Online tuition from India to foreign students: how it works, what it costs in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and the UAE, and how to check a tutor before you pay

"Online tuition from India to foreign students" is typed by two kinds of people: parents abroad looking for a tutor, and teachers in India looking for the work. This article is for the parents. It explains how the class actually runs when a child in Houston, Leeds, Sydney, Toronto or Dubai is taught by a teacher in India, what it costs against the local options, what time it happens in each country, and the six checks that separate a good arrangement from a bad one. We teach this way ourselves, since 2018, so the article says where we sit in every table.

How the class actually runs

One tutor in India, one child abroad, on a video call with a shared whiteboard. The tutor writes, the child writes, both see the same page. A good 60-minute class has a shape: a five-minute recap of last time, the new topic explained with diagrams, then guided practice where the tutor watches every step and stops the mistake as it happens, then two minutes of "what we do next". After the class the parent receives the recording, the notes from the whiteboard and an assignment; the marked homework comes back before the next class.

Three things make this work better than an in-person tutor, and one thing makes it worse. Better: the recording, which no home tutor gives you; the whiteboard, which is cleaner than a kitchen table; and the price, because the teacher lives where a master's-qualified teacher's hour costs a fraction of yours. Worse: a child under about seven needs a parent in the room for the first month, because the screen does not hold a six-year-old the way a person does. We say so before we take a child that young.

The class times, country by country

The time difference decides whether a tutor is fresh or exhausted, and nobody tells parents this. India is 5.5 hours ahead of UTC all year.

Two practical rules follow. Australian and UAE families can ask for any weekday afternoon and get a fresh tutor. American and Canadian families should prefer the before-school slot, or a weekend morning, unless the provider can show that after-school hours are a proper rostered shift and not one tired teacher at 3 am. Our own roster and the planner for each city are on the country pages: USA, UK, Australia, Canada and the UAE.

What it costs, against the local options

Prices published in September 2026, per hour, for a school-age child in maths or science.

The marketplace column is the cheapest and the most variable: the tutor is often a university student, there is no recording, and when the tutor gets a better offer the child starts again with someone new. The agency column buys you a coordinator and a replacement tutor; the Trustpilot reviews of the large India-based agencies are worth reading for what "replacement" means in practice (no-shows, a different tutor each month). Ours is a small team of master's-qualified women teachers, the same tutor for the year, recording and notes included, billed monthly; the full table in every currency is public. Local agencies are the top of the market and, for a child who needs a person in the room, sometimes the right answer.

The six checks before you pay

1. The degree, in the subject. Ask to see it. A master's in mathematics teaching Grade 9 algebra is a different thing from a commerce graduate teaching "all subjects". Our tutors hold master's degrees in the subject they teach; that is the whole hiring rule.
2. The same tutor all year. Ask directly: "If my child likes this tutor, is she ours until June?" A marketplace cannot promise it; an agency usually will not; a small team can.
3. The recording, and who owns it. Every class recorded, the link sent to the parent the same day, yours to keep. This is the single biggest advantage of online tuition over a home tutor, and the providers that do not offer it are usually hiding the class.
4. Your curriculum, by name. Ask the tutor to name the Grade 7 topics in your state, the GCSE board your school uses, or the NAPLAN years. A tutor who teaches "maths" will teach Indian maths, which is excellent and wrong: the order is different, the vocabulary is different, and the method marks on a foreign paper go to the school's method.
5. Parents in the room. Any time, unannounced. A provider that discourages it has a reason.
6. Monthly payment, no package. Ten-hour and semester packages exist to keep you after the second bad class. Monthly in advance, stop at the end of any month, is the fair arrangement.

Then take the trial class and watch the whole thing. In a good trial the tutor finds where the child actually is in the first five minutes, teaches one thing properly, and tells you afterwards what to fix first and what it will cost. In a bad trial someone shows you a slideshow about the company.

Where it goes wrong

Five failures account for most of the unhappy families we hear from, in this order.

The wrong method. The tutor teaches long division, fractions or algebra the Indian way to a child whose school and test use another way. The child's marks drop because the method marks are lost, and the parent concludes online tuition does not work. The fix is the curriculum check above.

The changing tutor. Three tutors in a term means three restarts and a child who stops trying. Ask about continuity before you ask about price.

The tired tutor. A 4 am class in India taught by a single freelancer is a class taught badly. Ask how after-school hours are covered; prefer the before-school slot in North America.

The screen and the six-year-old. Under about seven, a parent needs to sit in for the first month and the class should be 30 to 45 minutes, not 60. Providers that sell hour-long classes to Reception children are selling to the parent, not the child.

The package. The family pays for 40 hours, the tutor changes in week three, the refund is "store credit". Monthly, no package.

What the same class looks like for an Indian family abroad

About half of the families who come to us are of Indian origin: in New Jersey, Leicester, Melbourne, Brampton, Dubai. Their question is usually a version of "the cousins in Pune are two years ahead in maths; is the school too easy?" The honest answer is that the foreign curriculum goes slower in arithmetic and faster in reasoning, data and written explanation, and a child who is top of a Grade 5 class in Toronto is being measured on the thing an Indian class barely tests. So the right arrangement is not the CBSE syllabus at night. It is the school's work to a very high standard, then the Indian stretch where it helps: harder problems on the same topic, the competitions (Kangaroo, AMC 8, UKMT, the Australian Mathematics Competition, the Waterloo contests), mental arithmetic, the habit of showing every step, and ten minutes of Hindi or Punjabi conversation at the end if the family wants the language kept. The country pages say how we do this in each place: USA, UK, Australia, Canada.

How to start, with anyone

Pick two providers, not one. Take both trial classes in the same week, with the same child and the same topic, and watch both. Ask the six questions in each. Then choose the tutor, not the company; the tutor is the product. Pay for one month. If the recording arrives the same day, the homework comes back marked, and the child does not argue about the next class, you have found it.

Questions parents ask

See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →