New music teacher marketplace launches with aim of challenging ‘ridiculous fees’

A new online classroom and music tutor marketplace has been launched to provide private instrumental and vocal teachers with a ‘sustainable career path’, its creators say.

Launched by musicians Lawrence Jenner and Boram Choi in January, SYNKii’s tutor marketplace offers teachers promotion to ‘students worldwide’ and free access to the SYNKii Classroom, as well as assistance with bookings, calendars and invoicing. 

The classroom for online lessons, launched earlier than the marketplace, boasts ‘lower latency than Zoom’, a virtual keyboard so that teachers and students can play together in ‘real-time’, a collaborative notation editor, a synchronised metronome, and a range of camera layouts. 

‘Exploitative’ fees

Although initially set to be launched at a later date, the directory element of SYNKii was accelerated after the pair discovered that some marketplaces and music schools ‘take between 30-50 per cent of tutors’ lesson fees’, Jenner told MT. 

In a LinkedIn post announcing the launch, Jenner wrote: ‘After finding out that certain music tutor marketplaces/music schools take between 30-50 per cent of tutors’ lesson fees, Boram Choi and myself have decided to make our own marketplace charging only 10 per cent commission.

‘Taking up to 50 per cent commission from a population segment that's been hit particularly hard over Covid is just exploitation. If you’re a teacher looking for lessons please sign up so we can push back against these ridiculous fees together.’

Speaking to MT, Jenner added: ‘Tutors getting 30 per cent of their lesson income taken by music tutor marketplaces does not offer a sustainable career path for any teaching professional and only encourages disintermediation. 

‘As musicians, we have created SYNKii to deliver an ecosystem that allows music teachers to build careers online and from anywhere in the world.’

Revamps elsewhere

A long-standing key player in the music teacher directory market, MusicTeachers.co.uk relaunched its website on 24 January, replacing the former 20-year-old site of the same name.

Having been taken over by the owners of MusicTutors.co.uk, the new site claims to represent ‘a significant development in the infrastructure of private music education in the UK’. 

As part of the redesign, a survey of nearly 3,000 members was sent out, revealing that 80 per cent of teachers ‘opposed any change to the business model of the site’. Up until the takeover, MusicTeachers.co.uk had existed as a free and open directory, with the option to pay for a ‘premium’ listing.

A spokesperson from the new team told MT: ‘Many [respondents] expressed that the site worked “perfectly well” and [that] substantial change would be met with strong opposition. However, it became more and more clear to us that the site was not working “perfectly well”.’

The survey found that over 70 per cent of teachers reported that they had found either zero or one student through their listing on MusicTeachers.co.uk in the previous 12 months. 

Open source directory model ‘needs to be retired’

Alongside turning the business model of the site into a fee-based model, the team has updated the site’s safeguarding and ‘quality assurance’ policies, including requiring an enhanced disclosure certificate, ID verification, annual declarations, and references from teachers.

Speaking to MT about safeguarding and quality assurance, the spokesperson said, ‘These issues were serious and we have taken action. Safeguarding and quality assurance in particular are not new problems in our sector. 

‘We are taking them on and presenting solutions to them with the new platform. We believe that to solve them we need to work closely with teachers and their students, so the old open source directory model, although popular, in our view needed to be retired.’ 

Some of the benefits to music teachers signing up to the new MusicTeachers.co.uk include social media promotion; a professional profile; lesson fee collection; booking and admin systems; free access to the OnlineClassRoom; and access to a marketing, software development and customer support teams.

New MusicTeachers.co.uk business model

The fees on the new site are advertised as being ‘as low as 10 per cent’ - these fees will apply if students commit to a minimum of 20 lessons. The spokesperson said: ‘The fees are modelled to make it more attractive for students to commit to more than one lesson at a time.

‘Our experience shows that this model works. Students commit to more lessons and make more progress. Teachers grow their student list month by month’.

Following reports that the new site was charging 30 per cent, MT asked MusicTeachers.co.uk to explain the business model in more detail. 

The spokesperson described the claim that the site charges teachers 30 per cent as ‘true but not representative’, adding: ‘If you are a teacher who has taught less than 25 hours through the platform and a student takes only one lesson at a time, then a fee of 33.3 per cent is added.

‘But the options available to students and the discounts provided mean that this is a very rare occurrence. Of all the lessons purchased through the platform in the last six months, just 7.2 per cent were single lessons.

‘It is far more representative to assess the fee structure by looking at the fees added for a block of 20 lessons. For the same teacher, who has taught less than 25 hours through the platform, the fees added in this case would be 16.6 per cent.

‘As teachers book more time through the platform, there is a system of membership levels. The higher the membership level, the lower the fees, arriving at the lowest fee of 10 per cent for a platinum membership level.’

In order to join the new site, all music teachers must re-apply as there will be no automatic transfers of profiles. 

If you are a private music teacher with views on online marketplaces such as those mentioned in this story, MT wants to hear from you. Get in touch with the editor on harriet.clifford@markallengroup.com.