The 3 best websites to find talented Italian tutors online in 2024 - and those to avoid

Choosing an Italian tutor online can prove daunting due to the overwhelming number of options. To make things easier for you, we've researched the websites that help you find the best tutors. We have ranked the sites, showing you the ones to try, the ones to avoid, and explaining the differences between them.

You can read about our methodology and ranking criteria here. This article was fact checked by Don Pottinger on 3rd January 2024.

The Best Online Italian Tutoring Platforms

#1 Best Overall: LanguaTalk

LanguaTalk is recommended by some of the most trusted authors and influencers in the language learning field. Why is this? Learn the pros and cons below.

Pros

• Gifted & dependable tutors. LanguaTalk thoroughly screens applicants, only accepting the top 10% of tutors. All tutors are natives from Italy.
• Finding the perfect tutor is made easy. You can see reviews, live availability and pricing for each tutor. You can also use filters to instantly narrow down your options and see the best online Italian tutors given your budget, availability and needs.
• Offers a free trial. Most teachers offer a 30-minute free trial session, so you can meet them before you decide whether to take lessons.
• It's fair and good value. LanguaTalk charges lower commission than most other platforms. This helps attract the best tutors and keeps prices down.
• It's transparent. Unlike other platforms, everything is transparent, including reviews and pricing. For example, payment processing fees are included in prices shown on profiles, so there are no bad surprises at checkout.
• It's flexible. You can pay for lessons one at a time and book whatever slots fit your schedule. You can easily move your balance to another tutor, or get a refund on unused lessons (within 30 days of purchase). Most other sites do not allow refunds and require you to get a subscription or buy lessons in bulk.
• It's easy to use. Booking, rescheduling and cancelling lessons is simple. Available slots automatically show according to your time zone.

Cons

• Occasionally, tutors might adjust their availability, for example if they move to another country (they are remote workers, so they often live abroad. Though the same applies on any online tutoring website).
• The most popular teachers get booked up quickly, so you may need to book a week or two in advance to secure the time slots you want.

Find the best online Italian tutor for your needs on LanguaTalk. Then book a free 30-minute trial session.

Cost: Prices are set by the teachers, so prices vary widely, ranging from $9 to $30 per hour (though 30-minute lessons are also possible).

Who it's ideal for: As the tutors tend to be adaptable and experienced, they're normally able to personalise lessons based on individual needs. So, irrespective of your age, level or goals, you should be able to find the best Italian tutor for you.

View Italian teachers on LanguaTalk and book a free 30-min trial session.

#2 Best for businesses: Verbling

Verbling has been a part of the online language learning industry since 2011 and was acquired by Busuu in 2020. Despite offering some great tutors, it has not gained as much popularity as some other platforms. Below, you can see its pros and cons.

Pros

• Verbling has an Enterprise solution, so businesses can track the learning of their employees. This is helpful, though it should be noted that LanguaTalk and other platforms do still offer payments support for businesses.
• Experienced tutors. Verbling, like LanguaTalk, has some of the best online Italian tutors, due to its strict teaching standards compared to other platforms.
• It's easy to use. We like the design more than most other sites. Booking is easy, the filters are useful when viewing tutors, and tutor profiles include helpful statistics such as lessons per student.

Cons

• It's inflexible. The company forces students and tutors to only learn through their calling tool, which has mixed reviews and only works on Google Chrome and Firefox. This may be particularly problematic if you try to learn on mobile. Other platforms allow you to use your video calling tool of choice. In addition, there is no option for 30-minute lessons, only 60-minutes.
• It's slightly expensive. According to Verbling, the average online Italian tutor costs $26 per hour. This is around 30% more than the average price on LanguaTalk. We couldn't work out why Verbling is more expensive as both platforms tend to have highly experienced tutors.
• No refunds. Unlike LanguaTalk, you cannot get a refund on unused lessons.

#3 Best for number of tutors: iTalki

iTalki is one of the biggest platforms, having been founded way back in 2007 when there was less competition. As you'll see below, it's still not a bad option but it does have some downsides.

Pros

• Big choice of tutors. It probably has the highest number of tutors of any platform. (However, both LanguaTalk and Verbling still have more than enough choice, and the tutors on those sites tend to be more experienced and qualified.)
• Prices can be cheap. If you already have an advanced level and are only looking for conversation practice, there are many informal 'tutors' with low prices. However, if you need structured lessons, you will be better off choosing an experienced tutor, and these are more common on the platforms mentioned above.

Cons

• Many tutors are not reliable. iTalki allows people with little to no experience to teach, which means that compared to Verbling and LanguaTalk, there is a higher chance you'll end up with someone who is not the best tutor who is simply not reliable.
• Pricing isn't transparent. iTalki shows prices for 30-minute lessons to make it appear cheaper, despite the fact that most people need longer lessons. It also does not include payment processing fees in the prices shown on profiles, so you may get a bad surprise at checkout.
• No refunds. iTalki will not refund you on unused lesson credits. This is the same on all sites we researched except LanguaTalk.
• Booking is not intuitive. When you want to make a booking, it is called a 'Lesson Request'. These are sometimes rejected by tutors. Other platforms expect tutors to show accurate availability so that students don't get messed around.

Summary: The Best Online Italian Tutoring Services

• Best overall: LanguaTalk
• Best for businesses: Verbling
• Best for number of tutors: iTalki

View Italian tutors on LanguaTalk

Above we've explained the pros and cons of the top 3 websites to consider when looking for an Italian tutor online. There are some other prominent websites, and to balance our analysis, we'll show you the websites that ranked in the bottom 3 below...

Websites to avoid when looking for an Italian tutor online

Rype

Rype was founded by Sean Kim in 2016. Thanks to having previously worked as a journalist with some popular business magazines, Sean was able to get Rype featured in several publications. If it's in a well known magazine, it must be good, right? Yeah, let's see about that...

The company's Trustpilot profile shows a rating of 3 out of 5. As of November 2022, there are only 56 reviews, which is incredibly few for a site that claims to have a community of 100,000+ learners.

We also saw criticism on Reddit from tutors who revealed that the teachers generally have no qualifications and minimal experience. Based on our research, this seems to be because Rype pays its tutors less than $10 per hour, taking a big chunk of commission on every lesson. In addition, several teachers have highlighted that they only get paid if they hit a certain number of hours, which sounds illegal.

In Sept 2022, we spotted that Sean was looking to sell the business. According to the listing, the company has a whopping 60% profit margin, which, if true, may explain why tutors aren't getting a good deal.

So if you're looking for the best Italian tutors online, we recommend you avoid Rype. Instead, check the top 3 platforms at the top of this page.

Live Lingua

The last platform to skip is Live Lingua. Live Lingua was founded in 2008 and its tech doesn't seem to have advanced much since then. Unlike modern platforms, Live Lingua does not show reviews for each tutor, nor can you view their live availability or watch a video of them. And it seems to exploit tutors.

We've been told by teachers that Live Lingua keeps 50% of the amount paid per lesson, with one tutor even claiming that Live Lingua only pays $5/h. This is despite the tutors being solely responsible for the lessons - the company does not provide lesson content. LanguaTalk, Verbling & iTalki charge less than 1/3 of Live Lingua's commission rate and allow teachers to set their own rates.

Live Lingua claims that it has "hand-picked, certified tutors", but why would the best Italian tutors work there when they could use platforms that don't rip them off and allow them to set their own rate? If you'd like to support tutors to earn a living and find someone talented, try booking a trial session on LanguaTalk instead.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find the best Italian tutor?

What is best for you will depend on multiple factors: your availability, your budget, and your needs. On LanguaTalk, you can apply filters to instantly see tutors who are likely to be suitable. For example, if you have a budget of $15 per lesson, and you're only available on Friday afternoon, you can use the filters to only show tutors who fit these criteria. And when you open their profiles, you can also see which levels and needs the tutors cover. This is helpful if, for example, you're a beginner or preparing for an exam as only certain tutors will be appropriate for you.

How does online Italian tutoring differ from face-to-face?

Folks who haven't taken classes online before may assume that it will be totally different to learning face-to-face. In reality, if you take a decent online class, it will be almost the same as face-to-face. You'll be able to see your tutor and they'll use software that allows you to explore learning resources together. A 2021 study published in the Journal of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics showed that there was no significant difference in results between learners who had learnt a language online, compared to those who had studied face-to-face.

What criteria did you use to assess the Italian tutoring websites above?

Please see below for a detailed answer to this.

Methodology & Ranking Criteria

We analysed the 10 most popular platforms for online Italian tutors, including testing them within our team. We rated the websites on a variety of criteria to identify the best and worst providers.  The criteria were as follows:

• Quality of tutors. Does the site have a good reputation for its tutors being talented and reliable? What qualifications are typically required?
• Ease of assessing tutors. Can you easily assess tutors before booking? Features such as reviews for individual tutors, live availability calendars, video introductions, and clear pricing are helpful. In addition, are there filters to enable you to see tutors based on their budget, availability and needs? When there are lots of tutors, it can be a little overwhelming. The best platforms allow learners to easily narrow down the choice.
• Free trial. Can you book a trial session to meet the tutor before committing to lessons? Tutors should have the choice whether to offer these for free or charge.
• Fairness. Certain platforms take a high percentage of tutors' earnings despite not providing lesson plans and materials. We believe platforms taking over 25% are not fair to tutors. These platforms also bad for students because the best tutors will work elsewhere. In addition, it pushes up prices as the commission is added onto the tutor's rate.
• Transparency. Examples of lacking transparency include not showing reviews for individual tutors, hiding commission rates, and not including payment fees in the prices shown on tutor profiles (so you only find out the full cost at checkout).
• Flexibility. Does the platform allow you to pay one lesson at a time? Does it allow refunds?
• Intuitive design. Is it easy to book, reschedule and cancel lessons?

One last thing: yes, we did put LanguaTalk at #1. We know this is cheeky, but we genuinely believe that if you compare each platform's pros and cons, you'll see that LanguaTalk stands out based on all of the criteria above. We created this piece to show learners the platforms that can be trusted and do things properly. We were fed up with reading poor advice on websites that are being paid to promote platforms that exploit tutors, don't assess applicants well and lack transparency.