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September 30, 2024

Air Tutors Review: Services, Costs, Terms and Reviews

Air Tutors is a popular platform in the online tutoring space that delivers services to both individual students and families, on the one hand, and schools and school districts, on the other hand. The company promises to provide tutoring for today’s student, but is it really worth it?

This Air Tutors review offers a comprehensive overview of the company, its services, the staff, the pricing, and customer reviews. This information will help families and academic institutions decide if this is the right platform for the needs of their students or they need to look elsewhere.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for comprehensive e-learning services used by school districts and schools across the nation, check out Fullmind.

Air Tutors Overview

Air Tutors is an e-learning provider that focuses on online tutoring to students K-12 grade. The company mission is to provide stellar, innovative, and engaging on-demand academic support 24/7. To achieve this goal, the company offers tutoring for families, tutoring for institutions, and high dose tutoring.

Hasan Ali founded Air Tutors in 2015, and the online platform has its headquarters in Los Angeles, CA. The company is managed by graduates of some of the top US universities with passion for teaching and focuses on data-driven, technology-based techniques to drive student success.

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Air Tutors Services

A review of Air Tutors shows that the platform focuses exclusively on online tutoring for individual students and small groups of students K-12 grade. Typical customers include students, families, schools, districts, charters, counties of education, state organizations, and departments of education.

Air Tutors services include:

  • Tutoring for families
  • Tutoring for institutions
  • High dose tutoring

Following is a detailed explanation of each service offered by the online platform:

Tutoring for Families

First, Air Tutors provides one-on-one or small group tutoring services for individual students whose families feel they need some extra help to reach their full academic potential. This individualized online tutoring is available for different subjects and has an intense subject focus. The packages come with priority scheduling so that students and their families can book on-demand tutoring services when they need them.

Air Tutors staff does not simply provide students with the answers to test questions but makes sure that they understand the questions and the answers. This ensures efficient test preparation in multiple subjects.

The direct tutoring to students differentiates Air Tutors from competitors that generally work with schools and districts and not with families.

Tutoring for Institutions

Second, Air Tutors partners with academic institutions to provide customized programs that address the diverse needs of students in different subject areas, for grades K-12. Services for institutions include before, during, and after school tutoring delivered one-on-one or in small groups of no more than 4 students.

Air Tutoring programs are aligned with individual school and district curriculums and cover both basic subjects and AP courses. Bilingual instruction is available. Air Tutors educators speak a total of 35 languages and have the capacity to work with academic establishments nationwide.

Online tutoring for institutions comes with content customization, implementation support, and accountability metrics.

High Dose Tutoring

Third, Air Tutors delivers high dose tutoring. Once again, these services are provided one-on-one or in small groups of 3-4 students. What makes high dose tutoring different from the other types of tutoring offered by the online platform is the frequency (at least 3 times a week) and the duration (at least 14 weeks).

Air Tutors hired Mathematica, a public policy research firm, to measure the impact of the high dose tutoring program in the 2020-2021 academic year, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The program had the following specifications:

  • Total number of students: 162
  • Grades: 6th-8th
  • Student-to-tutor ratio: From 1:1 to 4:1
  • Program duration: 14-16 weeks
  • Session frequency: 4-5 sessions per week

Outcomes were measured by i-Ready, an online assessment tool. Air Tutors students who attended at least 15 sessions experienced an average improvement of 6.7 percentile points. The average student moved from the 37th percentile to the 43rd percentile from the winter to the spring. The average improvement among female students was 9.0 percentile points.

Air Tutors Staff

Air Tutors aims to work with educators who have passion for teaching, mentoring, and inspiring students to achieve academic excellence and success.

In general, Air Tutors teachers:

  • Come from inside and outside the US
  • Have plenty of teaching experience (no minimum requirement)
  • Have graduated from top universities (though some have high school diploma or associates degree only)
  • Show enthusiasm and effective communication
  • Can be bilingual (speaking 35 different languages)
  • Get fingerprinted and background checked to guarantee the safety of students

However, unlike other competitors in the online education space, Air Tutors does not necessarily work with state-certified teachers. There is no mention of what certifications and licenses their staff holds. Moreover, the company doesn’t seem to offer training in online tutoring or other professional development services to its community of educators.

Air Tutors Costs

The pricing of Air Tutors is based on the three different types of services that the platform offers to customers. Rates are generally set per hour, and customers are billed at 15-minute increments. There are no startup costs.

Air Tutors pricing includes:

  • Air Tutors for Families pricing: The price for 5 hours of individual student tutoring is $600, or $120/hour, while the price for 10 hours is $500, or $100/hour. The cost might be lower when purchasing more hours of tutoring. There are custom pay-as-you-go options too.
  • Air Tutors for Institutions pricing: Third-party sources report a cost of $110/hour for small groups of 3-4 students. The Air Tutors website does not provide pricing information about this type of service.
  • Air Tutors High Dose Tutoring: The price of high dose tutoring is not available on the website. The cost is likely to be less when institutions purchase a larger number of hours with higher frequency.

All in all, Air Tutors offers very limited pricing information. Interested families and schools need to contact the Air Tutors Sales team to get a quote based on their needs and requirements.

Air Tutors Terms

Air Tutors services are usually purchased in packages of a certain number of tutoring hours. They are delivered on demand and are billed in increments of 15 minutes. There are no onboarding and cancellation costs.

Air Tutors Software

Using Air Tutors does not require any specific software. Students need to create an account on the platform, which is relatively easy to do. The Air Tutors technology works on all devices and can be accessed from anywhere.

Air Tutors Reviews

There are very few online reviews of Air Tutors by students, parents, and educators on third-party websites despite the 9-year history of the company.

Online Air Tutors reviews can be found on:

  • Yelp: 4.7/5 stars based on 13 reviews

Positive reviews highlight the professionalism, the engaging approach, the effective use of technology, the convenience in the delivery of services, and the skilled tutors.

In their negative reviews, dissatisfied customers complain about poor organization and inadequate information regarding upcoming sessions.

In any case, a dozen reviews of Air Tutors are not enough to conclude if the company is worth it.

Air Tutors Pros and Cons

Hiring Air Tutors for your child or school/district needs comes with some advantages and disadvantages that need to be weighed when making a final decision.

Air Tutors Pros

The main benefits of getting online tutoring from Air Tutors are:

  • Specialization in online tutoring services
  • On-demand availability
  • Diverse subjects including AP courses and multiple languages
  • Access for both individual students and academic institutions
  • Bilingual instruction

Air Tutors Cons

The most considerable drawbacks of Air Tutors services include:

  • Strict focus on tutoring with lack of other online educational services such as core instruction and virtual staffing
  • Lack of state and other certification for tutors
  • Incomplete pricing information
  • Rather expensive individual student tutoring plans

Comparison of the pros and cons of Air Tutors reveals that the platform could be a good choice for supplemental instructions required by individual students or small groups of students, but it is not able to satisfy major challenges in the educational system such as teacher vacancies.

Air Tutors Availability

Air Tutors online tutoring services are available across the US, covering all states and different school districts.

The states where the services are most widely used include:

  • California
  • Texas
  • Colorado
  • Hawaii

Meanwhile, the top districts for Air Tutors are:

  • Ector County, TX
  • Los Angeles Unified School District (USD), CA
  • Cleveland Independent School District (ISD), Ohio
  • Pine Bush Central, NY

Air Tutors Alternatives

Air Tutors might be able to meet the needs of students who need additional support to achieve excellence in certain subjects. However, the limited scope of services entirely focused on tutoring and the general lack of reviews by customers signify that the platform fails to provide solutions to many challenges within the educational system.

Following are the top competitors of Air Tutors who parents and schools might find better-fitting to their needs:

Air Tutors vs Fullmind

Fullmind is the top Air Tutor alternative that delivers comprehensive e-learning solutions to schools and school districts. The platform has an overall student satisfaction score of 4.8/5, proving the high quality of services delivered in the most efficient way.

Fullmind offers core instruction, supplemental instruction, and virtual staffing services to address some of the most pressing issues in the US academic environment, such as teacher vacancies and insufficient course diversity. Content and instruction are customized to the requirements of each district and school and are available for all school subjects and in all US states. Fullmind educators are state-certified, carefully selected and vetted, highly skilled, trained in live online teaching, and holding additional certificates. Services focus on real-time communication and teacher integration within the school community.

Importantly, this Air Tutors competitor can instruct and tutor one-on-one, in small groups, or entire classes. Students with disabilities, homebound students, students in suspension, and other students with special needs receive tailored services.

The cost of Fullmind online education is customized based on the purchased services to make it affordable.

Air Tutors vs Tutored by Teachers

Tutored by Teachers (TbT) is another Air Tutors competitor in the e-learning space.

TbT services cover vacancy support, tutoring, virtual intervention, SAT test prep, ELL support, and summer academy. As an advantage over Air Tutors, Tutored by Teachers provides more diverse online services that are not limited to tutoring. On the down side, however, the platform only covers math and ELA. Available grades include K-12.

Instructors are US credentialed in math and ELA and get thoroughly vetted before joining TbT staff. They are not well integrated in the school community.

The cost of Tutored by Teachers services is not clear.

Air Tutors vs Varsity Tutors

Varsity Tutors is an online educational platform that offers academic classes, tutoring, and test preparation for K-12 as well as college students. There are hundreds of available subjects that include core school subjects, AP subjects, business courses, tech and engineering subjects, humanities courses, languages, and others.

Similar to Air Tutors, Varsity Tutors doesn’t necessarily work with educators who are state-certified and doesn’t seem to offer online teaching training to its staff. Services are delivered both to individual students and to schools.

The pricing depends on the services, the type of customer, and other factors. Custom quotes are available when interested customers contact Varsity Tutors.

Bottom Line

Air Tutors is a tech-based platform that provides online tutoring services directly to students as well as to schools and districts. A detailed Air Tutors review shows that instructors are not always state-certified, lack dedicated online teaching training, and might not have sufficient teaching experience. Moreover, there are very few online reviews of the platform to confirm the quality of tutoring services.