Tutor.az: how we built a platform for finding tutors

Tutor.az is a free platform for finding a tutor in Azerbaijan. Teachers create profiles, and students and parents choose a teacher by subject, city and lesson format, then talk to them directly. The Shaftali.az team started building the platform in summer 2025 and is still developing it today. It's an example of the complex platforms we build as part of our website development service.

Below we explain who Tutor.az is for, how it works for teachers and students, what parts it's made of and what decisions we made while building it. The figures are taken from the site itself and reflect its state in November 2026.

What Tutor.az is and who it's for

Finding a tutor often comes down to advice from friends or ads on social media. The price isn't clear upfront, the teacher's experience is hard to check, and getting in touch turns into a long chat. Tutor.az gathers all of this into one catalog: every teacher has a separate profile page showing their subjects, experience, prices and lesson schedule.

The platform has three main groups of users. Students and parents look for teachers in school subjects, university entrance exam prep, foreign languages, IT and other areas. Teachers create a free profile and find new students. The third group are people who sign up for Tutor.az's own English course. The platform charges no commission to teachers or students, and the two sides agree on the lesson price themselves.

The categories are broad: from school subjects and DIM exam groups to programming, design, music, law and driving lessons. Each subject has topics inside it. For English, for example, a general course, conversation, IELTS, TOEFL, English for kids and business English can each be chosen separately. You can find more website examples we've built in our portfolio.

How students and parents find a tutor

You don't need to sign up to search for a teacher. As soon as you type three letters in the search bar, matching subjects and topics are suggested: typing “ielts” brings up the IELTS topic, and typing “riyaz” brings up math (riyaziyyat). The catalog has six filters: subject category, subject, topic, city, the teacher's gender and lesson format (online or in person).

Teachers with Premium status appear at the top of the list, and below them are the ones who most recently signed up on the site. We keep a separate block for new teachers for a reason: a teacher nobody has chosen yet can't rise in a popularity ranking and would never find a first student.

A teacher's profile page shows:

• city, district and metro station, the teacher's age and experience;
• an “About me” text, subjects, topics and the language the lessons are taught in;
• lesson format: online, at the teacher's place or at the student's place;
• a separate price for each format, for individual and group lessons;
• the weekly lesson schedule, education, work experience and certificates;
• student reviews and three similar teachers in the same subject, from the same city where possible.

The teacher's phone number isn't shown openly on the page; it appears after clicking “Show number”. If the teacher has added a WhatsApp number, a WhatsApp button shows up next to it. You agree on the price and schedule with the teacher yourself. When choosing, we suggest looking at:

• the teacher's experience with your exact goal: the school curriculum, the DIM exam, IELTS or spoken language;
• what the reviews actually say, especially those written by students like you;
• format and location: an online lesson or a teacher who comes to your home;
• whether the price is for individual or group lessons, and whether the schedule works for you.

Finding a math tutor in Baku for a 7th grader

Say a parent is looking for a math teacher who will come to their home. On Tutor.az the search goes like this:

1. Subject and topic They type “riyaz” into the search, choose the Math subject and then the “Secondary school math (5-9)” topic.
2. City and format They choose Baku as the city and “In person (at home)” as the lesson format. Only teachers who match these conditions stay in the list.
3. Comparing profiles They open a few profiles and look at the “Individual (at the student's home)” price, the district and metro, free days in the schedule and the reviews.
4. Getting in touch They reveal the number of the teacher they like, call or message on WhatsApp, and arrange a trial lesson themselves.

If no suitable teacher turns up, it's enough to enter the subject and city in the “I can't find a teacher” form under the help button. The team finds a suitable teacher and writes back.

How a teacher finds students with a free profile

A teacher's profile is free and never expires. Many teachers post ads on general classifieds sites to find students. That difference is why we built Tutor.az as a separate catalog:

For many teachers, a Tutor.az profile is their first personal page on the internet. Here is how a teacher gets into the catalog:

1. Sign-up They enter first name, last name, email, phone and password and choose the “teacher” role. After signing up, a welcome email arrives.
2. Filling in the profile In the personal dashboard, the photo, subjects and topics, prices, schedule, education, work experience and certificates are filled in separate sections. The photo can be cropped in the browser before uploading.
3. Going live in the catalog Once the profile has a photo, at least one subject and an introduction longer than 50 characters, it's activated automatically. The admin gets a Telegram notification about every new sign-up.
4. Students get in touch A student or parent reveals the number on the profile and calls the teacher or messages them on WhatsApp.

If a teacher's profile is left unfinished, the system sends an evening email reminder. The email says what's missing (photo, subjects, introduction, city, price or education) and has a direct link to fill it in. The same teacher gets no more than one such email a week.

The first page of the dashboard shows what percentage of the profile is complete, the average rating and the number of reviews. Teachers also reply to reviews from here.

What a Premium (VIP) profile gives

Premium is optional and paid. The teacher picks a period in the Premium window in the dashboard and orders it via WhatsApp, and the admin activates it. A Premium teacher appears in the top block of the catalog and on the home page with a crown badge, and in their dashboard they see how many times the profile was viewed and how many people revealed their number. Email reminders go out 3, 2 and 1 day before Premium expires. The admin panel keeps a record of every Premium period: who paid, who got it as a gift and for how long.

How we check reviews and profiles

A teacher catalog is only as useful as the information in it is accurate. That's why Tutor.az has two checks: one for profiles and one for reviews.

We moved profile checks to Telegram. As soon as a new teacher signs up, the bot sends the admin their name, contact details, subjects and introduction, with approve and reject buttons under the message. The bot also has commands that show the list of pending profiles and overall statistics. We built similar Telegram moderation for the rental listings platform icare24.az, where the bot sends every new listing for review.

Only a user with a student account can write a review. A student writes one review per teacher and can edit it later, but can't add a second one. Every new or edited review is published after moderation. When a review is approved, the teacher's average rating and review count are recalculated automatically, and the teacher can reply to the review.

There's a help button in the corner of the site. From it you can open the “I can't find a teacher”, “How does the site work?”, “Sign up as a teacher” and “Feedback and suggestions” sections, or write on WhatsApp. A parent who can't find a suitable teacher writes which subject and which city they need. The message lands in the admin panel and arrives in Telegram at the same time.

Courses, free tests and the blog

Besides the catalog, Tutor.az has its own English course. The course covers six levels from A1 to C2, groups have three people, lessons are held and recorded on Zoom, and anyone who prefers can choose individual lessons. Before signing up, you can take a free 30-question level test. When someone fills in the course form, the team gets a Telegram notification and the request goes into the CRM in the admin panel.

The “Tests” section has free tests that work without sign-up: English for 4th grade, and logic and computer science for the master's entrance exam, each with 50 questions. The result appears right at the end of the test.

The blog has more than 160 articles on education, exams and teaching. Some of them are interactive English grammar lessons: exercises after each part with answers checked instantly, and a final test at the end. Articles link to the list of teachers for the same subject, so a reader gets to the catalog in one click.

How the platform is managed from the admin panel

We built a separate admin panel for the platform's owner. There you can manage:

• teachers: approve, reject, suspend, edit profiles and grant Premium;
• student accounts and review moderation;
• categories, subjects, topics and their order in the list;
• blog posts, and messages from the help button and the contact form;
• a CRM for course requests: statuses such as “New”, “Contacted”, “Trial scheduled” and “In talks”, notes and the date of the next call;
• groups, monthly payments, lesson attendance and payouts to teachers;
• analytics and a report on teachers who looked at the Premium offer.

The course side works as a separate system. After a lesson, the teacher marks the students who attended in their dashboard and logs the lesson. A student's balance owed and the amount due to the teacher are recalculated from payments every time, so the figures never go stale the way they do in a spreadsheet kept by hand.

What we did for Google in tutor search

People type specific things into Google: “math tutor Baku”, “IELTS teacher”. To show up for searches like these, every teacher profile is a separate, indexable page. On top of that:

• the profile's title tag is built automatically from the teacher's name, subject and city; for example, the name is followed by “Biology teacher in Baku”;
• Schema.org markup: Person and ProfessionalService on profiles, an educational organization and a questions block on the home page, article and FAQ on the blog, breadcrumbs on all pages;
• filtered lists point canonical to the main catalog page, so hundreds of versions of the same list aren't presented to Google as separate pages;
• an inactive profile returns a 410 response, and addresses opened with www redirect to the main domain with a 301;
• only active profiles and published articles go into the sitemap, and the date is taken from the day the content actually changed;
• login and sign-up pages are closed to indexing, and there's an llms.txt file for AI assistants.

This kind of setup is also part of our SEO service for other sites.

Speed, security and technology

Tutor.az is written in Node.js (Express), and the database is PostgreSQL. Pages are assembled on the server as ready HTML, so both Google and someone opening the site on weak mobile internet get the content right away. For speed we did the following:

• teacher photos and certificates are converted to WebP automatically on upload;
• images in lists load only when they get close to the screen;
• CSS and JavaScript files are minified and cached by the browser, and the cache refreshes on its own when a new version is released;
• server responses are sent compressed.

The site has CSP and HSTS security headers, request limits and passwords stored with bcrypt. A teacher's number is only given to a browser that has opened the profile page, and it can't be revealed more than 10 times a minute from one IP address, which stops bots that harvest numbers. The admin login locks for 2 hours after 5 wrong passwords.

Errors are tracked in Sentry, and serious ones trigger a notification in Telegram and by email. The code has more than 200 automated tests, some of which run in a real browser with Playwright. The site runs in a Docker container, and new versions go to the server through GitHub Actions.

How a tutoring platform like this is built

On Tutor.az every part is tied to the others. Sign-up affects moderation, profile status affects the sitemap and SEO, reviews affect the rating, and Premium affects the order in the catalog. So when building a platform like this, you need answers to these questions before writing any code:

• how subjects and topics will be structured, and whether one subject can appear in several categories;
• who will check profiles and by what rules, and when a profile will go live automatically;
• who will be at the top of the list and how new teachers will get seen;
• how the platform will make money: Premium profiles, its own courses or commission;
• which pages will be open to Google and what happens to an inactive profile.

Tutor.az wasn't built in one go; it grew in stages:

1. July 2025Catalog and teacher dashboard Teacher profiles, search by subject and a personal dashboard where teachers fill in their profile.
2. May 2026Premium and Telegram moderation Paid Premium profiles, a bot that sends new sign-ups with approve and reject buttons, and error tracking with Sentry.
3. September 2026Student accounts, courses and CRM Student sign-up and reviews written from an account, the English course page and level test, free tests, a CRM for course requests, groups and payments.
4. October 2026Help button and grammar lessons The help menu in the corner of the site and interactive lessons on the blog that check answers on their own.

We build projects like this in stages too: first a working core, then new sections based on what real users need. Portal and platform-type sites start at 1,500 AZN and take 1–2 months or more. Domain, hosting and SSL are free for the first year, and basic SEO setup is included in the price. All our rates are on the prices page. Corporate email is also set up free of charge.

Frequently asked questions

Is Tutor.az free?

Yes. Creating a teacher profile and searching for a teacher are both free, and the platform takes no commission on lessons. The only paid things are the optional Premium profile and Tutor.az's own English course.

Do I need to sign up to find a tutor?

No. Search, filters, teacher profiles and phone numbers all open without signing up. An account is only needed to write a review about a teacher.

When does a teacher's profile appear in the catalog?

Once the profile has a photo, at least one subject and an introduction longer than 50 characters, it's activated automatically. The admin is notified about every new sign-up and suspends the profile if needed.

Can I find an online tutor?

Yes. In the catalog, choose “Online” in the lesson format filter. The profile shows separate individual and group prices for online lessons.

What should I do if I can't find a teacher for my subject?

Open the “I can't find a teacher” section from the help button in the corner of the site and enter the subject, city and your phone number. The message goes to the team, and they get back to you when a suitable teacher is found.

How is a Premium profile activated?

The teacher picks a period in the Premium window in the dashboard and sends a request via WhatsApp, and the admin activates Premium. Email reminders arrive 3, 2 and 1 day before it expires.

Who built Tutor.az?

The platform was built and is developed by the Shaftali.az team. The site runs on Node.js and PostgreSQL, and moderation and notifications are handled through a Telegram bot.

How much does a tutoring platform like this cost?

Portal and platform projects start at 1,500 AZN. The work goes in stages and takes 1–2 months or more. The exact price depends on how many roles, dashboards, moderation steps and paid features there are.