Unlisted YouTube: free and easy, but it protects nothing
Unlisted YouTube is the easiest free way to host videos. The video does not appear in search or on your channel, it plays on any phone without trouble, and there is no storage to pay for.
The catch is that anyone with the link can watch, and a student can forward it to a friend in a second. Download sites and extensions save the video easily. There is no way to stop one student who stopped paying, no way to know who watched, and no payments or exams tied to the video.
Telegram and WhatsApp groups: your students are there, but money and protection are on you
A group wins on one important thing: your students are already on it. Announcements arrive fast, questions are asked in one place, and there is nothing to learn.
But a group is not a platform. A student who paid and one who did not see the same content until you remove someone by hand. Checking Vodafone Cash transfers from screenshots takes hours every month. A video posted in the group can be saved and sent on to other groups, and there are no graded exams and no attendance tracking.
Google Classroom and Google Forms: excellent for a class, not for selling
Google Classroom is free with a Google account, easy, backed by Google, and has a mobile app. You create a class, post homework and materials, and give grades. Google Forms builds quizzes that grade themselves on multiple-choice questions.
According to Google's help pages, a personal account, which is what a private tutor uses, allows at most 250 teachers and students per class, and a group call on Google Meet lasts 60 minutes. Google Workspace for Education's eligibility terms exclude tutoring programmes by name.
More importantly, there are no payments inside Google Classroom, and video sits on YouTube or Google Drive without encryption. Google Forms has no exam timer without third-party add-ons, and results are not tied to a student account or a parent.
Moodle: the software is free, running it is not
Moodle is free, open-source software with no licence fee. It is very capable: advanced exams, many plugins and detailed permissions, which is why many universities and schools use it.
But Moodle itself says you need to arrange hosting and support yourself, or subscribe to MoodleCloud, a yearly subscription hosted by the Moodle team. So you need a server you pay for and a technical person to install and update it. Fawry and wallet payments need a plugin and a merchant account, and video is not encrypted out of the box.
WordPress and free plugins: free until you need to sell
WordPress is free, and learning plugins such as LearnPress and Tutor LMS have free versions. With them you can build a site with courses and lessons, and if you are technical you can do it yourself.
Hosting and a domain cost money from day one. Video needs a separate service, because hosting it on the same server slows everything down. If you need more features, these plugins have paid versions. Fawry and wallet payments need a plugin and a merchant account, and WordPress, plugin and security updates are all on you.
Free Zoom for live lessons
Zoom has a free version you can teach a live lesson with, and students are used to it. But the free version has limits on meeting length, which cuts a long lesson short.
Zoom is also not tied to payment: anyone with the meeting link can join, no attendance is recorded against the student's account on your platform, and there is no watermark with their name on screen.
Basata: starts free, takes a cut of each sale
Basata is an Egyptian platform that starts free and, according to their published prices, takes 5% of each confirmed sale; the free plan includes 5 GB of video storage. That makes it a reasonable choice if you are just starting, your sales are small, and you do not want to pay a subscription before your first sale.
Basata is strong at selling digital products such as courses and notes. Its pages do not mention QR-card attendance, branches or scheduled groups, so if you run a centre you will need something else alongside it.
The free options compared in one table
This table sums up each option on what matters to a teacher who sells lessons:
| What it costs | Students pay on it | Video protection from downloading | Attendance and tracking |
|---|
| Unlisted YouTube | Free | No | No; anyone with the link | None |
|---|
| Telegram and WhatsApp | Free | No; transfers you check by hand | No | None |
|---|
| Google Classroom and Forms | Free | No | No; video on YouTube or Drive | Homework and grades, no attendance |
|---|
| Moodle | Free software; hosting costs money | With a plugin and a merchant account | Not encrypted out of the box | Yes, with setup and plugins |
|---|
| WordPress and plugins | Plugins have free versions; hosting costs money | With a plugin and a merchant account | Not ready-made | Depends on the plugins |
|---|
| Free Zoom | Free, with limits on meeting length | No | Not recorded video | Not tied to the student's account |
|---|
| Basata | Free plus 5% of each sale, per their prices | Yes | File encryption not mentioned on their pages | QR attendance not mentioned |
|---|
| Snatr | From 999 EGP a month | Yes: card, Fawry and wallets | Encrypted, with the student's name on it | QR-card centre attendance and a parent portal |
|---|
And Snatr? Not free, and this is what you pay for
Snatr is a paid subscription with no free-forever plan. Current plans: Starter at 999 EGP a month for up to 100 students; Basic at 1,999 EGP a month for up to 200 students; Pro at 2,999 EGP a month for up to 400 students. There is a trial before you pay, and it starts when you press the trial button at the payment step, not when you sign up.
What you pay for: a platform under your name, video encrypted against download tools with the student's name on it, online payments in EGP, exams that grade themselves, QR-card attendance at your centre and a parent portal. Hosting and maintenance are included, and your price reaches you in full.
If the trial or subscription ends unpaid, your site closes to students and parents, who see a message asking them to contact you, until you subscribe. No data is deleted.
And if you are not selling lessons online and do not need to protect your videos, the free tools above may genuinely be enough, and you do not need to pay.
Snatr's limits, plainly
- There is no free-forever plan, but there is a 7-day trial with no card.
- Live classes are on Pro only; the other plans have no live classes.
- There is no mobile app in the stores; the platform runs in the phone's browser. Google Classroom has an app.
- Students cannot hand in homework as uploaded files, which Google Classroom does better.
- Screen recording and filming the screen with another phone are not blocked. The watermark only puts the student's name on the recording, which deters but is not proof.
- Lessons that use a YouTube link are not protected. Protection covers the videos you upload to the platform.