Fee calculation will be based on a progressive scale starting August 2010

As you know, Cafetalk's fee (formally referred to as the Matching Fee) has been 40% of the lesson price since its inception five years ago. We know many of you would like to see that reduced. And although we can not give everyone a flat reduction (for these reasons) we thought it was about time our more active tutors were rewarded with better rates.

It may not be very obvious but one of our core principles here at Cafetalk is to make our platform profitable for tutors. We know that's the only way we can hope to keep the quality of tutors as high as they are now. Eventually, we would like Cafetalk to be able to support both the casual tutor and the hard-core professional educator alike. And to do that, we realize that a change in the fee structure would certainly be a step in the right direction. And so starting August we plan to introduce two new tutor classes (or ratings, if you will) with decreased fees depending on how many lessons you complete per month. The new ratings are:

Top Ranking Tutors

Cafetalk fees will be reduced to 30% and a "Top Ranking" icon will be displayed on your profile.
Qualification criteria:

1. Must complete 20 to 39 lessons per month
2. Must not have negative ratings for the past three months (or since registration) *1
3. Must be in good standing with Cafetalk and compliant to our Tutor Terms.

Once you attain this rating you will keep it for at least two months (unless you violate the Tutor Terms or get a barrage of bad feedback).

Premium Tutors

Cafetalk fees will be reduced to 25% and a "Premium" icon will be displayed on your profile.
Qualification criteria:

1. Must complete 40 or more lessons per month
2. Must not have negative ratings for the past three months (or since registration) *1
3. Must be in good standing with Cafetalk and compliant to our Tutor Terms.
Once you attain this rating you will keep it for at least three months (unless you violate the Tutor Terms or get a barrage of bad feedback).

Every tutor will automatically be checked at the end of each month to see whether she/he has qualified for these decreased fees. Calculations will be based on the number of lessons completed between the first and last days of the month in GMT. Incidentally, we plan to run automatic calculations around 0:00 on the first day of each moth. Students will not be able to request new lessons for the five minutes or so while these calculations are being done. If the necessary criteria have been met the new fees will come into effect immediately after the calculations are completed.

*1 If you think you've been given a bad rating unfairly we will review it and possibly have the rating deleted. But please understand that our honest disclosure of feedback and ratings is exactly why Cafetalk has gained so much trust from our students so we will not change ratings lightly.

The new rates will come into effect on August 1, 2010 based on lessons made in July.

Hopefully this should come as good news for a small percentage of you who already qualify for the new rates. (We know at least two or three who qualify for the Premium status, for example)

As for those who don't have enough lessons to qualify for the new rates yet, we know it's not necessarily your fault but more because we don't have the absolute student numbers to support that many lessons. Nevertheless, the prospect of reduced rates should be something to look forward to.

As always, we welcome any feedback. But please note that we have thought long and hard about these new rates and their criteria, so we aren't likely to change them. We will however, try our very best to address any questions or concerns.

Thanks again to all of you. We're ultimately targeting to increase our student a hundredfold so hopefully we'll be directing more students your way!


Cafetalk Team