How Much Does VIPKid Pay? A Complete 2021 Breakdown

How much do VIPKid teachers make? That’s a question I’ve been asked 1,000 times over the years. And the truth is there are lots of factors that come into play to determine your VIPKid teacher pay! So let’s start at the beginning and break down each step to determine your EXACT VIPKid pay.

VIPKid Pay: Base Pay Breakdown

Your VIPKid teacher salary is broken down into 2 parts…

  • Base pay
  • Incentive pay

Your VIPKid pay rate (or base pay) is typically $7.00-$7.50 based on your years of teaching experience and how well you do in the Interview and Demo lesson. One VERY important thing to note is that this is your pay per class (30 minutes)…not per hour.

So ultimately, that makes your base pay is $14-$15 per hour.

After completing the Interview & Demo stage of the VIPKid hiring process, you are quoted a base pay amount.  Once you’ve been quoted an amount, this will be your base pay PER CLASS.

And remember, your performance during the Demo lesson is one of the BIGGEST influencers. So be sure to give your very best during the Demo lesson to ensure that your base pay is as high as possible. (If you want tips to help you ace your Interview and Demo lesson, check out this post!)

When you sign your VIPKid contract, this is the pay rate that will be listed.

How Often Does VIPKid Pay Teachers?

Once you figure out what your base pay is going to be, the next natural question is, “When does VIPKid pay me for teaching?” In the beginning, teachers were paid once per month sometime between the 5th and the 12th of the month.

However, VIPKid has given teachers several options when it comes to getting paid including…

  • Monthly (payment once a month)
  • Bi-weekly (payment every two weeks)
  • Weekly (payment once a week)

You have the ability to change when you get paid by going into the VIPKid app and clicking on “My Info” and then clicking “Payment.” This is the page that pops up.

You can navigate to the orange tab on the right that says “Change Payment Cycle.” When you click it you will be able to change or update the cycle to your preferred payment schedule.

Does VIPKid Give Raises?

In the past, teachers who met specific qualifications during a 12 month period were given raises. The VIPKid raise requirements included…

  • teaching 1200 classes per year
  • having 25% of your classes leave 5 apple feedback
  • having VERY few Teacher IT or Teacher No Shows

So it’s possible that you will hear teachers in different Facebook groups talking about their base pay being $8.00-$9.00+. Just to clarify, these teachers were given pay raises in the past that have allowed them to be at this particular pay level.

With the new VIPKid pay rate, there are no more raises issued. (So if you’ve heard teachers asking about raises, you can tell them they are a thing of the past.) The only way to make more money per class is with incentive pay, and that’s what we’re diving into now!

VIPKid Incentives: Service Fee Structure Breakdown

In August of 2020, VIPKid rolled out a brand new “Service Fee” or incentive pay program that replaced the old VIPKid payment incentives program. But the real question is…how does this adjustment affect your VIPKid paycheck and ultimately your average monthly income?

Well, let’s break down exactly what your VIPKid pay looks like with these new incentives. The way this new fee structure works is you receive “bonuses” based on two factors…

  • Your lifetime number of qualifying finished classes
  • The total number of classes you teach each month  

So ultimately, VIPKid is rewarding teachers for the quantity of classes taught each month and then over time. Here is the new service fee chart below directly from VIPKid.  

If you look at the first two columns you will see the lifetime number of classes taught and tier number. Your Tier is determined by how many classes you’ve taught over your entire VIPKid career. These classes are categorized as “Finished” classes, and must be marked…

  • As Scheduled
  • Student IT Problem
  • Student No Show
  • System Problem

Any other finish types do NOT count as “Finished” classes, and therefore will not be added into your Lifetime number of qualifying classes.

So let’s look at a few of examples.  

  • Teacher Jennifer has taught 3,205 “Finished” classes.  Using the information in the chart above, she is in Tier 7.  
  • Teacher Lexie has taught 1,233 “Finished” classes, and by using the information in the chart we can determine that she is in Tier 5.
  • Teacher Amanda is brand new and has only taught 3 “Finished” classes.  So she is Tier 1.

You need to know your total number of completed “Finished” classes to be able to figure out which tier you’re in. So I’m going to walk you through how to find that number!

Where Can I Find My Total Number of Finished Classes?

To find your total number of “Finished” classes, simply go to the VIPKid app.  When you hover over the “My Info” tab, you will see a drop down menu appear.

Click “My VIPKid” and you’ll be able to see how many classes you‘ve taught, how many students you’ve taught, and how many days you’ve taught during your VIPKid career.

What Will My New Service Fees Be?

Once you’ve determined which Tier you’re in, you can move to the next seven columns of numbers in the chart. These figures tell you what type of incentive pay you will receive based on the number of classes you teach each month.

If you look across the top of the columns, you’ll see “Extra incentives per class” and below this there are numbers of classes including 1st-20th, 21st-40th, etc.  These numbers tell you how much you will make for that number of classes.  

The formula looks like this…

incentive amount (per class) x number of classes (in each column) = incentive payment (for those classes) 

Using our examples from earlier and this formula we can calculate how much each teacher makes in incentive pay.

Example #1 Teacher Jennifer

Teacher Jennifer is in Tier 7, and she teaches 45 classes a month.  Based on the information from the chart, we can calculate how much she will make in incentives.

  • For her first 20 classes, she makes $16.00 in incentives.  ($.80 x 20 = $16.00) 
  • She teaches classes 21-40 & makes $24.00 in incentives.  ($1.20 x 20 = $24.00)
  • She teaches 5 more classes 41-45 and makes $8.50.  ($1.70 x 5 = $8.50)

Her VIPKid payment incentives for each month based on 45 classes is $48.50.  ($16 + $24 + $8.50 = $48.50)

Example #2 Teacher Lexie

Teacher Lexie is in Tier 5, and she teaches 100 classes a month.  Based on the information from the chart, we can calculate how much she will make in incentives, too.

  • For her first 20 classes, she makes $16.00 in incentives.  ($.80 x 20 = $16.00)
  • She teaches classes 21-40 & makes $24.00 in incentives.  ($1.20 x 20 = $24.00)
  • She teaches 20 more classes (41-60) and makes $32.00.  ($1.60 x 20 = $32.00)
  • After teaching 30 more classes (61-90), she makes $54.00.  ($1.80 x 30 = $54.00)
  • She finishes the month with 10 more classes (91-100) for another $22.00.  ($2.20 x 10 = $22.00)

Her VIPKid payment incentives for each month based on 100 classes is $148.00.  ($16 + $24 + $32 + $54 + $22 = $148.00)

Example #3 Teacher Amanda

Teacher Amanda is Tier 1, and she teaches 150 classes a month.  Based on the information from the chart, we can calculate how much she will make in incentives as well.

  • For her first 20 classes, she makes $16.00 in incentives.  ($.80 x 20 = $16.00)
  • She teaches classes 21-40 & makes $24.00 in incentives.  ($1.20 x 20 = $24.00)
  • She teaches 20 more classes (41-60) and makes $32.00.  ($1.60 x 20 = $32.00)
  • After teaching 30 more classes (61-90), she makes $51.00.  ($1.70 x 30 = $51.00)
  • She continues with 40 more classes (91-130) for another $76.00.  ($1.90 x 40 = $76.00)
  • Finally, she finishes with 20 more classes (131-150) for $40.00 ($2.00 x 20 = $40.00)

Her VIPKid payment incentives for each month based on 150 classes is $239.00.  ($16 + $24 + $32 + $51 + $76 + $40 = $239.00)

From these examples you can see how the number of classes you teach each month directly correlates with the amount of incentive pay you receive.  Now this is just your incentive pay, but for our final totals we have to calculate our base pay, too. 

How Much Do You Make With VIPKid?

Well, as cliche as it sounds, it depends. You have to know (or at the very least be able to determine) your base pay and then add in all of your incentives to figure out what your final number will be each month.

So let’s revisit our example teachers one last time to do our final calculations.

Teacher Jennifer

  • Earns $8.00 (base pay) x 45 (classes) = $360 
  • $360 + $48.50 (incentive pay) = $408.50 
  • Teacher Jennifer earns $408.50 for completing 45 “Finished” classes per month.

Teacher Lexie

  • Earns $8.00 (base pay) x 100 (classes) = $800
  • $800 + $148 (incentive pay) = $948.00 
  • Teacher Lexie earns $948.00 for completing 100 “Finished” classes per month.

Teacher Amanda

  • Earns $7.50 (base pay) x 150 (classes) = $1125 
  • $1125 + $239.00 (incentive pay) = $1364.00
  • Teacher Amanda earns $1364.00 for completing 150 “Finished” classes per month.

I know it’s frustrating to have to calculate all of these different things before you can get your final VIPKid pay rate, but this manual process is the only way to do it accurately.

If you don’t want to go through this process yourself, you can see these same calculations reflected in your VIPKid dashboard under the “My Info” tab. Just click “Payment” and you’ll see your daily and weekly totals tabulated.

The new VIPKid pay scale and payment incentives are much less intuitive than the old payment system. However, when I’m asked, “Is working for VIPKid worth it?” I still say a resounding YES! Following these steps, you can calculate exactly how many classes you need to teach in order to get (or keep) your VIPKid average monthly income where it needs to be.