TakeLessons 

Yes, this company was a saving grace during Covid but almost no students before or after that. Plus....

• Teachers are charged a 40% commission on lessons

• Students are charged an additional $$ service fee on top of the session rate for each lesson

• Students are also charged a monthly fee for belonging to TL

• Teachers have to be background checked every year at their expense.... but they DON'T EVEN TAKE THE LAST NAME of students.... the people the put you in sessions with - extremely dangerous!

• If you have a problem with a student (which I did - lewd sexual comments) TL will do nothing - they "can't"... they don't have the person's full name - first name, email and phone according to the company

Personally, I had 71 - 4 and 5 star reviews an then this dirty man left a 1 star review because I refused to do anymore session with him - MY ACCOUNT was cancelled - not his!

*NOTE: I have an email thread from the company which clearly stated everything above

There are so many other platforms to find work and ones that treat everyone with respect. You can really do better!

I’m a teacher of 5 years. I worked in a few places teaching piano. Thanks to COVID, i lost my teaching jobs. Decided to try something different and sign up to teach online. I herd this was a great place to teach students. So, I made my account official and everything. I’m a legit teacher who loves to teach but I am trying my best to market myself. There’s not a great marketing strategy here. No one wants to sign up lessons on this site AND the only ones who are messaging me are SPAM mails. Over and over and over again, even after I reported it. All I get are these spams about some father asking for lessons for his daughter and giving me a phone number to call them. Of course, I know better than to call a personal number. But, for someone who’s worked so hard in getting a degree, losing a great job, hoping this alternative would work, but only getting spam messages…I don’t know. I feel quite let down. Great service if used correctly and teachers are prosperous with getting students, but I’ve been part of this for awhile and I haven’t been able to teach one student on here. Not a single one.

They charge you $69 / hour for instruction. They pay the poor teachers around $20 / hour. Any reputable teacher in an area will have a following and will usually charge in the $50 - $60 / hour range, and it all goes to that teacher.

Most of the teachers I have encountered are HS grads, some with college degrees, most do not. I mean if you are a professional music teacher are you going to work for $20 / hour? And their lesson centers in Best Buy? They are all about the "upsell" - buy an instrument, only buy books from them, etc, etc...

So, here's the real deal: Your child wants to take lessons? What is your first reaction... it should be ask their teachers, friends, neighbors, but go to a website and put a teacher in a "shopping cart" and check out. They claim to have "certified" teachers. Well, they interview that teacher for not very long, do an on-line "training" which is all about selling and marketing and has nothing to do with educational values. I actually asked a rep from Takelessons and asked if they follow the guidelines set forth by the MENC standards and rubrics for music instruction and they said that they dont follow any "other schools" program. Even when that "other school" is the Department of Education that has a very detailed list of what private lessons should be consistant.
Are they a scam, you decide, are they trying to rip you off, you bet. And yes, their website is flashy, but like any prostitute, sex sells.

I had a makeup lesson during Covid because I finally had enough time on my hands to try and learn how to apply a simple yet more attractive daytime look. Outside of a couple technical issues my teacher was really helpful and besides teaching and then watching me apply her methods myself (very helpful) she also gave me recommendations for purchasing makeup that would work for me. I followed her suggestions and now I have a nice look and am a lot better at making the most of my features.

They would charge you even the teacher canceled the lesson. They would force you to book additional 5 lessons and not refund the balance.

Like many here, I visited the website to look at pricing and put a lesson package in my cart to see all costs involved. Shocker: there are surprise fees. To do this, I had to put in my email and phone number. Big mistake. They have called me every day since to offer to “help” me complete my purchase.

I could see how one call and message might be “helpful.” But everyday? Ask yourself this - if a company thinks so little of your intelligence and cares so little about pestering you, what else are they willing to do to you? Run fast, run far.

Just a note to inform others who are on the fence with this company that I have been a Teacher for over 25 plus years. Work in private school settings for 20+ yrs. Concerned where I wanted to use a platform to hang my hat that was safe for all parties involved. I searched carefully, details beyond normal and with keen efforts. So I did my homework. And I pulled the trigger with TakeLessons. Very Happy with my deceision. More importantly are the students I am honored to teach. They are the ones that make my job rock. So it's been excellent with students, schedules, Covid concerns, life juggling and helping students succeed on the internet with a subject they have an interest in. As a Teacher I prefer to teach in person. My job is to help them achieve thier goals and build out their wish list. Whether in person or online. Take lessons has helped online in many ways. I do agree on a few issues. A note on billing needs to button up in a easier, friendlier manner. Along with in house features - tools have improved but the support team needs to continue to add more. They have but keep in coming. This is Super helpful for both Teachers and students. All in all I am very pleased with Take lessons. As I end each one of my lesson, I share this always "Don't forget to shine because someone else may need your light."
🍃❤🍃

Terrible. I’m a professional musician and I signed up for singing lessons, to brush up. The prices were good and I thought maybe I could do this ongoing. You have to buy lessons up front - I bought 5. So, the teacher didn’t show. No call, no text. No, he wasn’t in an accident. They say they have a $ back guarantee. Ok. So I got another teacher. I had a lesson. It wasn’t bad. The next week, wait for it — HE didn’t show. Also no call or text. Terrible. Now I want my $ back.

I visited their website to see what lessons were offered. It asked me for my email and phone number when I started going through their pricing options. Upon seeing the pricing I decided to hold off on the lessons until next month, but now I will NEVER use this service. I have had two calls and several emails EVERY DAY for TWO WEEKS since I visited the website, all of which have been during work hours so I can't pick up and tell them to leave me alone. And the best part? I'm not technically signed up for an account, so I can't even remove my number from their spam list. They're making new numbers as fast as I can block them. DON'T EVEN GO TO THE WEBSITE.

DONTTT put any information into takelessons website!!!!! I looked 2 days ago and they have called me 3 times since then at 7am and 8pm so rude they won't stop the bombardment of emails and calls numerous times a day! Disgusting and rude behavior don't use them

UPDATE: I CANT REPLY TO THEM SO IM REPLYING HERE. HAVING SOMEONE AVAILABLE FOR HELP DURING BUSINESS HOURS IS VERYYYY DIFFERENT FROM HARASSING PEOPLE NUMEROUS TIMES A DAY WHEN THEY HAVE NO QUESTIONS AND HAVE NOT ASKED FOR HELP!

My son has been using TakeLessons for several months now, and while we like the instructor I find that the TakeLessons organization does not add value.
Specifically, the company itself does little after the first introduction other than to take your money. They expect you to go to the teachers directly to sort out any issues, confirm lesson times, etc, yet when the teachers are in China that can lead to lengthy lead times on communication.
I understand the model of the teachers being independent contractors, but if they only want to provide an introduction service then they should be paid once, for the introduction. If they want to take ongoing monthly fees they should provide a service to their clients for that time (and not simply 'we have a website you can use to talk with the teacher' as nearly everyone has Zoom or Microsoft these days.)
My suggestion would be to look around to find an independent contractor. You will pay them a good bit less and receive the same service.

If you are advanced or intermediate this is not the place for you to learn a language because beginner students are mixed with advanced. This prevents advanced students from advancing and what’s worse the classes become boring. Even when you dig up fir an advanced class you’ll see the same people that you see in a beginners class. When you complain the tell you there is nothing the can do about it if the beginner student wants to enter that class. As a result, you can be in a “advanced” class and people don’t even understand a basic question such as: “How are you?” When people don’t even understand this then they have to be told what it is in English and as an advanced student this is not acceptable. Also, they are not all native tutors and some of those tutors could need a tutor themselves. Basically if you want to waste your time and not advance this is the place for you.

Here is my experience: I saw TakeLessons services advertised via a Google Search. I wanted to take Mandarin lessons. I saw on their site that lessons could be taken for $18 per hour. I selected a teacher and e-mailed her only to find out her rates were $46 per hour. I contacted TakeLessons to complain about this, they informed I could take Mandarin lessons for $22 per with another teacher, if I paid upfront I could get a package of 10 of these lessons for $184. So I paid. 10 days went by and I heard nothing from the teacher or TakeLessons. On the 11th day TakeLessons called me to inform me the teacher I selected and paid for was no longer available and they gave me a list of 3 other teachers to chose from. I chose one, contacted her, only to find out her fee was $46 per hour and I would have to pay her.
Sounds Like bait and switch to me, I have requested a full refund and am currently waiting on that refund.

TakeLessons has great teachers when you can find a good one. However, their business practices are not. First, they automatically set future sessions without your consent which then bills you. You have to go to each future lesson and cancel them manually so you're not billed. There's no way to turn this off. Then they allow teachers to miss or cancel appointments, but if the student misses an appointment, we have to pay for the session instead of having the option to reschedule. We are the ones paying out of pocket and should be given the chance to reschedule. Once my son is done with his paid lessons, I'm looking for another company. Also, they automatically enroll you into their $14.95 unlimited videos without your consent. I had to call to get them to cancel this.

I have had a very bad experience with takelessons team. I ordered a piano for my daughter and they claimed about 2 months of free lessons. My daughter took two lessons in first week and did not like it at all. I opted for simply piano and she learnt a lot on her own.

Meanwhile, these guys didnt bother to inform or send an email notification saying your free account is over and you will be charged. Neither they cared if student is actually taking the classes or not.
It went for 5 months and they kept deducting money. When I looked at my bank statement I was disappointed to see that. I tried contacting them and explained the situation. First of all, their call goes on hold for a long time and that happened multiple times without any actual contact. Then, I sent an email and they responded that they don't have enough staff to take care of each student's classes and let the customer know.
I told them they have 100% moneyback guarantee and then they reversed just 3 payments out of 5. And everytime they are sending a message saying they won't refund any other money no matter its their fault where they never even informed the customer about all the deductions or send an invoice every month.
Last reply I got is we will not refund and won't even reply to your emails.

This is the worst user experience I have had with takelessons. If they had been good, they would have paid more attention to the customer. it simply means they are just trying to befool the people by attracting them with free lessons and when its' normal for any user to forget about it as many online classes are going on for kids. These people are taking advantage of it.
I would strongly recommend not to come in their scam and moreover, their classes and teaching pattern is also not good. I believe they also know it otherwise they would have had confidence in their process and teachers to get more students. Instead, they are using unethical ways to earn money.

There advertisements are false, they say their tutors will work with you, and take their time and teach you so you can learn quick and understand, but don't ever go the Catherine who teaches ASL, she tends to cancel on your lessons, and she forget what she has thought you, and she just makes you feel like she doesn't want to be wasting her time teaching the people who pay her to learn ASL. She signs to quick, and she tends to forget what you guys have gone over, and its like wow I am paying this woman to write down so we can be ready to learn more signs and not keep repeating it.

Terrible service. I tried to register as a teacher and the money was withdrawn from my banking account. Then it took a long time to find out that the account is not active, I won't be able to teach with Takelessons and the registration money are not refundable.

From the Bottom of my heart, I would like say that this is a very great site, I have a very greatful for Emily So as a teacher. She is very great, very understanding and everything, I strongly recammed her and this aswell.

I signed up with Takelessons to learn crocheting. My first teacher cancelled 2 of our lessons. I called takelessons to get a replacement teacher who texted me 45 mins before our scheduled lesson also to reschedule. I signed up about a month ago and still not had a lesson, although I paid in advance for the lesson.

I enjoyed my lessons with Ryan, who was a solid, talented and punctual teacher. However, while a nice person canceled the overcharge when I asked, there's some sort of duplicitousness in the billing department that finds ways to tack on fees that roll on past the lesson end dates. Beware.