Tutor Agreement

1. About This Agreement

In this Tutor Agreement, "you" and "your" mean the tutor; "TeacherWave", "we", "us", and "our" mean the operator of the Platform identified in section 17; and "the Platform" means the TeacherWave website, applications, and related services.

This Tutor Agreement supplements the general Terms and Conditions. Where there is any conflict between this Tutor Agreement and the general Terms in respect of tutors, this Tutor Agreement prevails to the extent of the conflict.

You accept this Tutor Agreement when you indicate acceptance during tutor onboarding and each time you continue to use the Platform as a tutor. We may update this Tutor Agreement from time to time and will give reasonable notice of material changes, and will publish the date of the most recent update at the top of this page. Continued use of the Platform as a tutor after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Tutor Agreement.

2. Independent Contractor Status

You are an independent service provider operating your own business. You are not an employee, worker, agent, franchisee, legal representative, or partner of TeacherWave, and nothing in this Tutor Agreement creates any such relationship. You control how you deliver your tutoring, set your own prices and availability, and may offer services elsewhere.

You are responsible for lesson preparation and delivery, teaching quality, professional conduct, accurate profiles, your availability, your own equipment and internet connection, your taxes and declarations, invoices where required, insurance where you choose to hold it, and compliance with applicable laws. TeacherWave may set platform standards, safeguarding rules, verification requirements, and quality expectations, but does not control your teaching methodology or create an employment relationship.

Your tutor account is personal to you and non-transferable. You must not share account access, delegate or subcontract lessons, use a substitute tutor, or permit any other person to teach through your account.

You acknowledge your self-employed/independent status and agree to indemnify and hold TeacherWave harmless against any claim, liability, tax, social-security contribution, penalty, or cost arising from any assertion that you are an employee or worker of TeacherWave, or from any reclassification of your status by any authority.

3. Eligibility, Verification and Declarations

We may require you to provide identity information, qualification evidence, TEFL/TESOL or equivalent certification where required, teaching experience details, language proficiency evidence, profile videos, methodology checks, and availability information. You must hold a minimum 120-hour TEFL/TESOL certification or an approved equivalent, unless TeacherWave grants a written exception. We may approve, reject, suspend, remove, or restrict tutors where necessary to protect students, platform quality, legal compliance, or TeacherWave's reputation.

Verification checks we perform are limited in scope and do not guarantee any tutor's identity, qualifications, competence, suitability, safety, legality, professionalism, or future conduct. Unless expressly stated, TeacherWave does not guarantee that criminal-background checks, barred-list checks, police checks, or equivalent safeguarding checks have been completed. We have no obligation to verify your tax status, business registration, licensing, VAT status, or ongoing legal compliance unless required by law.

Your declarations. By accepting this Tutor Agreement and before teaching through the Platform, you declare and confirm that:

• you have the legal right to work and to provide tutoring services;
• you have no criminal conviction, caution, or other matter that would make you unsuitable to teach, including teaching minors;
• you will act appropriately and professionally towards all students, including minors, and will comply with our safeguarding and child-protection expectations and report any safeguarding concern;
• the information, qualifications, certifications, experience, pricing, and availability in your profile are accurate, complete, and not misleading.

You must keep these declarations true and tell us promptly if anything changes. We may carry out, or require, further checks where reasonably necessary, and may suspend or remove tutors who cannot satisfy them.

Badges, verified status and features. TeacherWave may award, modify, suspend, remove, or withdraw verified status, badges, business-tutor status, founding-tutor status, featured status, promotional labels, or other platform distinctions at its discretion.

4. Tutor Subscription and Fees

Access to the Platform as a tutor is provided on a subscription basis. You choose a subscription tier that suits you, at the recurring monthly subscription fee displayed for the tier you select.

No charge until your first subscription student. When you set up your tutor account, we securely collect and store your payment card through our payment processor (Stripe) so that billing can begin later — but we do not charge you at that point, and no subscription fee is due unless and until a student establishes a recurring lesson subscription with you. Saving your card does not create an immediate charge or a fixed-length free trial. Trial lessons do not start your billing — you may teach any number of trial lessons without becoming liable for a subscription fee. If no student ever establishes a recurring lesson subscription with you, you are never charged a subscription fee.

When billing starts and the first charge. Your monthly subscription begins the first time a student establishes and pays for a recurring lesson subscription with you through the Platform. Your first monthly subscription fee is charged on the first day of the month following that first subscription (you are not charged for the remainder of the month in which you take on your first subscription student), and your subscription then renews automatically each month on that cycle. Your stored card is charged automatically for the first payment and for each renewal. Once billing has started it continues on that cycle for as long as your subscription remains active, including in months in which you have no active subscription students, until you cancel it.

Commission. TeacherWave does not charge a commission or per-lesson platform fee on regular lessons or on recurring lesson subscription income you earn from students — you receive 100% of those amounts. The sole exception is trial lessons. TeacherWave retains 50% of the fee for each trial lesson, and you receive the remaining 50%. The trial rate you set is the amount payable by the student; your share is calculated from that amount. This deduction is applied automatically at the time of payment, so the amount credited to your connected payment account for a trial lesson is your 50% share. Where a trial lesson is refunded to a student, TeacherWave's share is refunded as well, and the amount reversed from your account is limited to the share you actually received. Apart from this trial-lesson share, TeacherWave's charge to you is your monthly subscription fee only. Different tiers may offer different features, limits, visibility, or eligibility for certain programmes.

VAT. Your monthly subscription fee is stated inclusive of any VAT that TeacherWave is required to charge on it. You are separately and solely responsible for any VAT or other taxes due on the lesson fees and tutor-facing subscriptions you receive from students (see section 13).

Renewal, changes and cancellation. Once billing has started, your subscription renews automatically each month unless cancelled before the renewal date. We may modify tutor subscription pricing, benefits, tier structures, limits, eligibility requirements, and features upon reasonable notice. If you do not accept a change, you may cancel before it takes effect. Failed payments may result in suspension or loss of tutor access until resolved. If you cancel before you take on your first subscription student (before any charge has been made), you are not billed and owe nothing. If you cancel after billing has started, cancellation stops future renewals; your tutor benefits continue until the end of the period already paid for, and subscription fees already paid are not refundable on a pro-rata basis unless required by law.

Founding-tutor and promotional programmes. TeacherWave may offer founding-tutor programmes, subscription waivers, discounts, promotional opportunities, featured placement, or other incentives. Such benefits are discretionary, may be subject to eligibility and continued good standing, and may be modified or withdrawn at any time, including in cases of fraud, abuse, chargeback abuse, duplicate accounts, or breach of this Tutor Agreement.

5. Payments, Stripe Connect and Payouts

Payments on the Platform are processed through Stripe, including Stripe Connect. To receive payments from students you must create and maintain a Stripe connected account, complete Stripe's identity and verification (KYC) requirements, provide valid payout details, and accept Stripe's applicable terms. Stripe applies its own terms, fees, verification, fraud, payout, and processing rules, and we are not responsible for Stripe's decisions, holds, or outages.

Two separate subscriptions. A student may hold a subscription with TeacherWave for platform access and, separately, a tutor-facing subscription with you for lessons. Payments students make to you for lessons or tutor-facing subscriptions are received into your Stripe connected account and are separate from the platform subscription a student pays to TeacherWave.

Payouts and withdrawal requests. Payouts are made on request: you request a payout or withdrawal of your available balance through the Platform. Provided there are no outstanding refund requests, disputes, chargebacks, or other issues affecting your account, the requested payout will be processed. Where there are outstanding refund requests, disputes, chargebacks, fraud or compliance concerns, or other issues affecting your account, these must be resolved before a payout is released. We may pause, withhold, reduce, reserve, or set off a payout to the extent reasonably necessary to address such issues, may request evidence from you and the student during any review, and will aim to act reasonably and in good faith.

Chargebacks and payment disputes. Every payment a student makes to you is collected directly on your own Stripe connected account. Where a student initiates a chargeback or payment dispute, Stripe debits the disputed amount, together with any non-refundable dispute fee, directly and automatically from your connected account — TeacherWave's account is not involved and TeacherWave bears no part of the loss. There is no transfer to reverse and no separate recovery: the debit is the chargeback itself. If the dispute is later resolved in your favour and the funds are reinstated by the card network, Stripe returns the disputed amount to your connected account.

Because payouts are made on request rather than on a fixed schedule, a chargeback may be debited after you have already withdrawn the payment concerned. Where that happens your connected account balance may become negative, and Stripe will offset the shortfall against your future earnings until it is cleared; payouts are paused while your balance is negative. Note also that certain chargebacks cannot be contested under card-network rules — in particular disputes raised on the Cartes Bancaires network — and Stripe closes these as lost immediately, so neither you nor TeacherWave has any opportunity to submit evidence.

As between users and to the extent permitted by law, the party who initiates a chargeback or payment dispute that is not legally justified — including an abusive, fraudulent, or bad-faith chargeback — bears the cost of it, and TeacherWave may take action (including set-off, suspension, or termination) against any user who abuses chargebacks. You agree to provide lesson records, communications, attendance logs, booking confirmations, and other evidence to help resolve disputes, and we will tell you when a dispute affects a payment made to you. Nothing in this section overrides a student's mandatory consumer rights.

Set-off. To the extent permitted by law and by the payment provider's framework, we may set off and deduct from amounts payable to you (or invoice you for) any refunds, chargebacks, reversals, fees, penalties, or other amounts you owe to TeacherWave, to students, or arising from your breach of this Tutor Agreement.

6. Lesson Pricing and Student Acceptance

You may set your lesson and tutor-facing subscription prices subject to TeacherWave's platform rules, minimum price rules, promotional rules, and technical limitations. You may offer promotional or discounted introductory lessons subject to those rules and minimum pricing requirements. You must display promotional and discounted prices clearly and must not mislead students about prices, discounts, trial lessons, packages, or future price changes.

Where you increase prices, existing students should receive reasonable notice where practical, the new price should not apply unfairly to already-confirmed bookings unless the student agrees, and future bookings may be charged at the updated price.

TeacherWave may also offer optional business-to-business (B2B), corporate, enterprise, school, or organisational programmes using fixed-price or package pricing. Participation is optional unless you expressly opt in, and may require an eligible subscription tier and additional requirements set by TeacherWave.

Tutors offer a reduced-price trial lesson, which students may use for needs analysis, goal setting, level discussion, compatibility assessment, and lesson planning. Trial lessons are always paid; you set your own trial rate within the limits described in these Terms. Offering trial lessons may influence profile visibility, recommendations, featured placement, promotional opportunities, or search exposure. TeacherWave does not guarantee student acquisition, bookings, visibility, or earnings.

Right to refuse students. You may refuse or decline a prospective student where the refusal is lawful, non-discriminatory, and consistent with TeacherWave policies — for example on safeguarding, conduct, scheduling, or suitability grounds. TeacherWave may also decline, restrict, or reassign student requests where reasonably necessary.

7. Lessons, Cancellations, Refunds and Standards

You are responsible for keeping your availability accurate and for attending confirmed lessons on time. You must act in good faith towards students when dealing with cancellations, refunds, missed lessons, unused lessons, subscription-cancellation situations, technical issues, and disputes — acting honestly, fairly, reasonably, and without taking unfair advantage of a student.

You should refund, reschedule, replace, or otherwise fairly resolve a lesson issue where it is fair and necessary to do so. In particular, where a student cancels more than 12 hours before a lesson, or cancels a tutor-facing subscription or paid lesson arrangement leaving lessons more than 12 hours away that they can no longer access, you should provide a fair resolution (refund, reschedule, replacement credit, or another fair solution) and must not unfairly retain payment for lessons that cannot reasonably take place, provided the student has not acted in bad faith. Where a student cancels less than 12 hours before a lesson, or does not attend without reasonable notice, you may decide whether to refund, reschedule, or treat the lesson as chargeable, subject to applicable law and platform policy, but should still act reasonably in genuine emergencies.

If you cancel a confirmed lesson, you should reschedule, refund, or offer a replacement lesson at no extra cost.

Processing refunds. Where a student requests a refund that is due, you must process it to the student's original paying account within 48 hours of receiving the request (provided this falls within any legally required timeframe), and provide the platform with evidence of the transaction. Without that evidence, the refund is treated as not actioned.

Service standards. There is no minimum response-time requirement. However, reliability matters to students: a "last-minute" cancellation or no-show means cancelling within 12 hours of a confirmed lesson's start time, or failing to attend a confirmed lesson. If you make more than four (4) last-minute cancellations or no-shows in a calendar month, we may issue you a warning. Repeated breaches after a warning may result in reduced visibility, account review, suspension, or removal from the Platform.

8. Anti-Circumvention and Non-Solicitation

TeacherWave invests in finding and introducing students to tutors. You must not use the Platform to find students and then take the relationship off-platform to avoid fees, subscriptions, or rules.

During your use of the Platform and for a period of twelve (12) months after your tutor account closes or after your last interaction on the Platform with a student introduced to you through TeacherWave (whichever is later), you must not, directly or indirectly:

• solicit, arrange, or accept off-platform lessons or payments with a student you met or were introduced to through TeacherWave;
• request or offer direct payment outside the Platform, or exchange payment or contact details primarily to avoid TeacherWave;
• encourage a student to cancel their subscription in order to continue privately; or
• use TeacherWave messaging to arrange off-platform lessons.

You must keep your communications with students on the Platform and must not share personal contact details with students, or move communications to other channels, except where TeacherWave expressly enables or permits it.

Tutor non-recruitment. You must not use the Platform, TeacherWave systems, user data, communications, or platform resources to recruit, solicit, divert, encourage, or induce other tutors to leave TeacherWave for competing tutoring marketplaces, agencies, educational businesses, or similar services. Nothing in this section prevents you from independently pursuing opportunities that do not involve misuse of TeacherWave systems, user data, communications, or Platform resources.

Remedy. If you breach this section, TeacherWave may suspend or terminate your account, remove your profile, reduce your visibility, refuse platform support for related disputes, and recover from you the losses TeacherWave suffers as a result of the breach (including lost subscription and platform revenue), together with reasonable costs, to the extent permitted by law. This is in addition to TeacherWave's other rights, including set-off under section 5.

9. Intellectual Property, Content and Marketing

TeacherWave owns or licenses its software, branding, logos, graphics, website content, databases, learning tools, systems, and platform materials. You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, sell, modify, reverse engineer, or commercially exploit TeacherWave materials without written permission, nor imitate TeacherWave branding or imply affiliation.

You retain ownership of the original teaching materials you create. You grant TeacherWave a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, display, transmit, and use those materials, and your profile content, as necessary to operate and promote the Platform. You warrant that your materials and profile content do not infringe any third-party rights, and you must not upload infringing content.

Marketing licence. You grant TeacherWave a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use your publicly available profile content — including photographs, profile videos, biographies, qualifications, reviews, and ratings — for platform promotion, advertising, social-media campaigns, email marketing, business development, and marketplace promotion. You may opt out of future promotional campaigns where reasonably practical.

10. Data Protection, Records and Controller Terms

For the purposes of data protection law, TeacherWave is the controller of the personal data it processes to operate the Platform, and you are an independent data controller in respect of the personal data you determine the use of when delivering your own tutoring services. Each party is responsible for complying with applicable data protection law, including the GDPR, in its own capacity.

As an independent controller, you must: process student personal data only as necessary to deliver and support your tutoring; keep it secure; not misuse, export, sell, share, or retain it beyond what is necessary for legitimate tutoring and platform use; provide students with any information required by law about your own processing; assist with and respond to data-subject requests that relate to your processing; and notify TeacherWave without undue delay of any personal-data breach affecting student data you hold.

On termination, or when student data is no longer needed for a legitimate purpose, you must delete or return it unless retention is required by law. Where you process personal data solely on TeacherWave's documented instructions, that processing is governed by TeacherWave's data processing terms, which form part of this Tutor Agreement when applicable.

Attendance and classroom evidence. TeacherWave may collect and retain attendance records, classroom entry and exit records, login information, lesson-completion records, booking records, messaging records, and lesson metadata, and may use them for disputes, chargebacks, refunds, fraud investigations, compliance reviews, and payout reviews.

11. Confidentiality

In the course of using the Platform you may receive confidential information, including student personal data, non-public platform features, pricing and commercial arrangements, business plans, and technical or operational information. You must keep such information confidential, use it only to provide your services through the Platform, and not disclose it to third parties or use it for your own or another's benefit except as necessary to deliver your tutoring or as required by law.

This obligation does not apply to information that is or becomes public through no fault of yours, that you already lawfully held, or that you are required to disclose by law or a competent authority. Your confidentiality obligations continue after this Tutor Agreement ends.

12. Conduct, Safeguarding and Professional Standards

You must act lawfully, respectfully, and professionally at all times. You must not harass, threaten, bully, abuse, or discriminate; impersonate others; create fake accounts; manipulate rankings, reviews, attendance records, lesson-completion records, or progress data; misuse messaging tools; or use the Platform for romantic, sexual, exploitative, or non-educational purposes.

Safeguarding. Where you teach minors, you must act appropriately and professionally at all times, maintain suitable boundaries, keep interactions on the Platform, and immediately raise any safeguarding concern with TeacherWave. Students under 16 must have a parent or legal guardian nearby or present during lessons as required by TeacherWave policy. You must comply with applicable child-protection and safeguarding laws. TeacherWave may investigate safeguarding concerns and report unlawful or dangerous conduct where legally required or appropriate.

Recordings. TeacherWave may record, store, review, or access lesson recordings where legally permitted and reasonably necessary for safeguarding, dispute resolution, fraud prevention, quality review, legal compliance, or platform protection. Where recordings are used, TeacherWave will provide appropriate notice and obtain any legally required consents. You must not make, share, publish, distribute, or misuse lesson recordings outside the Platform without all required permissions and consents, and you are responsible for complying with recording and privacy laws in your jurisdiction.

13. Insurance, Taxes and Compliance

Insurance. You are responsible for arranging any insurance appropriate to your business. We recommend that you consider holding professional indemnity insurance, but it is not a requirement to use the Platform.

Taxes and VAT. You are solely responsible for all taxes, VAT obligations, invoicing obligations, accounting obligations, social-security obligations, pension obligations, reporting obligations, business-registration obligations, licensing obligations, and declarations required by applicable law in respect of your tutoring income, including the lesson fees and tutor-facing subscriptions you receive from students. Prices you set are treated as inclusive of any such taxes. TeacherWave has no obligation to calculate, withhold, collect, report, remit, monitor, verify, audit, or enforce any such obligations, and does not act as your withholding agent, employer, payroll provider, accountant, tax adviser, or fiscal representative unless required by law.

Information provided by TeacherWave (including platform content, support communications, FAQs, AI-generated content, reports, recommendations, earnings information, and guidance) is for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax, accounting, financial, employment, educational, business, or professional advice. You are responsible for obtaining your own professional advice.

14. Suspension, Removal and Termination

You may end this Tutor Agreement at any time by cancelling your tutor account. If you cancel before you take on your first subscription student (before any charge has been made), cancellation takes effect immediately and you are not billed; if you cancel after billing has started, cancellation takes effect at the end of the period already paid for. TeacherWave may suspend, restrict, deprioritise, remove, or terminate your account or features, without compensation, where reasonably necessary to protect students, maintain quality, enforce platform standards, investigate disputes, fraud, or misconduct, comply with law, or protect TeacherWave's operations, reputation, systems, or business interests.

TeacherWave gives no guarantee of tutor income, visibility, student bookings, lesson frequency, search-ranking position, featured placement, or platform growth. Tutor visibility, ranking, recommendations, and featured placement may be influenced by factors including subscription tier, availability, reviews, responsiveness, profile quality, subject demand, student preferences, compliance history, reliability, completed lessons, platform testing, promotional campaigns, technical factors, and commercial factors.

On termination, you must still honour or fairly resolve (including by refund where appropriate) any confirmed bookings and unused, paid lessons that students hold at the time, deal in good faith with any outstanding student matters, and comply with your continuing data-protection, confidentiality, and anti-circumvention obligations. Final payouts remain subject to the holding, set-off, and chargeback provisions of section 5.

15. Liability and Indemnity

To the maximum extent permitted by law, TeacherWave shall not be liable to you for indirect, incidental, or consequential losses; loss of profit, income, goodwill, opportunity, or data; student conduct; educational outcomes; third-party or payment-provider failures; internet outages; or your own equipment failure. TeacherWave does not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation of the Platform.

Subject to the liabilities that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded (including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, gross negligence, wilful misconduct, and mandatory rights that cannot legally be waived), TeacherWave's total aggregate liability to you arising out of or relating to the Platform or this Tutor Agreement shall not exceed the total subscription fees you paid to TeacherWave during the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

Indemnity. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless TeacherWave against all claims, losses, damages, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:

• your breach of this Tutor Agreement or the general Terms;
• your tutoring services, conduct, or omissions;
• any claim by a student or third party relating to your services;
• your unlawful conduct or infringement of third-party rights;
• your tax, social-security, or legal failures, or any reclassification of your status;
• off-platform circumvention or solicitation;
• your misuse of personal data; and
• fraudulent payment activity or chargebacks on your charges.

16. General Legal Terms

Governing law and jurisdiction. This Tutor Agreement is governed by the laws of Greece. The competent courts of Ioannina, Greece have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to this Tutor Agreement or your use of the Platform as a tutor.

Changes. We may update this Tutor Agreement from time to time and will give reasonable notice of material changes by email, account notification, website notice, or in-platform messaging. Continued use of the Platform as a tutor after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance.

Force majeure. TeacherWave is not liable for failure or delay caused by events outside its reasonable control, including natural disasters, war, strikes, internet or payment-provider outages, cyberattacks, government action, power failures, pandemics, or third-party platform failures.

Survival. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination continue to apply, including those on payments, set-off, chargebacks, anti-circumvention and non-solicitation, intellectual property, data protection, confidentiality, liability, indemnity, and governing law.

Language. This Tutor Agreement may be translated into other languages for convenience. In the event of inconsistency, the English version may prevail unless applicable law requires otherwise.

Other. We may provide notices and agreements electronically. We may assign or transfer this Tutor Agreement as part of a business transaction; you may not assign it without our consent. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect, and our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. These Terms, together with the general Terms and referenced policies, form the entire agreement between you and TeacherWave as a tutor; in the event of inconsistency between this Tutor Agreement and other TeacherWave communications, this Tutor Agreement prevails to the fullest extent permitted by law.

17. Company Information and Contact

TeacherWave is operated by:

• Business: Dale Daniel Earnshaw trading as TeacherWave
• VAT / tax number (ΑΦΜ): 174919837
• Address: Ioannina, Epirus 45500, Greece
• Contact email: [email protected]

If you have any questions about this Tutor Agreement, please contact us through our Contact Us page.