Terms of service

1. About these terms

These are the terms of service for Tutorperch. They form a contract between you and the operator of the platform, Tutorperch (referred to as "we", "us", or "the platform"). By creating an account or using the platform you accept these terms in full. If you don't accept them, please don't use the platform.

We may update these terms from time to time. We'll post the updated terms here with a new "last updated" date. If a change is material — for example, a change to fees or to your refund rights — we'll also notify signed-in users by email or in-app message before the change takes effect.

A few quick definitions:

• Tutor: a user who has set up a tutor profile on the platform.
• Student: any user looking for or messaging a tutor. In practice this is often a parent or guardian acting on behalf of a child.
• Profile: a tutor's public listing on the platform.
• Unlock: the moment a student pays the £20 finder's fee to access a tutor's contact details.

2. The service

Tutorperch is a directory and on-platform messaging service connecting UK students and independent UK tutors. We provide:

• A searchable directory of tutor profiles.
• An on-platform messaging system between students and tutors.
• An optional manual review of a tutor's Enhanced DBS certificate.
• A finder's fee transaction that gives a student access to a tutor's contact details.

We do not provide tutoring services, lessons, scheduling, lesson-payment processing, video classrooms, or supervised lesson environments. Once a student and tutor exchange contact details, any tutoring relationship is between the two of them and we are not a party to it.

3. Your account

To create an account you must be 18 or older. If you are under 18 and want to find a tutor, please ask a parent or guardian to create the account on your behalf.

You agree to provide accurate information and to keep it up to date. We use magic-link email authentication — there is no password — so it's important that you keep access to your registered email address secure. Anyone with access to your email can sign into your account.

One person, one account. Don't create multiple accounts to evade enforcement, manipulate reviews, or repeat the unlock fee for the same tutor.

4. The £20 finder's fee

The fee is £20 per tutor. Paying it gives you a one-off, indefinite right to exchange the tutor's contact details on the platform — for example, by sending and receiving messages with them where the auto-redaction filter on contact details no longer applies. The fee is paid by the student, not by the tutor.

The fee covers the introduction itself and is not a fee for any lesson, lesson booking, or other tutoring service. We earn it once per introduction and have no further claim on the relationship that follows. Refund eligibility is set out in section 5.

5. Refunds

We will refund the £20 finder's fee if:

• The tutor's contact details turn out to be invalid or no longer monitored, and we can confirm this independently.
• The tutor doesn't respond to a reasonable initial follow-up after unlock, within 14 days.
• You and the tutor never agree on terms for any lesson — for example, you can't align on times, location, subject coverage, or rate.
• The tutor's circumstances change after unlock and they're no longer able to teach (e.g. they've stopped tutoring, moved abroad).

We will not refund the fee if:

• You and the tutor agreed terms and one or more lessons took place. Disputes about lesson quality are between you and the tutor.
• You changed your mind without engaging with the tutor.
• You've already used the unlocked details (called the tutor, sent them an SMS, emailed off-platform, etc).

How to request.

Email hello@tutorperch.com within 30 days of unlock with your account email, the tutor's profile URL, and a short note on which of the eligible reasons above applies. We aim to respond within 5 working days. Approved refunds are returned to the original payment method.

Nothing in this section limits any statutory consumer-rights you have under UK consumer-protection law, including the right to a refund where the service we provided was not as described.

6. If you're a student or parent

You're responsible for your own due diligence on any tutor you engage. The platform gives you the tools to make a sensible choice — profile content, reviews, optional DBS-Verified badge — but the decision to engage a tutor and the terms of any tutoring relationship are entirely yours.

If you're booking on behalf of a child, you accept responsibility for the child's safety during lessons. Standard parental due-diligence applies: meet first, supervise early lessons where you can, ask for references, and use the independent DBS-check guidance if you want extra confidence on a specific tutor.

Lesson payments and arrangements are between you and the tutor. We don't process, escrow, or guarantee lesson payments.

7. If you're a tutor

Tutors on the platform are independent contractors, not employees, agents, or partners of Tutorperch. You're responsible for your own:

• Tax registration, accounting, and reporting.
• Public liability and professional indemnity insurance, if applicable.
• Compliance with safeguarding requirements relevant to your situation (e.g. private tuition with under-18s).
• Qualifications, claims, and the quality of your teaching.
• Compliance with UK consumer law in the contracts you form with students off-platform.

You agree that all profile content (subjects, qualifications, prior experience, exam-board familiarity, etc.) is accurate and not misleading. You will keep the profile up to date.

Listing on Tutorperch is free. We do not charge tutors for the introduction, for any platform feature, or for ongoing membership. We will not introduce a tutor-side fee without first giving advance notice and a clear opt-out.

8. Messaging & content

Phone numbers, email addresses, URLs, and common chat handles are automatically stripped from messages between users until the £20 finder's fee has been paid. This keeps the platform's introduction model intact and protects users from off-platform solicitation before they've decided to engage.

Don't try to bypass the contact-detail filter (for example, by spelling out a phone number in words, or asking a student to search for you elsewhere). Repeated attempts may result in suspension.

All on-platform content — profile copy, photo, message body, review text — must be lawful, not misleading, not defamatory, not abusive, and not infringe anyone else's rights. You retain copyright in content you post and grant us a non-exclusive licence to display it on the platform for the purposes of running the service.

9. The DBS-Verified badge

A DBS-Verified badge on a tutor profile means a member of our team personally reviewed an Enhanced DBS certificate for that tutor and confirmed it as clear at the point of review. The badge expires three years from the certificate's issue date, after which the tutor must submit a fresh certificate to retain it.

The badge is a snapshot, not a continuous monitoring service. We do not auto-recheck certificates and we do not detect or report on any record changes after the date of review. The badge does not constitute a guarantee, an endorsement of any tutor's suitability for a particular student, or a substitute for your own due diligence. See our parent-facing guidance on independent verification.

10. Acceptable use

You must not use the platform to:

• Send abusive, harassing, threatening, or hateful messages.
• Solicit illegal services or attempt to use a tutor profile for non-tutoring purposes.
• Misrepresent your identity, qualifications, or DBS status, or attempt to impersonate anyone else.
• Scrape, copy, or systematically harvest the platform's content (tutor names, profile details, contact details, reviews) by automated means.
• Submit reviews you didn't write, reviews of tutors you haven't engaged, or coordinated review-manipulation of any kind.
• Attempt to bypass the £20 finder's fee or the contact-detail redaction.
• Interfere with the platform's security or integrity.

We may suspend, lock, or terminate an account that breaches these rules, with or without notice depending on the severity. Where we lock an account, the user can appeal in-app via the support chat on the locked-account screen.

11. Liability

We provide the platform on a reasonable-best-efforts basis. We don't guarantee continuous availability, error-free operation, or that any specific tutor is suitable, qualified, or available.

We are not party to any tutoring relationship that results from an introduction made on the platform. We accept no liability for the quality, conduct, outcome, or cancellation of any lesson, nor for any payment made directly between a student and a tutor.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes any liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded under UK law — including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or breach of statutory consumer rights.

Subject to the paragraph above, our total aggregate liability to you in respect of the platform, in any 12-month period, is limited to the total amount you paid us during that period (typically £0 for tutors and the sum of unlock fees for students).

12. Closing your account & service shutdown

You can close your account at any time from your settings. Closure is offered in two modes: a 30-day grace closure (during which the account can be reactivated and your data is retained) and an immediate hard close (irreversible).

When an account is closed, we pseudonymise the account on the platform and free up the email address for future signup. Some related records are retained where necessary (e.g. unlock receipts for HMRC platform-reporting obligations) and disclosed only as required by law.

Service shutdown. If we ever discontinue the platform, we will give all users at least 30 days' written notice and provide an automatic data export of the personal data we hold about each account, in machine-readable form, before the service is taken offline.

13. Privacy & data

How we handle your personal data is set out in our privacy policy, which forms part of these terms by reference. In short: we collect only what the service needs, store it on UK infrastructure, never sell it, and let you export or delete it.

14. Governing law & disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction in respect of any dispute arising under them, save that consumers may have additional rights to bring claims in their local jurisdiction under applicable consumer protection law.

If you have a complaint, please email hello@tutorperch.com before raising a formal claim. We aim to respond to complaints within 10 working days.

15. Contact & changes

Questions about these terms can be sent to hello@tutorperch.com.

If we update these terms, the version posted on this page is the version in force. Material changes will be flagged to signed-in users in advance, as set out in section 1 above.