Terms of service

About these terms

These terms are an agreement between you and Pocket Tutor Pty Ltd (ABN 51 660 329 895), which operates Pocket Tutor at pockettutor.com.au. By creating an account after being shown these terms, or by continuing to use the platform after receiving notice of them, you agree to these terms. If you use Pocket Tutor for a child or on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to do so.

You must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter this agreement to create an account. Children may be included as students only through an account managed by a parent, guardian, educator or authorised organisation administrator.

Our Privacy Policy at pockettutor.com.au/privacy explains how we handle personal information.

Our role

Pocket Tutor provides a directory and tools for enquiries, lesson requests, scheduling, notes, availability, communications and optional payment processing. Unless Pocket Tutor expressly says otherwise for a particular service, the agreement to provide a lesson is directly between the educator and the family or adult student. Pocket Tutor is not the educator and does not employ, supervise or control educators.

We review specified profile and child-safety clearance details before an educator is publicly listed. A verification badge means only that Pocket Tutor completed the review described by the badge at that time. It is not an endorsement or guarantee of an educator, the accuracy of every profile statement, the suitability of a lesson, or future clearance status. Families and organisations should make their own enquiries and use their own judgment.

Your account

You agree to provide accurate information when creating and maintaining your account, to keep your login credentials secure, and to tell us promptly if you believe your account has been accessed without authorisation. You are responsible for activity that occurs under your account.

You must use the account type and permissions that apply to you. You must not create a record for another person, connect an organisation or calendar, or act for a child unless you are authorised to do so.

Educator obligations

If you list an educator profile, you must ensure the information on your profile — including qualifications, experience, instruments, rates, and locations — is accurate and kept up to date.

To be publicly listed, you must provide the child-safety clearance information Pocket Tutor requests and keep it current. You must not use Pocket Tutor to offer or provide child-related work unless you hold every clearance required by the law that applies to you. Tell us promptly if a relevant clearance expires, is suspended, revoked or otherwise ceases to be valid. We may hide a profile while its status is unresolved.

You are responsible for complying with the laws that apply to your business, including tax obligations (such as income tax and GST, where applicable), insurance, and any registration or child-safety requirements in your state or territory. Pocket Tutor does not withhold tax or provide superannuation, insurance, or employee entitlements.

Family, student and organisation obligations

If you engage or contact an educator, you must provide accurate contact and student information, use another person's information only with authority, make reasonable safety enquiries, and pay amounts you agree to pay. Organisation administrators must accurately represent their authority and use roster, affiliation, enquiry and calendar features only for the organisation they are authorised to manage.

An educator's lesson policies are separate from these platform terms. They form part of your lesson arrangement only when they have been disclosed and agreed between the educator and the family or adult student. Pocket Tutor displays current policies on the educator's profile and in relevant lesson communications, but does not write or approve them.

Fees

Creating an educator profile and being listed in the directory is free. Pocket Tutor charges a service fee of 6.1% on payments processed through the platform. Educators set the take-home rate they want, and the service fee can be added on top of that rate or absorbed into it, as the educator chooses.

No Pocket Tutor service fee applies to lessons recorded as paid directly outside the platform. If we change the service fee, we will give reasonable advance notice. A changed fee will not apply retrospectively and you may switch to direct payments or stop using the payment service before it takes effect, subject to amounts already due.

Payments

Payments made through the platform are processed by Stripe. To receive payouts, educators must complete Stripe's onboarding and agree to Stripe's terms, including the Stripe Connected Account Agreement. Stripe may require identity and bank account information, which is handled under Stripe's own terms and privacy policy.

Pocket Tutor does not store full card numbers or bank account details. Payout timing and payment-method availability depend on Stripe and financial institutions. Payments may be delayed, declined, reversed, refunded or disputed under applicable law and Stripe's rules.

Cancellations, changes, and refunds

Each educator sets their own lesson policies, including notice for changes and unenrolment. Educators must keep those policies accurate and comply with the Australian Consumer Law and any other applicable law. A policy cannot remove a right that the law gives a consumer.

Refunds for lessons are ordinarily resolved between the educator and the family or adult student under their agreement and applicable law. For a payment processed through Pocket Tutor, the educator can initiate a refund through the platform; when a full payment is refunded, Pocket Tutor also returns its service fee for that payment. Stripe processing and bank settlement times may affect when funds arrive.

Nothing in these terms excludes your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. If services are not provided with due care and skill, are not fit for purpose, or are not delivered within a reasonable time, you may be entitled to a remedy regardless of an educator's stated policies.

Acceptable use

You must not use the platform to break the law or infringe anyone's rights; misrepresent your identity, qualifications, or Working With Children Check status; harass, threaten, or discriminate against other users; upload content that is false, misleading, defamatory, or infringing; collect or scrape other users' information; interfere with the operation or security of the platform; or create accounts by automated means.

Contact details shared through the platform may only be used for arranging and running lessons — not for unsolicited marketing or any unrelated purpose.

You must not upload another person's confidential information, private calendar feed or personal information unless you are authorised to do so and it is reasonably necessary for the feature you are using.

Your content

You keep ownership of content you add to the platform, such as profile text, photos and lesson material. While that content remains on Pocket Tutor, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, copy, format and display it only as reasonably needed to operate, secure and promote the relevant Pocket Tutor profile or service. You are responsible for having the rights and permissions needed to provide it.

We may remove or edit content that breaches these terms or that we reasonably consider harmful to other users or the platform.

Service availability and responsibility

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts, or modifies any consumer guarantee, right, or remedy under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law that cannot lawfully be excluded.

We use reasonable care in providing Pocket Tutor but do not promise that every feature will always be available or error-free. To the extent permitted by law, Pocket Tutor is not responsible for an independent educator's teaching, a user's conduct or content, or a loss caused by information, instructions or events outside our reasonable control. This does not limit responsibility for loss to the extent it was directly caused by Pocket Tutor's breach, negligence or other conduct for which liability cannot lawfully be excluded.

Suspension and termination

You can close your account at any time from your account settings or by contacting us. Closing your account does not affect lessons already paid for or amounts already owed.

We may restrict a feature, hide a profile, or suspend or terminate an account when reasonably necessary to address a material breach, fraud, safety or security risk, legal requirement, invalid child-safety clearance, or harm to another person or the service. Unless urgent action or law prevents it, we will explain the reason and give you a reasonable opportunity to respond or fix the issue. You may ask us to review a decision by contacting support.

Closing or terminating an account does not remove accrued payment obligations, affect completed transactions, or prevent limited retention required by law. Provisions that are intended to operate after closure—including ownership, payment, dispute and responsibility provisions—continue to apply.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms to reflect product, legal or security changes. We will post the updated version with a new effective date. For a material change that adversely affects users, we will give reasonable advance notice and will not apply it retrospectively. If you do not agree, you may stop using the affected service and close your account before the change takes effect, subject to existing lesson arrangements and amounts already due.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia, and you and we submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of its courts. This does not prevent you relying on a mandatory right or forum available under the law where you live. If part of these terms is unlawful or unenforceable, it is read down or removed to the minimum extent necessary and the rest continues.

If a dispute arises, contact support@pockettutor.com.au and both sides will try in good faith to resolve it. Nothing in this section restricts a right to contact a regulator, consumer-protection body or court.

Contact us

For questions about these terms, email support@pockettutor.com.au.