What the online language market actually charges, and pays
Every figure on these pages was read from the platform’s own public pages on a stated date, and none of them are ours — we do not appear in the tables. They are released under CC0: take them, reuse them, no credit required.
We sell language lessons, so read this as interested rather than neutral. The defence is the method: every number is checkable on somebody else’s site, the comparisons that beat us are in the text rather than left out, and where we could not verify something it is named as unverified instead of filled in.
What online language lessons cost
Advertised tutor rates across eighteen languages, read twice six weeks apart, plus country-by-country breakdowns inside eight of them where the language is natively spoken. On 9 October 2026 the native-speaker premium ran from +120% (Finnish) to −31% (Ukrainian), and Korean had moved from +40% to +9%. Includes the row that contradicts it.
Read it →What language teachers actually earn
The same published prices with the platform's own published commission applied. An average Arabic lesson is $10 an hour; a new tutor keeps $6.70. Also the mechanic no advertised rate shows: the commission on every trial lesson with a new student is 100%.
Read it →Language exams compared
JLPT, TOPIK, DELE, HSK, Goethe-Zertifikat, telc, CAPLE, Staatsexamen NT2, Celpe-Bras, YKI, DELF / DALF, CILS, CELI, TestDaF, SIELE, Certyfikat (state), Norskprøven, Norskprøven C1, IELTS, Cambridge English, TOEFL iBT, ТРКИ / TORFL, Держсертифікат (state), TYS, Swedex, Tisus, Prøve i Dansk 3, Czech A2 / B1 (state exams), ΠΕΓΠ (Greek naturalisation exam), Ellinomatheia (Greek certificate), Estonian B1 (Harno level exam), Latvian naturalisation language test, Icelandic test for citizenship, Lithuanian State Language exam (citizenship), Slovene exam, basic level, Hungarian constitutional knowledge exam, Croatian citizenship culture questionnaire, Romanian citizenship interview, OET, Linguaskill, Flemish Dutch test for the nationality application, Sproochentest, Slovak citizenship language test, DTZ (Deutsch-Test für Zuwanderer), Cyprus civics exam (naturalisation), Bulgarian citizenship language exam, JFT-Basic, ÖSD, PLIDA, CERT.IT, TOCFL, EPS-TOPIK, DSH, CNaVT, CELU, CertAcles, YDS / e-YDS, ECL, Fachsprachprüfung (doctors, Germany), Deutsch-Test für den Beruf (DTB), EJU, GEPT, MUET, TEFAQ / TCF-Québec, BJT, VSTEP.3-5, CIMA, NAT-TEST, Starters, Movers, Flyers, YCT, J.TEST, DFP, ACTFL OPIc — 73 certificates read side by side from their own documents. The TOPIK lapses after two years and SIELE after five; the JLPT fails you on a single weak section however high your total; the Celpe-Bras sets your level at the lower of your two halves; the TestDaF publishes no pass mark at all; twenty-five publish no fee at all, and telc says outright that it cannot tell you what a centre will charge. The exams whose bodies block first-party reading are named rather than estimated.
Read it →Language level for citizenship, from the law itself
66 countries' own statutes, quoted: France B2 since 1 January 2026; Norway B1 and oral only; Switzerland B1 spoken but A2 written; Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, Japan, Iceland, Taiwan, Armenia, Georgia, Israel, Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Malta, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Panama, Uruguay, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Turkey, Sweden and the United States with no CEFR letter for naturalisation at all; the Netherlands A2 by reference to a repealed act; Finland adding a citizenship test in 2027. The spread for one legal act is two full CEFR levels, and Portugal's A2, quoted everywhere, turns out not to be in its law.
Read it →Citizenship tests compared: questions and pass marks
The civics test that sits next to the language level, in 8 countries: Germany passes at about 52%, France at 80%. Only 3 publish every question with answers, and Australia fails a candidate on 19 of 20 if one values question is wrong.
Read it →TOEFL and SIELE fees by country
Every per-country price the two bodies publish, read from their booking pages: ETS prices the TOEFL for 212 countries, US$170 to US$475; SIELE prices 95, 135 € to 175 €. Same exam, 2.8 times the price, and the two bodies disagree about which countries are cheap.
Read it →Exam timelines: register by, sittings, results
The three questions no exam body answers about its rivals, asked of 16 of them: how late you may book, how often it runs, how long you then wait. TOEFL iBT takes you 4 days from booking to score; TOPIK takes 116. 8 of the 16 publish no registration deadline at all, and one body's own FAQ page answers "how long do results take" twice, differently.
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