Solo Work ToolsFor tutorsFor private tutors whose parents book by text. Watch one message become a booked session.
A parent texts a time. The day, time and length are pulled out for you to check.
Updated November 2026 · By the Honest Little Apps studio
Set your window, session length and the gap you need between students for travel, notes or a breather. The planner lays out real start times and drafts the "here's when I'm free" text.
Mileage is priced at the IRS business standard mileage rate of 76 cents a mile for July 1 to December 31, 2026, from the IRS standard mileage rates page; the first session's drive is left out, since you'd make it anyway. Rates are our example, not advice on what to charge.
A 25-minute gap costs you one session a night, and that's often still the right call.
We built BookingSolved around one design decision: nothing changes in your Apple Calendar until you approve it, and you send every reply yourself. That means it never books a student while you're mid-lesson. It also means it can't take bookings for you overnight, collect payments or send reminders to parents. It stores service names and durations, not prices.
The first 3 completed actions are free. Unlimited bookings, reschedules and cancellations are part of BookingSolved Pro, a monthly or yearly subscription; undo is always free.
Pick something else if you want parents to self-book from a link at midnight, or you need card payments and automatic reminders in the same tool. A booking-portal service fits that better.
Free and friendly. Easy to double book a Thursday when three parents text at once.
Reliable at the desk. Not with you when the text arrives at the grocery store.
Self-serve, often with payments. Parents learn a new system and some never use it.
Keeps the texts. Reads the request you choose, checks Apple Calendar, prepares the booking and reply.
Setting up your week
Keep one calendar as the only source of truth, give every session a fixed length plus a gap, and check that calendar before you reply to any parent. Double bookings almost always come from answering a text from memory.
Writing the session into the calendar at the moment you say yes, not later, closes most of the gap.
Leave enough to travel, write a two-line note on the last student and reset: often 10 minutes online and 20 to 30 minutes for in-home sessions. Back-to-back sessions look efficient on paper but tend to run late by the third student.
From 3:30 to 8:00 PM there are 270 minutes. With 60-minute sessions and a 25-minute gap, three sessions fit with 40 minutes spare; drop the gap to 10 minutes online and four fit exactly. Use the planner above with your own numbers.
There's no official standard. Younger students often do better with shorter sessions, and test prep often runs longer. In the planner, 45-minute sessions with 25-minute gaps fit four into the same evening that holds three 60-minute ones.
Evenings and weekends. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook says most tutors work part time, often evenings and weekends, and that hours may rise during the school year or before standardized test dates.
Talking to parents
No. Many tutors book entirely by text, and plenty of parents prefer it. A booking link helps if you want self-serve booking at any hour; the cost is asking every family to learn a new system.
Send two or three specific times inside your hours, not "I'm pretty open." Specific options get a faster yes. "I can do Thursday at 3:45, 5:10 or 6:35. Which works best?" is enough.
No law sets one for private tutors, so write your own and send it before the first session: how much notice you need (24 hours is common), what happens with late cancellations and no-shows, and how make-up sessions work. Then apply it the same way to every family.
Check the new time against everything else that evening, including the gap after it, before you say yes. A one-hour move can push into the next student's travel time even when the slot itself looks free.
Money and tools
Either build it into your rate or add a travel line for longer drives. In the planner's example, two extra 6-mile drives at the IRS rate of 76 cents a mile cost $9.12, cutting $135 for the evening to about $32.84 per hour of booked time.
It checks your Apple Calendar to find open times around existing appointments, using each service's duration and buffer time. Requests and screenshots are processed on your device and are not uploaded, and there's no account.
No. Parents keep texting you the way they already do. BookingSolved never reads your conversations in the background and never contacts clients; you paste or share the one request you choose.
Good tutoring schedules come from one calendar, fixed gaps and specific times, not a fancier booking page.
Paste a parent's message, check the proposed session, approve, and copy a Friendly, Professional or Concise reply. Download free on the App Store; the first 3 actions are on us.