I Built a Maths App. Here's When I'd Hire a Tutor Instead.

I'm going to lose readers in this paragraph and that's fine. If you've come here looking for "buy my app, tutors are pointless", wrong post. I built a maths app. I use it daily with my own kid. I also know exactly when I'd put my own credit card down for a human tutor instead, and exactly when I wouldn't, and so should you before you spend £150 a month on something that won't actually solve the problem you have.

Here's the short version: most families need an app daily and a tutor occasionally. Almost nobody needs a tutor weekly forever, and almost nobody is best served by an app alone. The interesting question is which mixture, for which problem, at which price. Below is the version of that conversation I'd have with a friend over coffee.

I'm Jonathan, founder of MathsTutor.me. This post tells you the cases where my own product is the wrong answer.

What apps are actually better at

Before I start defending tutors, let me be specific about what apps do that tutors can't. This isn't marketing, it's the reason apps exist as a category.

Cost per hour of practice. A £10/month app at 15 minutes a day works out to about 35p per session. A £30/hour tutor seen weekly works out to £30 per session. The app is roughly 100x cheaper per hour of practice. For pure repetition, no human can be cost-competitive. Don't pay a tutor for pure repetition; that's like paying a doctor to read you the dosage on a paracetamol bottle.

Consistency. A tutor sees your child for 60 minutes a week. An app can see them for 15 minutes a day, every day. The brain consolidates with daily exposure, not weekly exposure. The app's job is to keep the muscle warm; the tutor's job is to fix something specific.

Adaptive level-finding. A modern adaptive maths app can identify your child's actual level on each topic in 15 minutes. A tutor takes a few sessions to do the same, and you're paying for those sessions. Use the app for the diagnosis. Use the tutor for the treatment.

Gamification and motivation. Streaks, XP, badges, daily goals. Done well, this gets a 10-year-old to open a maths app voluntarily. No tutor on Earth gets that level of unprompted engagement at that price.

These four advantages are why every serious maths-help conversation should start with "what app are they using?", not "which tutor should we hire?". If they're not doing daily practice, you don't have a tutor problem. You have a practice problem.

What tutors are actually better at

Now the other side. I'm an engineer; I've spent the last year optimising an app's tutoring layer. There are still things a good human tutor does that no software in 2026 can match.

Reading the room. A tutor can see your child's face go blank, recognise the moment of confusion, stop, and re-explain in a different way. An app sees a wrong answer and serves another question. The tutor's job is partly diagnostic in real time; they're noticing when the explanation isn't landing and switching tactics. AI is getting closer to this; it isn't there yet for most kids.

Confidence repair. When a child has decided they're "stupid at maths," what fixes it isn't more practice. It's a person, usually not a parent, saying out loud "no, that's not stupid, that's actually quite a clever way to approach it" at the right moment. A 12-year-old will believe a young, friendly tutor in a way they will never, ever, believe their dad. I have learned this the hard way.

Parental decoupling. If maths has become a battleground at home, tears, slammed doors, "I don't get it", a tutor breaks the cycle. The kid doesn't have to defend themselves to a stranger the way they do to a parent. Sometimes the tutor's biggest contribution is taking maths out of the parent-child relationship.

Targeted topic rescue. A child who genuinely doesn't understand simultaneous equations, after watching three YouTube videos and doing two app sessions and still being lost, sometimes just needs one human to explain it differently for 25 minutes. An app can re-teach. A good tutor can re-frame.

When I'd hire a tutor immediately

Four scenarios. If any of these is your situation, the tutor question is "yes, when, and which one," not "do we need one."

1. There's been an emotional break with the subject

Your child cries at homework. Refuses to do it. Says they're stupid. Has dropped out of the top set and won't talk about it. Talks about quitting maths after GCSE. The problem isn't maths anymore, it's the relationship with maths. Apps can't fix relationships. Get a tutor, ideally a young one, ideally one who is warm, ideally not someone who's going to push hard. The first three sessions are about restoring confidence, not learning content.

2. A specific topic has become a wall

Your child is mostly fine but has been completely stuck on one thing — algebra, fractions, simultaneous equations, trigonometry — for more than a few weeks. They've been over it in school, you've tried to help, an app has tried to help. Nothing's clicking. Three sessions of targeted tutoring, on that specific topic, will probably crack it. Apps lose to humans on the "explain it differently" axis.

3. The exam is close and the gap is targeted

Six weeks before GCSE or SATs, you've identified two or three high-leverage topics that need to move, and you've got the budget. A tutor can compress two months of struggle into six well-targeted hours. This is one of the highest-ROI uses of tutor money, but only if you've done the diagnostic first to know which topics matter. Tutoring without a diagnostic is hiring a contractor before you know which room needs renovating.

4. Parent-child homework wars are damaging the relationship

This one is unsexy and the most common. You and your child fight about maths homework. Every week. It's making evenings hateful. The tutor's actual job here is not the maths, it's giving you and your kid back your evenings. The maths happens for free as a side effect. Worth every penny.

When I'd skip the tutor

The other side of the coin. Four cases where parents pay for tutors and don't need to.

1. Daily practice isn't happening yet

If your child isn't doing 10–15 minutes of maths a day yet, hiring a tutor is paying £30 an hour to do work an app can do for free. You don't have a tutor problem; you have a habit problem. Solve the habit problem first — here's how to make the daily fifteen minutes actually stick. A tutor an hour a week, when the daily habit is missing, is putting the roof on before you've poured the foundation.

2. The diagnostic hasn't been done

If you don't know which topics your child is weakest on, a tutor will spend two or three sessions finding out. At £30 a session, that's £60–90 of diagnostic time. Apps do the same diagnostic in 15 minutes for free. Run the diagnostic first — ours is here — then bring the tutor in with a target.

3. Your child is broadly on track

If your child is hitting expected grades and just hasn't quite caught up on one area, a tutor is overkill. 10 minutes a day on the weak topic for two weeks usually closes the gap. Save the tutor budget for moments where it's needed.

4. You can't afford it without it hurting

Tutors are expensive. A weekly £30 tutor for a school year is £1,200. If that money is going to cause stress at home, the stress will land on the child too; children are remarkably good at picking up "we're spending a lot on this and you better be improving" energy. A tutor can only help if the financial side is sustainable. A £10/month app, paired with parental engagement and a small targeted tutor stint when needed, often beats the weekly-tutor model both in outcomes and in household sanity.

The combined approach (what most families should actually do)

After a year building in this space and watching what works for friends and customers, the model that wins is unsexy and stable:

1. Daily app practice, 15 minutes, every day. The free tier of MathsTutor or DoodleMaths or CorbettMaths or Khan Academy. Cost: £0–10 a month. Job: keep the muscle warm.
2. A 15-minute diagnostic every term. Find the gap. Adjust priorities. Ours is free; any decent tutor or revision guide can do the equivalent.
3. A short, targeted tutor block when needed. Three to six sessions, focused on one or two topics, ideally before an exam or to break a wall. Cost: £100–200 occasionally rather than £30 weekly.

Total cost: roughly £150–300 a year, plus app subscription. That's a third of the price of a weekly tutor and produces, in most cases, better outcomes.

How to spot a good tutor

If you decide a tutor is right, here's the quick filter:

• They ask diagnostic questions before pitching. A good tutor in the first conversation asks: where's your child stuck? What level are they working at? What's the goal? A bad tutor pitches a generic six-month plan.
• They have a clear plan for the first three sessions. "Session 1: diagnose. Session 2: target the biggest gap. Session 3: extend and check it's stuck." If they can't say this, they're winging it.
• They give homework that takes less than 30 minutes. A tutor who sets two hours of homework between sessions doesn't understand that the work happens in the 60 minutes you're paying for, not in the gap.
• They tell you when to stop. A tutor who, after a productive block, says "I think you're sorted for now, come back if X" is one you can trust. A tutor who sells you another six-month package without a clear gap-and-goal is selling, not teaching.

How to spot a bad one: long contracts, vague targets, "we'll see how it goes," no diagnostic, no progress visibility, and pressure to commit weekly.

What about online tutoring services?

For completeness, these are the categories you'll hit if you Google "maths tutor UK":

• Marketplaces (Tutorful, Superprof, MyTutor): wide range, variable quality, you have to vet. Good if you're willing to read profiles and try a couple. Typical price: £20–40/hour.
• Premium 1-to-1 services (GoStudent, Third Space): expensive, polished, often locked into longer contracts. Good if money is no object and you want the friction of finding a tutor removed.
• Tutor-led group classes: £100–150/month, less individual attention but cheaper than 1-to-1. Good for confidence-building, less good for targeted gap-fixing.

If you want a fuller comparison of apps, and a more detailed look at where tutors fit, see Best Maths Apps for UK Parents 2026.

What I'd do this week

If you're sitting on the fence about a tutor, three steps in order:

1. Confirm the daily habit. Is your child doing 10–15 minutes a day? If not, fix that first. The app market is generous; you can do this for free.
2. Run a diagnostic. Free here, or use a Bond/CGP revision guide checklist, or ask a tutor for a one-off £30 diagnostic session. Don't skip this. It's the difference between hiring a contractor and renovating blindly.
3. Decide which of the four "hire immediately" scenarios you're in (or aren't). If none, save the money. If yes, hire short-term and targeted, not weekly-and-forever.

The honest version

I sell an app. I would prefer you bought my app. But I would much rather you spent a sensible £200 on a targeted tutor block that actually moves the dial than spent £100/month on a competitor's app that didn't, or hired a weekly tutor for a problem an app could solve for £10.

The right answer for most families is the boring one: app daily, tutor occasionally, parent calmly involved, diagnostic run every term. That mix beats either-or in almost every case. Don't let anyone, including me, sell you something more complicated.

Jonathan Beresford is the founder of MathsTutor.me, a UK curriculum maths app for ages 5–16. You can try the free assessment here or explore the free tier.