My experience teaching online with VIPKID: work/pay ratio = sweet! (X-post /r/TEFL and /r/iwantout)

I’ve been teaching English online with VIPKID since February of this year. I've looked over a few different posts from others about this company--those who have applied and didn't get hired, those who have been hired, people just making speculations. Some people had great things to say, others were confused, and others didn't have good things to say. Well my experience has been very positive! I'll start off with the topic that I'm sure most people want to know about and that's the pay. VIPKID pays well and on time. I used to teach English in China so I know how common it is for Chinese employers to be sketchy about paying their employees but I have had no issues with VIPKID on the pay-front. It is true that a good chunk of your pay is based on an incentive program but the way the program is designed basically guarantees me my money every month.

Let me try to break it down. I make $20/hour working for VIPKID. Each class is 25 minutes long and I get a base pay of $8 per class. The two "guaranteed" incentives mentioned above are as follows: I receive $1 for every class I teach if I teach 45 classes or more a month (.$5/class if I teach between 35-44 classes) and I receive $1 for each class that I finish (so that just means every class I teach--It's like a free dollar for every class). I teach full time so I teach WELL over 45 classes a month. That means I can count on getting those $2 in incentives for each class on top of the $8 base which gets me $10/class > $20/hr. I have never not gotten these two $1 incentives since I started working--it's never up in the air whether or not I'll get that money so I always count on it.

$20 an hour is great because the work is SUPER easy. VIPKID provides all of the lesson plans and power point slides that go along with them. The only thing I have to do outside of the classroom is type up a few sentences of feedback for the students after each class. It takes hardly any time and really it's something that could be done during the five minutes between each class. I have taught 241 students since I began and I have a good group of followers that I see weekly. I make myself available for 38 hours a week and I end up getting booked solid or nearly solid each week. Taking cancellations into consideration, I end up teaching maybe 36 hours a week on average. With VIPKID you are in control of your schedule and you choose how many hours you work. Many people do it part time and I know at least one person personally who chooses to teach like 45 hours a week and gets booked up solid or nearly solid!

On top of what I deem to be a great pay for the amount of the work, VIPKID has also been giving out monthly incentives/bonuses to encourage teachers to open up more hours. Since I work full time I usually get these bonuses without even trying. For example, for last month's pay I'll be getting an extra $228 because the stipulations for the incentive were that you had to open up a certain number of classes at a certain time (peak hours) and tag them as classes that could be booked within 24 hours before the start time. I always have classes open for peak hours and I always have my classes tagged as available for booking within 24 hours so I automatically got this incentive.

My pay for June is going to be just above $3000 and I have received this amount of money give or take $100 or so every month since I’ve began getting booked solid. Oh I should also mention that it took no time at all to build my schedule to a full time. If you really want to know how long it took and what the pay looked like I can dig up my paycheck stubs and schedules.

Now, I will say that the absolute biggest downside to working with VIPKID is that they do not offer benefits nor pay a portion of your income taxes. So you'll end up with the entire tax bill and no health insurance... With the ACA (hopefully still around in the future if not replaced by something better) or your spouse’s insurance, this may not be a problem for you. The tax thing I'm still trying to work out. I think since I had kids this year I'll get some hefty deductions (fingers crossed) and I know you can also deduct any purchases you make for the job (i.e. a computer, a headset, whiteboard and markers).

Ok I feel like I’ve written a lot and I worry that it is hard to follow so I’ll stop here and if you want to know more just post here are PM me.

If you decide to apply please follow this link: http://ift.tt/2tqkDKf

And please use my referral code on your application: 021QGA

TL;DR My teaching experience with VIPKID has been great! I make great money for the amount of work and not to mention I get to work from home. I highly recommend the company.