How to build a website like Preply

Preply is a top-tier language learning platform that connects learners with tutors in over 50 languages. With the language learning market anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 20% between 2023 and 2032, there’s a huge opportunity for you to tap into this growing sector by creating a website similar to Preply.

This guide will show you how to build a website similar to Preply, starting with the initial concept, through to launching your minimum viable product, and eventually scaling it up.

Simon Sinek, the renowned motivational speaker, advises entrepreneurs to start with “Why.” If you are looking to build a site like Preply, several factors are in your favor.

First is the opportunity in the online language learning market. Due to globalization, there is a growing need—both for personal and professional reasons—to learn new languages. 

The founders of Preply moved to the US from Ukraine and had to improve their English communication for professional reasons. One of the co-founders, Kirill Bigai, hired an online tutor who taught English via Skype, and he saw substantial results. This experience paved the way for Preply. The idea is to help people learn a second language effortlessly.

GMI Research values the language learning market at approximately $52 billion in 2022, with a 20% CAGR growth until 2032. Thus, it’s a continually growing market with a lot of potential.

If you zoom out, the online marketplace model is a growing opportunity as well. There are various types of online marketplaces like product, service, rental, and ticketing marketplaces. In the US alone, the total eCommerce or online sales touched the $1 trillion mark in 2022.

The second reason is there is room and need for niche players in the online marketplace segment. There may be domination of a few big players like Amazon in retail, Uber in ride-hailing, and Zillow in real estate, but smaller  players are thriving and making an impact through specializing and niching down.

The third reason for building a marketplace like Preply: the technical entry barrier has come down within reach of most entrepreneurs. For example, with Sharetribe, you can launch a fully functional marketplace in just one day without any coding or upfront investments. It is perfect for testing your ideas and business model, allowing you to iterate without spending a fortune. And when you’re ready to grow, you can easily add custom features to your Sharetribe-powered platform. 

In short, the opportunity to start an online marketplace has never been better.

At first glance, marketplace websites like Preply might seem daunting from a technological perspective. And, to an extent, they are. For instance, Uber reportedly has around 2,000 engineers working around the clock to keep their app running smoothly.

But it’ll be far easier to understand how the tech stack of such websites works if you break the stack down.

At the fundamental level, there’s the seller UX and customer UX. Seller UX refers to the view and functionalities presented to the sellers on the platform. Likewise, the ones designed for customers fall under customer UX.

Users are required to identify themselves as customers or sellers when logging in. Based on this input, the necessary UX loads up.

For sellers, Preply offers a fantastic opportunity to showcase their expertise and connect with students worldwide. Sellers can create profiles that highlight their qualifications, set their own rates, and offer personalized lessons in various subjects. They can easily manage their schedules, receive secure payments, and benefit from Preply’s marketing efforts to attract a larger student base. Additionally, feedback and ratings enhance their reputation and credibility in the marketplace.

For buyers, Preply is a convenient marketplace that connects them with qualified tutors from around the world. They can explore a wide range of subjects and languages, read tutor profiles, and choose the one that best fits their needs. Buyers can schedule lessons, communicate with tutors, and track their progress—all within one easy-to-use platform.

Preply connects language learners (buyers) with online tutors (sellers). Its business model relies on commissions from each transaction.

Tutors set their own rates and availability, and Preply takes a small cut from each lesson booked. This approach allows Preply to offer a wide variety of tutors and subjects, making learning flexible and convenient for students.

When a student books a lesson, Preply takes a percentage of the tutor’s earnings, usually between 18% and 33%, depending on the tutor’s experience and the number of lessons they’ve completed. Preply also offers subscription plans for tutors, giving them extra perks and more visibility on the platform.

These revenue streams help Preply keep things running smoothly, invest in improving the platform, and support both students and tutors.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of online marketplaces are launched every year. But most don’t see it through and end up shutting down operations. Drizly, the online alcohol delivery app, shut down earlier this year even after Uber acquired it for $1 billion.

On the other hand, Preply is a successful business and continually raising rounds of funding. So, what makes its business model so successful and attractive to investors?

One factor is that Preply is solving a real problem. There’s a growing and unmet need for language learning. The GMI Research, which values the language learning market (including both individual and corporate segments) at USD 52 billion in 2022, lists several factors, like globalization, technological advancements, and growing demand in emerging economies like China and India, to be driving factors. Preply, with its vast army of 35,000 highly proficient online tutors, is meeting the needs of the market.

The company started bootstrapped in 2012 as “Preply.com”. Founded in Ukraine, the company offered language learning services to SAT and ACT aspirants. After traction, it secured $180,000 in funding from investors, thereby becoming a leading Ukranian ed-tech startup. Subsequently, it expanded into nearby geographies like Russia, Belarus, Poland, and Kazakhstan.

In 2016, Preply added a robust machine-learning recommendation system to its platform, which simplified and improved the matchmaking process.

In 2019, the company expanded to Spain, Germany, the UK, and eventually to over 180 countries. It also expanded on the tutor side. At the time of review, Preply boasts over 35,000 tutors offering instruction in over 50 languages, solidifying its position as a major player in the online language learning market.

So what made Preply so successful? A combination of factors. It identified an unmet need and fulfilled it with technology. And the founders grew and expanded their business iteratively, starting bootstrapped and expanding to new markets and adding new features gradually.

Most recently, the company received a$120 million Series C funding to expand its AI offerings. Quoting on the investment, the company said, “While human-led learning will always be at Preply’s core, the company is using AI as an engine to scale learning, improve access and focus on teaching like never before.”

The following businesses can be considered competitors or alternatives to Preply:

1. Italki: Italki is a strong competitor to Preply as it offers a similar platform for language learning, connecting students with language tutors from around the world. However, Italki has a larger user base and offers a wider range of languages to learn, giving it an advantage in terms of variety and availability of tutors.
2. Verbling: Verbling is another notable competitor to Preply, providing an online marketplace for language learning. While both platforms offer one-on-one lessons with qualified tutors, Verbling focuses more on live group classes, which can be a preferred learning style for some students. Additionally, Verbling has a user-friendly interface and offers a built-in video chat feature, making it convenient for learners.
3. Cambly: Cambly differentiates itself from Preply by offering on-demand English tutoring. Unlike Preply, which focuses on various languages, Cambly specifically targets English learners. Cambly provides instant access to native English speakers for conversation practice, making it a popular choice for those seeking to improve their spoken English skills quickly.
4. Wyzant: Wyzant is a competitor that offers a broader range of subjects beyond just language learning. While Preply specializes in language tutoring, Wyzant provides a marketplace for various academic subjects, including math, science, and music. This diversification allows Wyzant to attract a wider range of students and tutors, giving it an advantage in terms of overall market reach.
5. Tandem: Tandem is a language exchange app that connects language learners with native speakers for conversation practice. Unlike Preply, Tandem focuses on fostering language learning through informal conversations rather than structured lessons. Tandem's emphasis on language exchange and cultural immersion sets it apart from Preply, appealing to those who prefer a more casual and interactive approach to language learning.

What these Preply alternatives show us is that by differentiating your marketplace product from what’s already in the market, you can claim a share of the users in that market without directly competing with other similar platforms.

Building a successful business like Preply is never easy. Right from the beginning, the founders faced dozens of issues. One of them was the reluctance of tutors to switch to online learning because they weren’t familiar with the online format. So, the founders had to do a lot of searching and educating to get that initial traction.

But you can take strategic steps to build a marketplace like Preply and succeed with it.

At Sharetribe, we have worked with and analyzed hundreds of successful online marketplaces, across all niches—from food to real estate to ed-tech. Based on this we’ve abstracted a proven 10-step process to building a successful marketplace like Preply:

1. Identify a strong marketplace idea
2. Choose the right marketplace business model
3. Start with a focused scope
4. Pre-validate your marketplace idea
5. Build a marketplace platform, starting with an MVP (Minimum Viable Platform)
6. Onboard your first sellers
7. Launch your marketplace
8. Reach problem-solution fit
9. Reach product-market fit
10. Scale into new markets

This is a process we've seen work time and time again. The ten steps are core to our practical guide to creating a successful marketplace, irrespective of niche.

Below, we will expand on each step but specifically relate it to Preply.

In startup circles, many notable figures claim ideas are overrated. While a great idea may not be the be-all and end-all, it is the starting point and foundation for your business. After all, you can’t win with an unworkable idea, no matter your hard work or superior execution skills.

The first step to building an ed-tech website like Preply is finding a strong marketplace idea.

Now the question is, what does a strong platform idea look like? The simplest answer is “when it solves a real problem.” But that’s easier said than done.

Preply started as an SAT prep platform. But it quickly pivoted to language tutoring. Why did they do it? Kirill Bigai, in an interview, answered, “We followed the pain points of the founders, and we understood how to solve them best.”

The idea also has to be radical or game-changing for certain audiences. For example, Preply claimed that tutors can earn 3–5 times more through its platform than if they worked outside. This value proposition was a no-brainer for tutors.

Thus, to start, you need to identify the pain points of both your user groups and find effective ways to solve them.

Your business model is another determining factor for your success. Marketplaces typically have one of six  business models:

1. Commission
2. Membership/subscription fee
3. Listing fee
4. Lead fee
5. Freemium
6. Featured listings and ads

For a service marketplace such as Preply, the commission-based model and lead fee are the most common revenue models. Preply has a commission business model in place.

Commission-based marketplaces charge per transaction. For example, Preply charges instructors a commission fee on its platform: it takes a cut from the tutor’s earnings for each completed lesson.

But, Preply has an interesting twist on their commission model. They have a varying commision rate, where the rate varies depending on the tutor’s total hours completed on the platform. It starts at 100% for the first lesson with a new student and goes down as the tutor accumulates more hours (typically ranging from 18% to 33%). 

This is a great way to motivate tutors to stick with the platform after the initial phase.

Besides individuals, Preply also sells its solutions to corporate clients. This serves as an additional income source for the company.

However, it’s important to remember that there isn’t a right or wrong model. It all depends on how appropriate a model is to your case. It is also not uncommon for marketplaces to change their business model over time, or to layer additional revenue models on top of the one they started with.

When building a business from scratch, having a clear focus is perhaps more important than anything else. In the early days, a founder’s most precious resource is time, so it is important to only spend it on things that matter.

The importance of focus is highlighted on a marketplace. It's incredibly tempting to start building a global marketplace from the start. However, perhaps counterintuitively, it is crucial to start as small and focused as you can. Focusing on a small subset of providers, sellers, categories and/or geographical locations allows you to match sellers and buyers efficiently and provide great value from day one. This will enable you to reach marketplace liquidity, the most important marketplace metric.

And don’t just take our word for it. The examples are plenty:

• Amazon, the everything store, started as a book delivery service. This focus allowed the company to serve a customer segment better than anyone else and gain market share.
• Uber, the now global ride-hailing company, initially focused on small areas within San Francisco, such as “5pm at the Caltrain Station at 5th and King Street.”
• Grubhub, the food delivery platform, started in one neighborhood in Chicago.

When Preply first started, in 2012, they focused on SAT and ACT tutoring.

In the first half of 2013, they added TOEFL (a standardized English language test) as a subject, but in the second half of 2013 they deciced to focus on English language tutoring only, and focus on the Russian market. It wasn’t until 2016, after having received an additional $1.3M investment, that they expanded both their geographic target market to Europe and decided to also start offering other languages. 

The lesson here is to be very niche from the start. Instead of targeting everyone at once, it is probably best to focus on one language or subject, and focus on a niche market. This could be your home country, or a slightly bigger region that is sharing a commong language. 

So, of all the possibilities, start with a sharp focus and invest all your resources in it.

As already said, an idea—while significant—isn’t the be-all and end-all. Execution is the key. But before you execute, it’s necessary to get the idea validated. This helps you fine-tune your idea and save you from spending time working on the wrong things.

Preply started with the founders' personal experience. However, they spent hours talking to potential tutors before building the platform. And they kept their habit of validating even beyond the early days.

For example, when asked whether Preply would pivot to a subscription model, Kirill responded, “If you mean self-learning app subscription, we are not considering it at the moment. The research shows that learning with human interaction is the most efficient. And we want to deliver the best value to our customers."

The team validated the idea of a subscription model but decided not to introduce one after doing research.

To conclude, pre-validate your idea before executing. It can save time, money, and prevent many wrong decisions.

After your initial validation, the best way to continue learning about your idea is to build the first version of your marketplace, hand it to customers, and get real feedback. But this doesn’t require a full-fledged product with all bells and whistles. You can start with a minimum viable product (MVP).

The idea of MVP comes from Eric Ries. He defines MVP as “A new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

Even though it sounds simple, what is the most important and the most difficult thing here is finding the balance between “the maximum amount of validated learning” and “the least effort.” 

If you’re building a website like Preply, you could think of a very low-effort MVP as a simple landing page that lists all the benefits of online tutoring and an irresistible offer to sign up to learn more. If you see that people are joining, you can take this as a signal that you’re building something worth building.

However, even though a landing page is definitely “the least effort,” you could question whether it really “maximizes the amount of validated learning.”

Another option could be to use Sharetribe and build a fully functional, customized marketplace platform (without coding). This is still a fairly low-effort approach, but it will give you much more valuable feedback. 

Also, with Sharetribe, hosting, scaling, performance upgrades and all other things are part of the service, so you can trust the platform to be reliable and bug-free, as you don’t want your marketplace to suffer any outages.

Of course, there are several other ways of building a marketplace.

When building two-sided platform like Preply, you will need to solve the chicken-and-egg problem.

The chicken-and-egg problem is a metaphorical expression for whether you get the buyers or the sellers first to your platform. Because sellers won’t necessarily sign up if there are no buyers and vice versa, you’ll have to solve this problem when starting.

Usually, sellers are more willing to try out a platform even if there are no buyers because they have more to gain: it might give them a new and repeatable source of income.

Preply did just that: they focused on finding tutors first. If you look at Preply’s old websites using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, you’ll see that the first Preply.com actually redirected to a URL Preply.com/teach, which was a landing page for onboarding tutors, advertising the benefits for tutors:

• Unsurpassed pricing for your knowledge
• A trustworthy community of tutors
• Brand yourself with an eye-catching profile
• Manage your time efficiently
• Focus on online tutoring
• Free sign-up with a 5% commission

In the ed-tech segment, teachers, especially those looking for remote working opportunities, are more willing to join a platform than students. Maya Reeves, one of the tutors at Preply, is a good example of how those value propositions apply:

“Running a school is just so much responsibility. You have to look after teachers, students and then there’s all the administration you have to do. On Preply it’s all done for you – you just need to file your taxes.” 

So, if your case permits, you should onboard the sellers (tutors, in this case) first.

Once the foundation of initial sellers is in place, you'll then need to target the other side of the marketplace, the buyer segment.

This is where you need to get your creative juices flowing and develop marketing strategies to reach the learners.

This is another phase where you’ll benefit from having a narrow focus. With a limited group of initial users focusing on a single, narrow category, you won't need armies of customers to keep them happy. Instead, you can test your marketplace with a small initial group of users that has the perfect seller-to-buyer ratio.

As you add both tutors and students, you’ll have to work towards achieving problem-solution fit. It’s the stage where your marketplace actually solves a problem. Until then, you are essentially in the experimentation stage and working on your assumptions.

If achieving Preply-like success is your goal, it’s tempting to start scaling too soon. Even Preply went back and forth between their market and offerings before finding the right balance. Resist the urge to scale prematurely and remember that experimentation, iteration, and data-driven customer insights are at the heart of Preply’s success. Take your time to refine your approach and learn from the data before expanding.

To gauge problem-solution fit, you’ll have to check things like churn, average sessions, ratings, and reviews.

When your product genuinely solves a problem, customers are happy. This translates to positive feedback, higher retention rates, and potential brand loyalty.

For EdTech startups, achieving product-solution fit is about creating learning experiences that address students’ needs and learning gaps on one side and creating a revenue source for tutors on the other.

Achieving problem-solution fit is not enough. To be successful with your marketplace, you need to achieve product-market fit. Product-market fit is when your marketplace meets the needs of a sizable market segment.

Product-market fit is more closely monitored by investors who want to ensure there’s a sizeable market where you can make a profit. So, you need to target a sub-segment of the $52 billion language learning market that is viable and sizeable.

To build a large-scale marketplace, external funding is often needed, as seen in Preply’s growth journey. Founded in 2012, Preply experienced transformative growth between 2016 and 2018, securing a substantial $1.3M investment and expanding its team sevenfold to 100 members. This momentum continued from 2019 to 2021, with Preply opening a new office in Barcelona and raising $10M, followed by another $35M funding round. In 2022, Preply’s momentum accelerated with a $50M funding round, enabling expansion and attracting clients like Unilever. In 2023, a $70M funding round led by Horizon Capital marked a milestone, reinforcing Preply’s commitment to its vision of empowering through language learning.

However, today’s VC landscape looks different. Profitability holds greater significance for investors than in the past. Therefore, you need to demonstrate a strong product/market fit and present a clear strategy for replicating your success in new markets to secure funding from potential investors.

Luckily, nowadays there are also several ways of building an online marketplace that doesn’t require upfront capital investments. There are several no-code and SaaS solutions that allow you to create a marketplace without needing to invest hundreds of thousands, nor do you need to code from scratch.

The last piece of the puzzle to building a successful startup like Preply is scaling. In order to grow, you’ll need to scale your operations and into new markets. 

If you started with a focus on German speakers, you could look to expand into Spanish, Turkish, or Russian. Or if you targeted learners of a particular region, you could expand into other geographies.

Preply was initially limited to the Ukraine and closely similar markets before expanding globally. The $120 million Series C funding it received recently will be utilized in AI development, which will make its platform even more scalable.

Creating an online marketplace similar to Preply is now accessible to everyone, not just those with technical know-how, thanks to no-code platforms like Sharetribe, which have all the essential marketplace features like automated user creation, matching, and online payments built in. 

You can bring your marketplace idea to life with ease, even without any prior coding experience.

And even at a much later stage, when scaling and your  MVP may no longer be sufficient, Sharetribe's Developer platform will allow you to add any functionality or customization you want.