Vantaggi
I'm coming up on one year on StudyGate, working in Humanities, and things have been building steadily until it just exploded this Fall semester. StudyGate is a "marketplace" that brings together tutors and students, while asserting strong checks and balances before hiring the tutors to ensure high quality work is always delivered. Jobs requiring quick explanation or even more in–depth assistance are posted by students and bid on by all tutors in a given subject area. Just as there's a No–BS Money Back Guarantee for students, there may as well be a No–BS Earnings Guarantee for tutors. Money is paid directly into a Wallet and withdrawn by either Stripe or PayPal. This is a huge relief for any freelancer to know that there is only one single negotiation phase up front and the rest of the payment process is automated after delivery. Work is readily available and if you're willing to grow outside your comfort zone and learn skills for new learning areas, you'll be able to bid, and add value, to ±90% of jobs posted. StudyGate's also been doing good work in expanding to foreign markets so there's always been a fair mix of easy–medium–hard jobs available. If you focus on adding value rather than just delivering results ("What can I do to get you to an A+, rather than just passing"), it is relatively easy to build longterm relationships with your clients. The UX is better than intuitive, it's invisible. I learned all I needed to in the first three minutes. And it took about two minutes to navigate to all the pages. While I've only dealt with Support on one occasion, they've been both helpful and effective.
Svantaggi
I've experienced three downsides. One, jobs are really scarce over the summer, but that really is the nature of tutoring. Two, you'll be working across different timezones, but can be alleviated with good scheduling on your part. Three, there is a super detailed registration process. You'll need a copy of your certification, some kind of legally valid identification, and you'll even need to make a brief video of yourself. But that's really one of those silver lining kind of things for you as a tutor. Because it means you'll never be outbid by someone with less skills than you.
