How Much Does a Private IB Tutor Cost? Agencies vs Independent Tutors (2026)

A private IB tutor costs between a few euros and several hundred in local currency per hour in 2026, and the provider type sets the band. Marketplaces start at single digits, online agencies at about GBP 58, specialist agencies sit around GBP 90 to 140 in London, and founder-led boutiques in Hong Kong publish HKD 1,480 to 2,080.

The spread looks absurd until you see what sits inside each band. On a marketplace you are paying one tutor and a platform commission, and you do the vetting yourself: on Preply's IB Maths listings, featured tutors charged between EUR 6 and EUR 36 for a 50-minute lesson when I read the page. An online agency adds a selection step and a brand: Lanterna starts at GBP 58 an hour and TutorChase at GBP 59.

A specialist agency adds a coordinator, a matching consultation and the promise of a replacement if the first tutor does not fit.

The table below gives one published example per band. All prices are per 60-minute hour unless stated, in the currency the provider uses, read on 7 October 2026.

Premium IB tutoring agencies that publish a price charge roughly GBP 90 to 140 an hour in London, CHF 70 to 160 in Geneva, SGD 100 to 150 in Singapore, HKD 450 to 2,080 in Hong Kong and AED 275 to 350 in Dubai. Many agencies that serve high net worth families publish nothing and quote after a consultation.

I read every price below on the provider's own page on 7 October 2026. Where a page gives no figure I have written "on request" rather than guess, because an estimate in a comparison table quickly becomes a fact someone repeats. Currency conversions are left out on purpose: exchange rates move, and a family in Singapore compares against Singapore prices, not London ones.

Two things stand out. First, the published ranges are wide inside the same agency, because the price follows the tutor's seniority: Owl Tutors states that its rates across all programmes run from GBP 70 to 200, with an average of GBP 105. Second, extra fees are common: Owl charges a one-off placement fee of GBP 95 when tuition starts, and TutorsPlus a one-off enrolment fee of CHF 100 per family.

With an agency you pay for three services on top of the teaching: someone who matches a tutor to your child, someone who stays your point of contact, and the right to swap tutors without starting the search again. Those services are real, and they are the reason the agency's hourly price sits above what the same tutor would charge alone.

Matching.

A good agency interviews the family, reads the school reports and proposes a tutor. Keystone Tutors describes a consultation, a tutor selection process and an informal academic assessment in the first session. That saves a parent time, especially across several subjects.

A coordinator.

Monthly reports, scheduling and billing go through one person. If your child takes Maths, Chemistry and English with three different tutors, one contact is worth paying for.

Replaceable tutors.

If the first tutor does not work out, the agency sends another. The price of that safety net is that the person teaching your child is the agency's choice, and the quality follows the individual, not the brand.

What the agency fee does not buy is a better teacher by default. The margin pays for the structure around the lesson. For a single subject over two years, that structure matters less than who sits on the other side of the screen.

An experienced independent IB tutor usually costs less than an agency tutor of the same seniority, because no margin sits between the family and the teacher. My own fees start at USD 500 a month for one 50-minute lesson a week, and two lessons a week cost USD 1,000 a month. In the eurozone the first figure is €360.

I quote by the month rather than by the hour because the work is a programme, not a string of separate lessons. The price per lesson is the same at both intensities: there is no volume discount, and no package to buy up front. Exam months and a second subject cost more, and that is agreed after the assessment session.

In the UK, Hong Kong and Switzerland I give the rate after that first conversation. The current figures for every market are on the fees page.

What the family gets in exchange for no agency structure is continuity. I hold a PhD in Physics, I have more than ten years of tutoring behind me, and I teach only IB Mathematics and Physics, with IGCSE and MYP as the foundation for the Diploma. The person who reads the first diagnostic is the person who reads the last mock. There is no coordinator, so the questions a parent would ask an account manager come to me directly.

The limit is capacity. An independent tutor has a fixed number of hours in the week, and in the weeks before May and November those hours fill first.

Higher Level IB Maths and Physics tutoring costs more because fewer tutors can teach it well. Hudson Academy in Hong Kong publishes HKD 450 to 900 an hour for a Standard Level subject and HKD 600 to 1,200 for Higher Level, and states that HL Physics and Maths AA HL cost more than HL Economics.

The reason is supply. An HL Maths AA student sits Paper 3, a one-hour paper of extended problems that only HL candidates take. An HL Physics student needs a tutor who can handle the mathematics and the physics in the same breath. Both courses also carry an internal assessment worth 20% of the final grade, and guiding that work within the IB's academic honesty rules is a separate skill from explaining a topic.

For a parent, the practical point is this: compare prices for the level your child actually takes. A quote for "IB Maths" that does not ask whether the course is AA or AI, HL or SL is a quote for a generic tutor.

A residential tutor is not priced by the hour: the family pays a salary, and agencies quote it on request. The figure that made headlines was a role advertised for a Tutors International client with a salary of GBP 288,000, which the agency publicly addressed in July 2024.

That is the far end of the market, used by families who travel, live between countries or want one adult to manage the whole school week. It makes sense when the need is daily and spans every subject. It rarely makes sense for one IB subject, where one or two focused lessons a week with a specialist cover the same ground at a small fraction of the cost.

The word "elite" is used a lot at this end of the market. What it should mean, in practice, is a tutor whose qualifications you can check and whose results you can ask about, which is the same test you would apply at any price.

Before paying any IB tutor, agency or independent, ask five things: which qualifications you can verify, how much HL and internal assessment experience they have, what results they can show, what the first session produces, and what happens if it does not work. The answers matter more than the hourly rate.

Qualifications you can verify.

A degree, a doctorate, a teaching licence or examiner experience should come with a name you can look up.

HL and internal assessment experience.

Ask how many students they have taken through the specific course, for example Maths AA HL or Physics HL, and how they guide the IA without writing any of it.

Results.

A tutor should be able to point to outcomes in the same course. On my results page the documented case is a student at St. Louis School in Milan who went from a predicted 4 to a 6 in IB Physics HL after four months of work, as the family wrote in a public review.

The first session.

It should end with a written diagnosis of where marks are lost and a plan tied to real dates: predicted grades, the IA deadline, the exam session. Mine is a 20-minute assessment session, at no charge.

The exit.

Ask what happens after a month if it is not working. With an agency the answer is usually a new tutor. With me the answer is that we stop, and there is nothing left to redeem.

For a wider look at the two models beyond price, see independent IB tutor or agency.