Software for language teachers: students in every time zone

An independent language teacher can have a student in Seoul at 7 a.m., another in Madrid at noon and a company team in Chicago after lunch. The hard part isn't the lesson. It's agreeing on the time without a conversion mistake, getting paid by people in three countries, and billing the company that buys 20 hours a month for its staff.

From the first message to a paid course

1. A prospective student fills out a placement form: current level, goals (travel, exams, work), native language and time zone. If they type a company name, a follow-up question asks how many people would take the course.
2. Depending on the answers, they book a 30-minute "Trial lesson" on your Scheduling page, or a "Company needs call". Each person sees your open hours in their own time zone, so nobody does the math.
3. Regular lessons are a paid 60-minute meeting type: the student pays the full price or a deposit by card when they book, and a cancellation inside your window (24 hours, for example) is refunded on its own.
4. For a company, send a proposal: 20 hours a month of business English for four employees, materials and a monthly progress note, and the terms for missed classes.
5. The contract goes out for E-Signatures, often to the HR manager first and then the finance contact, in signing order.
6. Log every class against the company's project in Time Tracking. At month end, "Add unbilled time" turns those hours into invoice lines, sent to their accounts payable email with a pay link.

A typical week across time zones

• Monday: a student in Japan books Tuesday 7 a.m. your time from a slot that showed as 9 p.m. for them.
• Tuesday: you send a pronunciation video instead of a written note. The student comments at the second where the vowel goes wrong.
• Wednesday: the company's HR manager signs the contract; the finance contact signs after her.
• Thursday: a trial lesson converts into a 10-lesson package. You send the proposal while the call is still fresh.
• Friday: the month-end invoice for the company lists 18.5 hours, each class as a line with its date.

All 13 tools, one by one

How a language teacher uses each tool, from the trial lesson to the company invoice.

• Link in Bio: the link on your YouTube channel, Instagram and email signature, with the placement form, the trial lesson and a signup for your weekly vocabulary email.
• Short Links: a short link for the placement form to read out at the end of a podcast episode or put in a YouTube description, with click counts by day.
• Forms: the placement questionnaire with level, goals and time zone, and a mid-course check-in that asks what's still hard. Each answer is saved on the student's contact.
• Scheduling: trial lessons, paid lessons and company calls as separate meeting types, each shown in the student's own time zone, with a 24-hour reminder and an optional 1-hour one.
• Proposals: the 10-lesson package for an individual, or the monthly hours for a company, with the missed-class policy in the terms.
• E-Signatures: the contract with a company client, signed by two people in order, and the certificate with the audit trail if their procurement team asks for it.
• Document Tracking: your course workbook or exam-prep PDF with a passcode, a watermark with the viewer's email and downloads off, so it doesn't end up shared across a whole office.
• Screen Recording: pronunciation and grammar feedback in videos of up to 5 minutes on Solo (15 on Team). Students comment at the exact second, and you see whether they watched.
• Notes & Boards: a page per student with recurring mistakes and new vocabulary, and a board with each company's course plan by week.
• Time Tracking: hours per company or per student project, with notes on what each class covered. That's the record behind the month-end invoice.
• Invoicing: monthly invoices to companies built from unbilled time, and a recurring monthly invoice for students on a fixed plan, each with a card pay link.
• Expenses: textbook licenses, your Zoom plan, a microphone and exam registration fees you pay on a student's behalf, with receipts.
• Automations: when a trial lesson is booked, the student gets your pre-lesson worksheet; when a contract is signed, a task to set up the company's course plan appears on your board.

Taxes on teaching income

• Teaching on your own makes you self-employed for federal tax purposes. The IRS says you generally owe self-employment tax once your net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more, at 15.3% (12.4% Social Security and 2.9% Medicare) on 92.35% of those earnings.
• Card processors and payment apps send a Form 1099-K only when your payments are over $20,000 and over 200 transactions in the year, a threshold a 2025 federal law restored. Income below that is still taxable, so keep your own records.

This is general information, not tax advice. Your accountant can tell you how it applies to you.

SoloWOS, Preply or italki: which fits

Preply and italki are marketplaces: students find you there, pay the platform and the platform pays you. SoloWOS finds no students; it's for the ones who book you directly. Many teachers use both. Read each platform's rules before you take one of its students off the platform.

Choose Preply or italki if:

• You're building a student base from zero and want people searching for a teacher to find you.
• You'd rather the platform handle payments from many countries and provide the classroom.

Choose SoloWOS if:

• Your students and company clients come to you directly and you don't want to give up a share of every lesson.
• You sell courses to companies and need a proposal, a contract signed by two people and invoices based on hours taught.

Prices and features checked between October 17 and 23, 2026 on each company's site.

Start with these three

Scheduling first, because time zones are where most mistakes happen. Then Time Tracking with one project per company client, so the monthly invoice builds itself from the hours. Add Proposals once you pitch your first company course.

Free tools that help

• Time zone meeting planner to find a lesson time that works in two cities.
• Retainer calculator to price a company's monthly block of hours.
• Payment fee calculator to see what card fees take from an international student's payment.
• Self-employment tax calculator for a rough idea of what to set aside.

What SoloWOS won't do for a language teacher

• No classroom, video calls or interactive exercises. Put your Zoom or Meet link in the meeting type's location.
• No group classes: one student per booking slot, so a conversation club needs another tool.
• One currency per workspace, so you invoice everyone in USD; the student's card handles the conversion.
• No recurring bookings: a student with a weekly lesson books each one, or you send a single-use link.
• SoloWOS doesn't file taxes, issue 1099s or collect sales tax for you. Invoicing sends the invoice with a pay link (card through your Stripe account) and your other payment details; your accountant or tax software handles the rest.