Tutoring Rates by Province: What Certified Teachers Charge Across Canada

A paid tutor in Saskatchewan earns a median of $26.67 an hour. In Ontario the figure is $20.00. Yet the median Ontario secondary teacher earns $48.08 an hour, which says far more about what your time is worth than any tutor survey does.

Ask what tutors charge in your province and you will find plenty of numbers. Most of them describe tutoring centre staff, university students and online marketplaces, not a licensed teacher running private sessions. This guide sets out the provincial data that does exist, explains what it actually measures, and gives you a simple way to price your own sessions wherever you teach.

How much do tutors charge in each province?

Across Canada, paid tutors earn a median of about $20 an hour, and the provincial medians run from $20.00 in Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador to $26.67 in Saskatchewan (Job Bank, wages updated November 2025). The top of the range reaches $28 to $41 depending on the province.

Private-sector data lands in the same place. Indeed puts the average tutor at $24.04 an hour, with a typical range of $18.15 to $37.64, and lists Vancouver ($27.63), Ottawa ($24.64) and Calgary ($24.31) among the higher-paying cities (Indeed Canada, October 2026). PayScale reports an average of $19.93 (PayScale, May 2026).

Here is how the provinces compare, next to what a secondary school teacher earns in the same province:

Do tutoring rates differ by province in Canada?

Less than most people expect. Outside Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island, every provincial tutor median sits within about three dollars of the others. City size often matters as much as province: Indeed's figures for Vancouver, Ottawa and Calgary sit above the national average.

The bigger reason the numbers look flat is who is being counted. Job Bank wages come from Statistics Canada surveys of paid employees, so they mostly describe people on a tutoring company's payroll. The company usually sets the family's price and keeps a share. A licensed teacher who works with families directly is a different market, and no government table tracks it by province.

That gap is visible in the private guides. Indeed's advice for families puts students at $10 to $20 an hour, agencies at $50 to $90, and a certified teacher with years of experience at $100 or more (Indeed Canada, August 2026). Our own guide to what certified teachers earn tutoring uses the same range.

Your classroom pay is a better starting point

The most reliable provincial number you have is your own. Job Bank's table for secondary school teachers shows medians from $41.03 an hour in New Brunswick to $51.81 in Newfoundland and Labrador, with Ontario at $48.08 and Alberta at $47.12 (Job Bank, wages updated November 2025).

That figure already reflects your training, your certificate and the cost of living where you work. Treat it as a reference point, not a ceiling. A private session also carries costs a school covers for you: planning time, materials, travel, the messages with parents before and after, and the unpaid weeks when a family takes a break.

What moves a rate up or down where you live

• City size. Families in large urban centres usually pay more than families in smaller towns in the same province, as the Indeed city figures show.
• Grade and subject. Senior math, sciences and exam preparation usually sit above early-grade homework help, because fewer tutors can teach them well.
• Specialized support. Reading intervention, special education experience and French or ESL teaching are skills families look for specifically.
• Format. Online sessions remove travel for both sides, so many teachers price them below in-person sessions.
• Session length and prep. A 45-minute session with planned materials can be worth as much as a looser hour. Price the whole job, not only the minutes on the clock.

How to set your tutoring rate in four steps

1. Look up the secondary or elementary teacher median for your province on Job Bank and write it down.
2. Add the hidden time: if each session needs 15 minutes of planning and follow-up, an hour on the clock is really 75 minutes of work.
3. Adjust for your city, your grades and subjects, and whether you are online or in person, using the factors above.
4. Check the result against what families in your area actually see on offer, then review it once a year. Our parent guide to how much tutoring costs in Canada shows the prices families compare you against.

A worked example

Take a secondary teacher in Ontario. The provincial median is $48.08 an hour. If every one-hour session needs about 15 minutes of planning and a short note to the parent afterward, the real work is 75 minutes, which brings the same hourly value to about $60 per session. That is a reasonable floor for an online session in senior math or English.

For in-person sessions, add the travel time on top in the same way: a 20-minute drive each way adds another 40 minutes of work to the visit. A teacher in Newfoundland and Labrador starting from $51.81, or in New Brunswick starting from $41.03, can run exactly the same arithmetic. The result will differ by province, and that difference reflects real local pay, not a guess.

The number you land on is a starting point. Some teachers price below it to build a roster in their first term, others above it once they have a waiting list. What matters is that the rate is a decision you can explain to a family, not a figure copied from a marketplace.

If you are still deciding whether tutoring fits around your teaching load, our guide to tutoring as side income for certified teachers walks through the hours and the monthly picture.

Tutoring with Connect Education

Every tutor on Connect Education is a licensed teacher in good standing. You set your own subjects, rate and hours, and work with families across Canada online, in person or at a public library, so the rate you choose reflects your certificate rather than a marketplace average.

Read how to become a tutor on the platform, or start tutoring with Connect Education.