches the student who forgot. A paid booking is confirmed once the payment clears, and the money goes to your own Stripe account, less Stripe's fees and a 0.5% platform fee on the managed service. Parents can cancel or move a lesson from the confirmation email. Tymeslot has no cancellation deadline, so state yours in the lesson description.

Is Tymeslot or TidyCal better for tutors?

Tymeslot and TidyCal both give tutors a free plan with unlimited bookings, so the differences that matter are payments and privacy. TidyCal takes Stripe or PayPal payments and, by its pricing page, charges a 1% fee on its Free and lifetime plans; its booking pages load third-party scripts, including Google and Microsoft Clarity. Tymeslot takes lesson fees through Stripe on Pro with a 0.5% platform fee, loads no ad trackers or third-party analytics on booking pages, is hosted in Germany and can be self-hosted. For a parent booking for a child, Tymeslot's guests feature puts the student on the same confirmation.

Can tutors self-host Tymeslot to keep student data on their own server?

Tutors and tutoring centres can self-host Tymeslot with Docker, Cloudron or Railway, so parents' and students' booking details stay on a server they control. The self-hosted version is free and open source under the GNU AGPLv3, with every feature included and no platform fee on lesson payments. A tutoring centre with its own IT support is the usual fit; a sole tutor often finds the managed service, hosted in Germany, less work.

Is Tymeslot free for tutors?

Yes, tutors can run trial lessons, weekly lessons and exam preparation on Tymeslot's free plan, with unlimited bookings, guests so the student gets the parent's confirmation, weekly limits for exam season, video links and reminder emails. Pro (€9/month) adds lesson fees at booking, which ends the end-of-month chase for payment, plus booking questions about the student, booking analytics and automation, and removes Tymeslot branding.

Which calendars and video apps does Tymeslot work with for online tutoring?

Tymeslot syncs tutors' lessons with Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple iCloud and CalDAV calendars, and creates a Google Meet, Zoom or Microsoft Teams link for online lessons; connect more than one and the family picks. School teaching or other work in a connected calendar blocks those times automatically. For a whiteboard tool with its own room link, add that link as a custom location instead.

Moving from another booking tool? See how Tymeslot compares with Calendly, Cal.com and others

From the blog

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release features

What's new in Tymeslot 1.2

Tymeslot 1.2 adds guest attendees with email RSVPs, private and direct booking links, and rich previews when you share a link.

Luka Breitig 19 June 2026 · 4 min read