Terms of service

Who can use UpMark

A parent or guardian can create and manage an account on behalf of a learner under 18 and is responsible for it. By adding a child, you confirm you’re their parent or guardian and consent to their details being used to arrange tutoring.

A learner under 18 may also hold their own account. To book a lesson or a class they choose one of two ways. They can tick to confirm that a parent or guardian knows about and agrees to that booking — UpMark relies on that confirmation — and pay with their own card. Or they can link a parent account, and from then on every booking they make waits for the parent to approve and pay for it. Learners under 7 are booked by a parent.

If you're a parent and didn't agree to a booking, contact us and we'll cancel future lessons and refund them. Lessons that have already happened are not refunded, and from then on your child can book only through a linked parent account.

A linked parent can see their child's lessons and read their child's conversations with tutors while the child is under 18, and is added to a chat with the child and the tutor for each booking unless they turn that off in Settings. When the child turns 18, the parent can still see their lessons but no longer their messages, and nothing the child books waits for a parent.

What UpMark is

UpMark is a marketplace that connects students and parents with independent tutors, and handles matching, scheduling and payments. Tutors are independent providers, not employees of UpMark. We facilitate the connection and the payment; the lesson itself is delivered by the tutor. We verify tutors before they can take lessons, but we don’t guarantee any particular academic result.

What we check about tutors

UpMark checks a tutor's identity and results before they can take lessons. Beyond that, we don't vet tutors. We show whether a tutor has given us a police clearance. From 20 October 2026, a tutor must declare to us that they are not listed on the National Register for Sex Offenders or the National Child Protection Register and have never been convicted of an offence against a child before a learner under 18 can book them. Please make your own judgement before booking.

Lessons added by tutors

Tutors can add lessons they've taught so a learner can pay for them on UpMark. Paying for one confirms it took place — UpMark doesn't check lessons held outside the platform. It can take a few working days for the payment to reach the tutor's bank account, longer over weekends and public holidays. Payments for these lessons are final and aren't refunded; if you pay the wrong tutor or the wrong amount, contact us and we'll try to help, but we can't promise to recover it. If a bank reverses a payment after the tutor was paid, the tutor owes that amount back to UpMark, and we'll arrange how they repay it.

Your account

Please give accurate information and keep it up to date, keep your password secure, and let us know if you think someone else has accessed your account. You’re responsible for activity that happens under your account.

Bookings and payments

Lessons are priced and paid in South African Rand (ZAR) through our payments provider, Paystack. When you book, you pay upfront and UpMark holds the payment. The tutor’s share is released once the lesson is confirmed by you, or automatically 72 hours after a lesson whose attendance code was entered, or 7 days after a lesson that nobody confirms and nobody reports a problem with. You have 48 hours after a lesson to report a problem; a report after the share has been released is reviewed but the release is not reversed. We hold the money as the platform; it is not kept in a separate trust account.

UpMark keeps a platform fee of up to 15% of the lesson fee, and the tutor receives the rest. Some tutors are on individually agreed rates, and on some of those the payment processor’s own fees — the card fee on your payment and the fee to transfer money to the tutor — are paid by the tutor out of their share rather than by UpMark. Those are the processor’s charges, not ours, and nothing extra is added to what you pay. The fee depends on how much the tutor teaches and their rating: it starts at 15%, falls to 12% at four confirmed lesson hours a week and 11% at nine, measured on a rolling four-week average, and a rating above 4.0★ reduces it by up to a further 2 percentage points once the tutor has completed 10 lessons.

The fee for a lesson is fixed when that lesson is booked and does not change afterwards, whatever happens to the tutor’s rate later.

The fee covers secure payments, matching, the lesson tools, scheduling and support. Tutors set their own rates.

The platform fee is calculated on the lesson fee only. If an in-person lesson includes a travel fee, that travel amount goes to the tutor in full — we take no percentage of it. Paystack collects the whole amount you pay at checkout, and the platform fee is simply the part we don’t pay out to the tutor when the lesson is released — it isn’t deducted from your payment separately, and there is nothing extra for you to pay.

In-person group classes are held at a public venue, such as a library or a school, or at the tutor’s own home, arranged by the tutor and approved by UpMark before anyone can book an in-person seat. A class at a tutor’s home says so before you book, and you confirm you understand that when you book. The full address is shared only with people who have a confirmed in-person seat. There is no travel fee on a group class.

Cancellations and refunds

You can cancel a lesson at any time, right up to the moment it starts. What comes back depends on how much notice you give:

• More than 24 hours’ notice — refunded in full.
• Between 12 and 24 hours — refunded in full. We’ll offer you a reschedule first, but the full refund stands either way.
• Less than 12 hours — we’ll offer you a reschedule first. If you’d rather cancel, 60% is refunded and the tutor keeps 40%, because they kept the time free and it’s too late for anyone else to book it.
• If the lesson time passes and you neither attend nor cancel, no refund is due on the lesson fee (the travel fee is always refunded).

Any travel fee is always refunded in full, whatever the notice — you’re never charged for a journey that didn’t happen. Moving a lesson is itself free and never charges you on its own. You can move a lesson yourself from your dashboard any time before it starts.

Rescheduling doesn’t reset your cancellation notice. If you reschedule a lesson and then cancel it, the cancellation fee is worked out from whichever notice period is shorter — the original lesson time or the new one. This keeps a late cancellation from being reclassified as an early one by moving the lesson first. It never affects a lesson you go ahead with. And if both your original lesson time and your new lesson time are more than 12 hours away when you cancel, nothing changes for you — a fee only applies if one of the two falls inside the late-cancellation window.

If your tutor cancels a lesson before it happens, you’re refunded in full, automatically. If a lesson has already taken place, a tutor can’t cancel it for a refund — it’s held for an UpMark administrator to review instead. If your tutor doesn’t turn up, tell us within 48 hours of the lesson — use Report a problem on the lesson, or email support@upmarktutoring.com. We don’t detect a no-show automatically, so we need you to tell us; an UpMark administrator will review it and put it right.

Refunds are returned via Paystack to your original payment method. We don’t keep our platform fee on the refunded portion. Group classes use the same graduated scale as 1:1 lessons: a seat is refunded in full more than 12 hours before the class, and 60% under 12 hours, with the tutor keeping 40% for the seat they can no longer refill. If fewer students than the class’s minimum have booked by the check time shown on the class, the class is cancelled and every seat is refunded in full — unless the tutor has already confirmed it will run anyway. If the tutor cancels a class, every seat is refunded in full too. A class’s seats are released 48 hours after the class ends once any student’s attendance code has been entered, or 7 days after it if none is. Some group classes are free: booking a seat needs no payment, so there is nothing to refund.

Attendance on free group classes. A person who attended a free group class without a seat may confirm their attendance with the class's attendance code, from the start of the class until 7 days after it ends. A confirmed attendance is not a seat, a booking or a payment; it allows one review of that class. The tutor and UpMark may remove an attendance that is not genuine, together with any review made under it.

Group class packages. A tutor may sell several classes of a series together for one price. A package is one payment that books a seat in each class it covers, and each seat holds a share of that payment in proportion to the classes' single prices. If the tutor cancels a class, or it doesn't reach its minimum, that class's share is refunded and your other seats stay booked. If you cancel one class, the usual cancellation rules apply to that class's share. If you cancel the package more than 12 hours before its first class, the whole payment is refunded; after that, each class follows the usual cancellation rules for its share. A refund of part of a package goes back to the card you paid with, as a partial refund of the one payment.

Weekly lessons

If you choose a weekly lesson, we book the same slot each week and charge your saved card one to two days before each lesson, until you cancel. You can cancel the series at any time from your dashboard; the cancellation scale above applies to each lesson individually.

For tutors

To take lessons you must complete verification (identity and proof of your results) and keep your profile accurate. You’re an independent provider responsible for your own tax and for delivering lessons professionally and safely. UpMark may decline or remove a tutor who doesn’t meet our standards.

Your share is released for payout once the lesson is confirmed, or automatically after the release period set out in the buyer section above. You need to have saved your payout details before anything can be paid out to you. We don’t promise a specific payout timing here; if a payout is delayed, contact us and we’ll tell you where it is.

You can decline a new booking within 24 hours of it being made, as long as the lesson is still more than 24 hours away, up to three times a month; the student is refunded in full. You can also cancel a lesson that hasn’t happened yet, at any time, which refunds the student in full and is recorded — a cancellation within 24 hours of the lesson counts as a late cancellation in your public reliability stats. You can’t cancel a lesson you’ve already taught for a refund; if that comes up, an UpMark administrator reviews it instead. If you don’t answer a booking request in time, it expires and the student is refunded automatically. If we remove a tutor, every lesson that hasn’t happened yet is cancelled and refunded — one that’s already taken place is held for review.

Acceptable use

Please don’t use UpMark to:

• harass, harm or endanger anyone, especially a minor;
• arrange payment off-platform to avoid fees or protections;
• post false, misleading or unlawful content;
• attempt to break, probe or misuse the platform or others’ accounts.

Lessons and messages should stay focused on tutoring. We may suspend or close accounts that break these rules.

Content and messaging

You keep ownership of what you upload, but you give us permission to store and display it as needed to run the service (for example, showing a tutor’s profile, or delivering a message to the other party). Keep messages respectful and relevant to the lesson.

No guarantee of results

We work hard to match you well and to verify tutors, but tutoring outcomes depend on many things we don’t control. The service is provided “as is”, and we don’t promise a particular mark or result. To the extent the law allows, UpMark isn’t liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from use of the platform.

Suspension and closing your account

You can close your account at any time by contacting us. We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms or where needed to protect users or comply with the law. Amounts we are already holding for a booked lesson are handled according to the cancellation rules above.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the service develops. When we make a material change we’ll update the date at the top and, where appropriate, let you know. Continuing to use UpMark after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, and the South African courts have jurisdiction over any dispute.

Contact us

Questions about these terms? Email support@upmarktutoring.com. See also how we handle your data in our Privacy policy.