Preply's Non-US Market Playbook

Preply won early by building where demand for English was urgent but the marketplace was still open. In Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Spain, Germany, Brazil, and Mexico, English was a career tool, not just a hobby, which made paid one on one tutoring easier to sell. That let Preply avoid the crowded US tutoring market, seed supply across multiple geographies, and use lower cost international tutors to offer affordable lessons while still creating attractive earnings for teachers.

• The early expansion pattern was deliberate and visible by 2016. Preply was already operating in Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil, and using new funding to enter Germany, Spain, and the UK, showing a market by market rollout from less contested regions before pushing harder into larger Western markets.
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• The product fit those markets because Preply was not selling a fixed curriculum. It let students search by language, price, location, learning context, and availability, then book tutors directly. That worked well for learners who needed practical business English and wanted teachers from other countries at lower hourly rates than local offline options.
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• This also shaped the business model. Preply is a marketplace, not a school. Tutors set rates, run repeated sessions in Preply Classroom, and Preply takes commission on lessons. By 2021, about one third of revenue came from the US, which suggests the non US beachhead helped Preply build enough tutor liquidity and product depth before expanding into the most competitive demand market.
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Going forward, this same playbook points toward deeper expansion in global English for work and employer paid language training. Preply already serves learners in 180 countries and has added enterprise customers, so the advantage shifts from simply entering overlooked markets to using its global tutor base and workflow software to turn local demand into a scaled cross border education network.