Tutor Agreement

You must be 18 or over to teach on Bantu Plaza. To teach learners aged 8–17 (“Kids welcome” tutors) you must be 21 or over and opt in explicitly. You must teach a language you speak at a native or near-native level and provide accurate information about yourself.

Before your profile is published you must: complete your profile; upload a genuine proof of identity for verification (stored privately, never shown publicly); pass a short platform orientation; set a payout method; and set your weekly availability. Your profile is published automatically once your identity review clears and you have passed the orientation. Bantu Plaza may decline or delay any application at its discretion.

You are an independent contractor, not an employee, partner or agent of Bantu Plaza. You decide your own rates, schedule and teaching method. You are responsible for your own taxes and for any licences or registrations required where you live.

Bantu Plaza retains a commission on each completed, paid lesson; you keep the remainder. Two tracks apply:

• Standard track (default for new tutors) — 35% commission for your first 50 hours, then 32% past 50 hours, 28% past 100 hours, and 25% past 250 hours.
• Pro track — 25% commission for your first 50 hours, then 23% past 50 hours, 20% past 100 hours, and 18% past 250 hours. You reach the Pro track by verifying a teaching qualification, or by verifying you are a native speaker and either completing 100 platform hours or receiving an admin recommendation.

Only completed, paid lessons delivered on the platform count towards these hours; cancelled, refunded or off-platform lessons do not. The commission rate that applies to a lesson is fixed at the time the lesson is booked.

First lesson with a new student (trial). Each student’s first paid one-on-one lesson with you is a trial: the student pays 25% off your listed rate, Bantu Plaza takes 0% commission, and you keep 100% of what the student pays. Trials do not apply to recurring blocks or group classes.

Separately from the Pro track, you can earn a Certified Tutor badge — either by completing our short heritage-language teaching training, or automatically on a strong teaching record (50 paid hours, 20 published reviews, and a 4.5+ star average with no active moderation flag). The badge boosts your ranking in search and unlocks hosting group classes. Training is never required to publish your profile or to teach one-on-one lessons, and the badge is not revoked for a later dip in rating.

Payouts are made on a manual bi-monthly cycle, on or shortly after the 1st and the 15th of each month. Earnings become eligible after a 5-day hold following each completed lesson. A 5% rolling reserve is held for 120 days against chargebacks and disputes before being released to you. Payouts are paid via PayPal, bank transfer, or mobile money, depending on what is available in your country; you must save your payout method on your dashboard before your first cycle. Amounts are denominated in the store currency (currently US dollars). You are paid only for lessons that have settled, and settlement of a lesson requires you to submit the post-lesson progress log for it.

All lessons must be delivered through the Bantu Plaza video classroom for the booked time. After each completed lesson you must submit the short progress log (what was covered, competencies practised, suggested next focus); your earnings for that lesson are released once the log is submitted. Keep your availability accurate and arrive on time.

You must keep all communication, booking, payment and teaching on Bantu Plaza. You must not share or solicit personal contact details, move a student off-platform, or arrange or accept payment outside Bantu Plaza. Off-platform hours never count towards your commission tier. Attempting to take students off-platform is a serious breach and may result in suspension or termination and forfeiture of pending earnings to the extent permitted by law.

You must follow the Code of Conduct at all times. Lessons with learners aged 8–17 are booked only through a parent or guardian account; you communicate only with the guardian, never the child directly, and those lessons are recorded by Bantu Plaza for safeguarding and retained for 30 days. You must open every lesson through the Bantu Plaza lesson page so safeguarding controls apply.

Give as much notice as possible if you must cancel. Repeated no-shows or late cancellations harm your reliability standing and may lead to suspension. Our first-lesson guarantee means that if a student isn’t the right fit, they can try another tutor of similar value until they find their match, or get a refund; refunds and cancellations are handled per the Refund Policy, and refunded lessons do not earn commission.

You keep ownership of your profile text, photo and intro video. You grant Bantu Plaza a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, display and promote that content to operate and market the platform. You confirm you have the rights to everything you upload.

We process your personal data as described in the Privacy Policy (POPIA and, where applicable, GDPR/UK GDPR). You can request a copy of your data or deletion of your account via our data & privacy requests page.

You may stop teaching at any time. Bantu Plaza may suspend or terminate your account for breach of this Agreement, the Terms or the Code of Conduct, for safeguarding or fraud concerns, or where required by law. On suspension your profile is hidden and open lessons are cancelled and refunded to students; eligible settled earnings are still paid out, subject to the rolling reserve and any amounts withheld for cause.

We may update this Agreement from time to time. Material changes will be notified to tutors; continuing to teach after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Agreement.

This Agreement is governed by the laws of Botswana, consistent with §12 of the Terms of Service.