Tutoring software in Australia in 2026: an honest comparison

If you tutor in Australia and you’ve been doing the admin in a Google Sheet, you already know the symptoms. Lessons missed because you didn’t send the reminder. Invoices written from scratch every Sunday. Parent messages scattered across SMS and Messenger and email. At some point the bookkeeping eats the teaching, and you start looking for software.

This post is the comparison I wish I’d had when I started. It covers the five platforms most AU tutors actually consider — TutorBird, Teachworks, TutorCruncher, Tutorbase, and lessonu — with a focus on what they do well and where they fall down for the local market. The local stuff matters more than people realise: GST, Year 9 vs. Year 11 labels, AUD-formatted invoices, ATO-friendly payroll. Most of these tools were built for a US or UK audience and the Australian fit is uneven.

The shortlist

I’ll cover them in price order — Tutorbase (free + 1% take), TutorBird (A$19.95/mo on the Australian pricing page), Teachworks (US$16.49/mo), TutorCruncher (US$30/mo + 1%), and lessonu (A$29/mo + 1% on card payments only — $0 on bank transfer/cash). All five run in a browser, all five give parents a portal, all five do recurring lessons. The differences are in the texture.

Tutorbase

Tutorbase is the pay-only-when-you-invoice option. Free to use, 1% of anything you charge through it. If you’re billing under $5,000/month it’s genuinely cheap. The trade-off is a leaner feature set: scheduling and invoicing are solid, but lesson notes and student goal tracking are thin. There’s no payroll module, so if you have other tutors working under you you’ll still need a spreadsheet for their cuts.

TutorBird

The original tutor-business tool — it’s been around for over a decade. The UI shows it, but everything works. Drag-to-reschedule calendar, parent portal, automated reminders. The reporting is comprehensive. Where you’ll feel the age: there’s no native virtual classroom, the mobile experience is fine but not polished, and several features that should be standard (online bookings, custom forms) are paid add-ons.

Teachworks

Teachworks is the closest thing to a market leader for solo tutors. Cleaner interface than TutorBird, stronger at parent communication, decent reporting. The pricing is per-student-per-month rather than flat, which is great when you’re starting and brutal once you scale past 30 students. They charge for “Results Tracking” as an add-on, which feels off when most newer competitors include it.

TutorCruncher

TutorCruncher targets agencies more than solo tutors. If you have five tutors and want commission tracking, contractor onboarding, and white-label invoicing, it’s well-built. For a single tutor it ’s overkill, and the per-tutor pricing scales fast. They take 1% on top of the subscription too, so the all-in cost on a busy practice is real money.

lessonu

lessonu is the AU-focused option (we’re biased — we built it). Flat A$29/mo for solo tutors, A$99/mo for small schools with up to ten teachers, plus 1% on card payments only — bank transfer and cash settle for $0. AUD-formatted invoices, GST-inclusive pricing display, Year-level labels that match the AU system, payroll that exports to a CSV your bookkeeper will actually accept. There’s a virtual classroom built in (no separate Zoom subscription), a public booking page, and class series for group lessons. Honest gaps: no Xero/MYOB integration yet, no white-label branding, and we’re still earlier in the SEO content arc than competitors a decade older.

What actually matters in week one

Most reviews compare feature matrices. After running this software seven days a week, here’s what I’d actually pay for:

• Lesson reminders that get sent. Every paid platform claims this. Test it. Schedule a lesson 25 hours out, see whether the email actually lands. Some platforms quietly fail when the SMTP config has drifted.
• One-tap pay link on invoices. The single biggest improvement to your collection rate is removing friction on the parent side. A tap → Stripe checkout, no login.
• Parent portal that doesn’t require a separate login. Magic-link access via the invoice email beats yet-another-account. Half of parents will give up rather than create a fourth password.
• Mobile experience that’s not just a shrunk desktop. You’ll be marking attendance from the phone in a coffee shop. The platforms that designed mobile from day one are visibly nicer to use here.
• AUD-aware invoicing. Tax-inclusive display, GST split, ATO-aligned dates. Sounds boring; it’s the difference between a working BAS and a frustrating one.

How I’d pick

If you’re billing under $2,000/mo and your students are mostly one-on-one, start with the cheapest option that works in your timezone. Tutorbase or lessonu. Free or A$29/mo, you’ll know within a week whether it fits your workflow.

If you’ve got group classes, multiple tutors, and you’re the one cutting cheques for them, look at lessonu’s School plan or TutorCruncher. lessonu bundles ten teachers for A$99/mo; TutorCruncher charges per teacher plus 1%. Run the numbers for your actual roster.

If you’re a long-time TutorBird user — stay unless you have a reason to move. Migrating mid-term is expensive in time and confidence, and TutorBird’s feature set still covers most of what a solo tutor needs.

What we’re working on next

Honest disclosure of where lessonu is weak. We’re heads-down on a Xero integration so AU operators can stop double-entering invoices into their accountant’s system. We’re also adding multi- location support for the Academy tier and white-label branding for schools that want their colour and logo on the parent portal. None of that is shipped yet.

If you’d like to try lessonu, start a 14-day free trial with your own data.