Teachers Pay Teachers Review
Since this website is all about reviewing money-making schemes online, I am always on the lookout on the newest and latest money-makers out there. There are literally thousands of online money-makers you can see online but only a tiny fraction of them are legit. Most are just scams designed to skim off your money without even providing a serviceable product while doing so.
Today, during my research, I have stumbled about this relatively new website, Teachers Pay Teachers, which claims to help teachers earn money through the sharing of their lesson plans to their fellow teachers, hence the name “Teachers Pay Teachers.” Basically, the website urges teachers to post their lessons online and sell them to teachers and educators worldwide. The goal is to make teachers extra money off the work they’re already doing anyway. When you consider this premise, this company seems like a very good one, providing earning opportunities for teachers all over the world, but are they really able to do that?
In this review, we’re going to look into the ins and outs of Teachers Pay Teachers to determine if their claims are real, or at least a part of it.
What Is Teachers Pay Teachers?
Teachers Pay Teachers is a website whose main priority is to give teachers a marketplace to buy or sell their lesson plans. The website caters mostly to teachers who want to share their lesson plans with their peers in the industry. Once a member, you can offer your videos, powerpoint presentations, PDF files, or any other form of media of your choosing on the website. You have free reign on what kind of files you upload as long as the buyer can use them for their lesson plan.
The website is open to all kinds of educators online. Even if you aren’t a teacher, you can still upload your lesson plans online so long as they abide by the guidelines set on the website. For teachers, this is a great opportunity because you can earn money from your lesson plan that you are doing anyway. So instead of just letting your lesson plan rot inside your computer or the attic, if you upload it to the website, you can earn extra money that you won’t otherwise. It’s like free money, so to speak. This is especially helpful since being a teacher does not compensate that well.
How Does Teachers Pay Teachers Work?
Before you start, you need to create an account on the website, either as a buyer or a seller. You can only sell a lesson plan if you register as a seller, obviously. You can choose to become either a free or paid member, with the free membership, earning you less of a commission compared to paid, which you are paid more handsomely for every sale of your material. The paid membership is a yearly membership that will automatically be deducted through your PayPal account each year. You can cancel this membership anytime on PayPal. However, you are only able to cancel the reoccurring payments and can’t be refunded the membership payment once it’s paid for.
The premium yearly fee is $59.95 which gives you a bigger commission and is the choice for many sellers because the potential income is substantially bigger when you opt for this option. As I’ve said, there is a free option but the commission is substantially less.
How Much Can You Earn?
It depends on what kind of membership you have. For free users, you will earn 55% of your asking price. But you will need to pay the website $0.30 transaction fee for every item sold, which means that to breakeven, you need to price your lesson plan at least $0.54545. Any less than that, you are basically losing money for every sale. For premium users, however, you will earn 80% of your asking price, along with a $0.15 transaction fee but only for orders less than $3. This moves your breakeven point from $0.54 to around $0.1875 which is significantly less than if you were a free user.
Overall, if you predict that your lesson plans would sell well, it is definitely worth it to upgrade your membership to premium because the difference is quite substantial especially if you will sell a lot of items on this platform. The yearly fee for premium membership is about $60 – this means that if your lesson plans go for, let’s say, $5 and you sold 100 items. In premium, you would earn $400, which is 80% of the total sale of $500. For free users, however, using the same amount of sales and asking price, your earning would decrease to about $245. That is 55% of the total sale of $500 minus the transaction fee of $30 = 100 x $0.3. The difference is huge, and will even be bigger if you sell more than that.
You will receive your paycheck from PayPal or Dwolla, whichever you prefer. You will receive it on the 21st of each month. But if you earn more than $10,000 the previous month, the company will send your payment in two installments. There really isn’t any explanation on why they do this, maybe for tax reasons? But nevertheless, you would still receive your money.
The Mind Behind Teachers Pay Teachers
Honest Thoughts About Teachers Pay Teachers
There is a huge difference between free and premium membership
It’s as if the website pushes you to choose the one where they would earn the most. For most users, getting a free membership would suffice since, to be honest, it’s not like your lesson plans are going to sell like pancakes. For most users, free membership would make the most sense. The only people that would lose money on free memberships are the power-users – meaning, those teachers with plenty of sales already under their belt. For them, getting that extra 30% per sale would boost their income hard. This company makes it seem like most of its users would benefit from the 30% discount but the fact is, only the top earners would.
This is a good opportunity for teachers since you can earn money from the work you do anyway
As a teacher, you are already doing your lesson plans either way, so why not earn some extra cash while doing so? It’s not like doing it would require you to do additional work. The lesson plan is already there, and at the very worst, you’d just make the format a little more presentable and you’re good to go. It’s extra money and what do we say with the extra money? Why not?
There are times where your lesson plans won’t get any view
Because there are already many users of the site, it’s possible for your lesson plans to get buried underneath all the other lesson plans. Once this happens, it would almost be impossible for you to earn a sale since exposure is key if sales is the name of the game.
There are advertising options for your lesson plans
If you find that your lesson plans aren’t getting enough attention, you can order an ad on their website. This would boost your lesson plan’s exposure to ensure it would show up on the premium part of the site, where it would lead to most views. This is another way for the website to earn money through advertisements. If you think that your lesson plans are worth their money but are not getting enough attention, getting advertisements for them would be a very good option.
Conclusion – The Verdict
Teachers Pay Teachers is a legitimate way to earn money if you are in the industry of teaching. You don’t even have to be a teacher to be a member. If you belong in the industry of education, you should definitely check this website out. For beginners, you can also post your lessons online for viewing and share it with your fellow teachers. They could then give you feedback regarding your lessons, and possibly even give you pointers to improve upon.
The reason this program is so cool is it allows you to earn extra money for the work that you normally do anyway. Instead of your lessons only being used in the confines of the classroom, why not share it with the world and earn money on the side while you’re at it? It is a scheme that is both unique and refreshing since many personnel in education need financial assistance. This is a great way to supplement their income.
If you want to jump to a somewhat similar industry, you need to look into affiliate marketing. It’s not the same as this one, per se, but they could both allow you to earn money online, which is really what this is all about. For the curious, I will the link down below. It is a link to my most recommended program.