What Is Preply and What Can You Use It For?

Preply is an online marketplace for private, one-on-one lessons with tutors, delivered through its website and app. You can use it to learn a language or one of 120+ other subjects, to arrange language training for a business, or to earn money by tutoring. It fits best if you want a tutor who adapts each lesson to your goals and you're comfortable choosing that tutor yourself from a large pool.

What Preply is

Preply connects learners with independent tutors for private online lessons. The platform's own figures describe the scale:

The subject list is dominated by languages, and the site publishes tutor counts by language, including:

• English: 33,602 tutors
• Spanish: 10,054
• Chinese: 5,253
• French: 3,712
• Arabic: 3,651
• Japanese: 2,902
• Italian: 2,542
• Portuguese: 1,636
• Korean: 1,329
• Indonesian: 1,146

Smaller listings include Polish (360), Dutch (233), Greek (358), Turkish (746), Hindi (397), and Danish (41). The spread matters: for common languages you have a deep pool to compare, while for less common ones the choice is narrower.

How lessons work

Preply describes a three-step process:

1. Find your tutor. You're matched with a tutor who motivates, challenges, and supports you from the first lesson. Tutor profiles show ratings, languages spoken, and whether the tutor is native or advanced — for example, a French tutor rated 4.9 who speaks native French and advanced English.
2. Start learning. The tutor tailors every lesson to your learning goals, so the plan is personal from the beginning.
3. Make progress every week. You choose how many lessons to take and build confidence through conversation over time.

The key mechanism is that the tutor, not a fixed curriculum, sets the content. That's an advantage if you have a specific goal (conversation practice, exam prep, professional vocabulary) and a drawback if you want a standardized course with predictable milestones.

What you can use it for

• Language learning. The core use case, with the largest tutor counts in English, Spanish, and other widely studied languages.
• Other subjects. The platform lists 120+ subjects beyond languages.
• Corporate language training. Preply offers language training for businesses, listed alongside its consumer tutor marketplace.
• Becoming a tutor. Preply invites experts to sign up, promising help finding new students, growing a tutoring business, and getting paid securely.

The guarantee and what to check

Preply states: "Lessons you'll love. Guaranteed. Try another tutor for free if you're not satisfied." That reduces the risk of a poor first match, since you can switch tutors rather than abandon the platform.

Before committing, confirm the details that vary by tutor and aren't fixed by the platform:

• Price per lesson. Rates are set by individual tutors, so compare several profiles for the same language and goal.
• Payment terms. Preply's site references a subscription page; check the current terms there rather than assuming a pay-as-you-go model.
• Tutor availability and time zone. With 180+ nationalities, schedules vary widely — confirm a slot that fits yours.
• Trial lesson terms. Ask the tutor or check the booking flow for how a first lesson is handled.

Who it suits

Preply is a reasonable fit if you want private, goal-driven lessons and are willing to spend time comparing tutors. It's a weaker fit if you need a fixed syllabus, a single standardized program across a group, or a guaranteed schedule without choosing a person. For businesses, the corporate training offering is worth evaluating directly against your team's language needs.