As education continues its digital transformation, teachers nationwide are facing a pivotal career decision: remain in traditional classrooms or pivot to online tutoring. With increasing workloads, administrative pressures, and salary constraints, many educators are questioning where their futures lie in 2025’s educational landscape.
Elliot Phillips stands at the forefront of this professional migration. As founder of The Teacher Project and bestselling author of “Teaching on Your Own Terms” (featured by NASDAQ in Times Square), Phillips has guided over 3,000 teachers in transitioning from traditional classrooms to profitable online tutoring ventures. His clients routinely report replacing—and often exceeding—their teaching salaries while working fewer hours.
“What we’re seeing isn’t just a temporary shift but a fundamental reimagining of the teaching profession,” Phillips explains during our conversation. “Teachers aren’t leaving education—they’re finding ways to teach on their own terms, with greater freedom, financial potential, and work-life balance.”
This article explores the critical differences between classroom teaching and online tutoring in 2025, examining schedule flexibility, income potential, professional freedom, student impact, and lifestyle considerations that are driving educators to reconsider their career paths.
Breaking Free from the Classroom Constraints
When I ask Phillips about the primary distinction between teaching and tutoring in today’s educational landscape, his response is immediate and passionate.
“The most significant difference is freedom,” Phillips explains. “In a traditional classroom, teachers are confined by rigid schedules, prescribed curricula, and administrative red tape. They’re often teaching content they know isn’t working for their students, but their hands are tied.”
This lack of control contributes to alarming teacher burnout statistics. According to research Phillips cites, 44% of teachers in the UK plan to leave the profession by 2027, with 77% reporting poor mental health due to work-related stress.
“I’ve seen countless teachers transform their careers by reclaiming their autonomy through online tutoring,” he says. “Take Quanita, one of our earliest success stories. She was Door Dashing part-time to make ends meet while teaching full-time. She told me, ‘I showed up every morning with a smile on my face, but emotionally I was breaking. I was spending hours teaching a curriculum we knew just wouldn’t work, and my students were getting the short end of the stick.'”
Phillips continues, “After Quanita took the leap into online tutoring, she developed her own program so impactful that parents begged to enroll their children. Today, she has a six-figure tutoring business with top teachers working for her, and she’s partnering with schools to train their staff.”
Building a Sustainable Income Beyond School Walls
The financial aspect of the teaching-tutoring divide is perhaps the most eye-opening part of our conversation.
“The average teaching salary in the US is about $70,000 annually, which comes to roughly $5,000 per month,” Phillips notes. “That figure is fairly fixed—there’s a ceiling that most teachers will hit regardless of their skill or impact. But online tutoring has no such ceiling.”
Phillips shares examples that sound almost too good to be true: “One of our clients, Jared, collected $4,800 in a single day—nearly a full month’s teaching salary. Another, Evan, brought in an additional $100,000 while still teaching full-time in the classroom.”
But how achievable is this for the average educator? Phillips believes it’s about strategic scaling.
“It’s not about teaching more hours—it’s about teaching smarter,” he explains. “The key is group-based tutoring. With 5-10 students per group, teaching just 10 hours weekly, a tutor can quickly surpass a teaching salary. Then, once you reach about 80% capacity, you can hire additional tutors to expand without increasing your own workload.”
Phillips emphasizes that this isn’t just a side hustle but a legitimate career path: “I recommend starting with a 30-day program at around $97 per student, then scaling to 12-week programs ranging from $500 and more dependent on your subject area and ideal students as you build testimonials and refine your approach.”
Creating a Life-Centered Teaching Career
What strikes me most during our conversation is how Phillips frames online tutoring not just as a job alternative but as a lifestyle choice.
“Teaching should enable your life, not consume it,” he says. “When you’re tied to a school schedule, your life revolves around the academic calendar. Vacations are more expensive and crowded because everyone is off at the same time. The daily commute eats hours of your week.”
Phillips contrasts this with the flexibility of online tutoring: “When you tutor online, you can teach from anywhere with an internet connection. You can schedule around your family commitments. You can travel during off-peak seasons.”
He shares a personal example: “In 2019, I was teaching my own clients online from Bali, making $10,000 a month while spending quality time with my daughter. That freedom is simply not possible in a traditional classroom.”
The impact potential also expands dramatically. “In a classroom, you might reach 30 students per year. Online, we have tutors working with students across 10 different countries. One of our clients, Rosanna, hit her 50th student milestone recently, and that number continues to grow exponentially.”
As our interview concludes, Phillips offers a final thought: “Teaching and tutoring both offer the reward of student impact. But tutoring online in 2025 provides something traditional teaching cannot—a combination of impact, income, and independence that lets educators design their ideal lives while still changing students’ lives.”
About Elliot Phillips
Elliot Phillips is the Founder and CEO of The Teacher Project, an education technology company on a mission to transform the way teachers educate the world. As a former PE teacher, Elliot is deeply passionate about empowering educators to build thriving online businesses and achieve unprecedented levels of impact and freedom. Under Elliot’s leadership, The Teacher Project has helped over 3,000 teachers start their own successful online teaching ventures, with many replacing their full-time teaching salaries in just a matter of months. To learn more, click here: http://www.teacherproject.io.