For in-home tutors
The parent calling you is calling four other tutors tonight.
Tutoring enquiries arrive the week report cards go home, the month before exams, and always at four in the afternoon while you are at someone else’s kitchen table. The tutor who replies first gets the student. Cartoply replies for you, charges for the assessment before you drive, and asks the subject and exam board while the parent is still on the page.
- A booking link that answers at 4pm, while you are mid-session with someone else
- A paid first assessment — the parent who pays has stopped ringing round
- Subject, grade level, exam board, and the actual problem, captured at booking
- Per-day caps and a booking horizon that hold through exam season
Built for tutors who travel to students — primary catch-up through exam prep, solo tutors and small agencies.
The parent is the buyer, and they are shopping
The person paying you has not sat in the room, is working from a report card, and is contacting several tutors in one evening. A link that shows real openings turns that comparison into a booking on the spot — instead of a voicemail you return the next morning, by which time you never find out you lost it.
A paid assessment filters the enquiry
Price your assessment or first session and the card is authorised before the slot confirms, then captured only once the slot is secured — so a family that loses a race for the same time is never charged. Paying ends the shopping around, and they are home when you arrive. Prices live on organisation booking pages, so a solo tutor creates an organisation with themselves as the only member.
Survive the spikes without overbooking
Demand is spiky in a way that is completely predictable and still catches everyone out: report cards, mock results, the fortnight before exams. Set a maximum number of sessions per day so a Saturday in May does not become seven, a minimum notice so nothing lands while you are driving, and a booking horizon so nobody reserves you for a date past the exam.
Arrive knowing what to bring
Up to ten intake questions per session type, including a photo upload for a marked paper or a page of the textbook. Subject, grade or year, exam board or curriculum, what the student is finding hard, previous tutoring, who will be home, whether there is a quiet place to work. You walk in knowing whether this is exam technique or a gap from three years ago.
How it works
Create your session types
A paid assessment plus the one-offs you offer — exam prep, a homework catch-up, a half-term intensive. Each with its own length, price, notice, and daily cap.
Set the catchments you will drive to
A radius from home, the ZIP codes you cover, or a shape drawn around the schools you already work in. Addresses outside it see no availability.
Put the link where parents find you
Directory listing, school noticeboard advert, email signature, or embedded on your own site. Parents book, pay, and answer your questions in one pass.
Frequently asked questions
Can a parent book a recurring weekly slot, like every Wednesday at five?
No, and it is the clearest limit of the product for tutoring. Cartoply books one appointment at a time — no series, no repeat, no way to reserve the same time every week in a single action. Setting your weekly working hours is not the same thing: it only says when you are available. The standing weekly slot is usually agreed in conversation anyway, because it involves term dates and fees. If self-serve recurring booking is your main requirement, use a dedicated tutoring platform.
Can I take payment for the first assessment?
Yes, via Stripe or PayPal, straight into your own connected account. The one setup step: prices are attached to organisation booking pages, so a solo tutor creates an organisation and remains the only member — one member is one seat. A payment buys exactly one appointment at its full price. There are no deposits, part-payments, session blocks, prepaid credits, or family balances, so a block of ten sessions is still invoiced separately.
How do I keep bookings inside the areas I actually drive?
Set a travel area and families outside it never see a single open slot. Define it as a distance from home, a list of ZIP codes, or a shape you draw on a map — usually the honest option, because a tutoring round follows school catchments and main roads rather than a circle. Drawing a travel area runs on an organisation booking page, the same one-member setup that unlocks prices.
What should the booking form ask?
Enough to prepare, and no more: subject, grade or year, exam board or curriculum, what the student is finding hard in the parent’s own words, previous tutoring, who will be home, and whether there is a quiet place to work. A photo of a marked paper is often worth more than all of them. Be careful with anything sensitive — a booking form is not a confidential record, so keep questions about a diagnosed learning difference optional.
What happens when a parent needs to move a session?
Every confirmation carries a link the parent can use to cancel or reschedule themselves, picking from times you are genuinely free. You set a cancellation cutoff per session type; inside it the link stops working and they have to reach you directly, so a late change gets a human answer rather than an automatic one.
Be the tutor who replied first
Set your assessment price, draw the catchments you will drive to, and let parents book the slots you actually have free.
Start my free trial →14-day free trial · No credit card required