The short answer
Keep the spreadsheet if you have a handful of students, bill by hand once a month, and enjoy building your own layout.
Move to Tutitor when you have more than five or six students, when you mark attendance from memory, or when a parent has ever asked which lessons an invoice was for.
What a spreadsheet does well
- It is yours. Any column, any formula, any layout.
- It is free and works offline.
- Nothing to learn if you already use Excel or Google Sheets.
- Good enough for three students with fixed weekly lessons.
Where it breaks
- A row is not a lesson. The sheet does not know a lesson has a student, a rate, and an attendance status. You keep those in your head.
- Attendance from memory. Nobody opens a spreadsheet on the way out of a lesson. So it gets filled in at the end of the month, and something is always missing.
- Invoices are typed twice. Once into the sheet, once into the invoice. That is where lessons get lost.
- Missed lessons are inconsistent. Without a rule in the system, a no-show is charged when you remember to and waived when you do not.
- Parents cannot see it. You end up sending screenshots, then answering questions about the screenshots.
- One sheet per month per student becomes a folder you cannot search.
What Tutitor does differently
- One record. A student has a rate. A lesson has a student and a status. An invoice is built from lessons. Nothing is typed twice.
- Attendance on your phone. Mark a lesson Completed, Excused or Unexcused on the calendar as you leave. Tutitor installs to the home screen on iPhone and Android.
- Invoices build themselves. Completed lessons at the full rate, unexcused lessons at your no-show percentage, excused lessons at nothing. Each lesson shows with its date.
- A private link for parents. They open it, see every lesson, download the PDF and pay using the details on the invoice: VietQR, a bank QR image, bank details, a payment link or written instructions.
- Paid, Pending, Overdue. Every invoice has a due date and a status, and the dashboard shows who is late.
- Still free. Every feature, no paid tier.
What you give up
Flexibility. Tutitor has a fixed idea of what a student, a lesson and an invoice are. If your business does not fit that shape, for example if you sell courses instead of lessons, the spreadsheet will bend and the app will not.
You also depend on an online service. Tutitor exports invoices as CSV and PDF so your records stay yours, but the app itself needs a connection.
How to move
Finish the current month in the spreadsheet, add your students to Tutitor with their rates and weekly lessons, then run both for one month as a check. The full steps are in the guide on moving from a spreadsheet.
Side by side
| Feature | Tutitor | Spreadsheet |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $0 |
| Set-up time | About 30 minutes for 10 students | An hour or two to build, then upkeep |
| Mark attendance | One tap on the calendar, on your phone | Type it in, usually later |
| Build an invoice | Automatic from attendance | By hand, or with formulas you maintain |
| No-show charge | A rule: default, per student, per lesson | Whatever you remember to type |
| Parent view | Private link with lesson list and PDF | Screenshot or exported PDF |
| Payment details on the invoice | VietQR, bank QR image, bank details, payment link or instructions | Typed into each invoice |
| Paid or overdue status | Automatic from due date and Mark paid | A column you update |
| Calendar | Built in, syncs to Google Calendar, Meet links | Separate |
| Flexibility | Fixed structure | Anything you can build |
| Works offline | No | Yes |
Both are free. The comparison is about time and mistakes, not money.
Common questions
Is there a free tutoring spreadsheet template?
Plenty exist, and for a few students they work. The problem is not the template. It is keeping attendance, invoices and payments in sync by hand every month.
Can I keep using my spreadsheet alongside Tutitor?
Yes. Many tutors run both for the first month as a check, then keep the old sheet as an archive.
Can I get my data out of Tutitor?
Invoices export as CSV, and each invoice downloads as a PDF or PNG.
Does Tutitor work on a phone?
Yes. It is a web app that installs to the home screen on iPhone and Android, and it also works on a desktop browser.
Try Tutitor free
Students, lesson calendar, attendance and invoices in one app. Free for every tutor, with no paid tier.
No credit card. Set up in a few minutes.