How Much Does 11+ Tutoring Cost in 2027? Real Prices, Hidden Costs, and Alternatives
· 8 min read
Honest 11+ tutoring costs for 2027 — hourly rates, full-year totals, hidden extras, and how platform-based prep compares for families on a budget.
The short answer
Expect to pay £25-£60 per hour for in-person 1:1 tutoring, £15-£35 per hour for online 1:1, and £10-£20 per child per hour for small-group tuition. A typical 12-18 month preparation programme of one weekly session totals £1,300-£3,000 before extras, and intensive schedules (twice weekly, plus holiday boot camps) can comfortably reach £5,000-£8,000. Add £200-£400 for workbooks, mock papers, and exam materials. By comparison, an adaptive online platform usually costs £180-£600 for the full year. Tutoring is genuinely valuable for some children — those who need accountability, who struggle with specific topics, or who benefit from individual attention — but it is far from compulsory, and many children who pass the 11+ never had a tutor. This guide breaks the numbers down honestly so you can decide what fits your family. For a wider tour of the prep options including free resources, see our guide to free 11+ resources, and the best 11+ resources for 2027 for a balanced comparison.
Hourly rates by tutoring format
Prices vary hugely by region, tutor experience, and how specialised the tutor is. Approximate ranges in 2026-2027: - In-person 1:1 with an experienced 11+ specialist: £40-£60 per hour in London and the South East, £25-£45 per hour elsewhere. Tutors with a track record at super-selective schools (Tonbridge, Judd, Henrietta Barnett, Tiffin) charge at the top of these ranges and often have multi-year waiting lists. - Online 1:1: typically £15-£35 per hour. The online discount has narrowed since 2020 — well-reviewed online specialists now charge nearly as much as in-person tutors, but you save the travel time and the tutor's geographic premium. - Small group tuition (3-6 children): £10-£20 per child per hour. Common in tutor centres in 11+ heartlands like Kent, Bucks, Essex, Trafford, and Birmingham. Cheaper per hour, but less attention per child. - Tutor centres and franchise programmes (Kumon, Explore Learning, regional 11+ schools): £100-£200 per month for usually two sessions per week. Generally not 11+ specialist — you are paying for routine and structure as much as for tailored content. - Saturday or holiday boot camps: £200-£600 per multi-day course. Useful if you missed earlier preparation or want a focused exam-technique block before September; less useful as standalone preparation.
The full-year total: more than the hourly rate suggests
A weekly hourly tutor for 12 months at £40 per hour costs £2,080 across the year, before any holidays. Most families take 3-5 weeks off across summer, Christmas, and Easter, bringing the realistic total to £1,800-£1,900. Add a second weekly session in the final six months (a common pattern) and the figure becomes £2,800-£3,200. Intensive families running two sessions per week from Year 5 onwards regularly spend £4,500-£5,500. London and the South East skew higher: £55 per hour with two weekly sessions for the final year of preparation reaches £4,800-£5,300 for tuition alone. Outside the heartlands, £30 per hour with one weekly session sits at £1,200-£1,500. The geographic spread is genuinely large — do not assume the figures quoted in the parenting forums you read are local to you.
Hidden costs nobody quotes upfront
The hourly rate is rarely the whole story. Realistic extras across a full preparation programme: - Workbooks and practice books: £30-£60 per subject across Year 4 and Year 5, often £100-£150 in total. CGP, Bond, and Schofield & Sims are the most common. - Mock exam papers: £50-£200 across the preparation period, depending on whether you buy individual papers (£8-£15 each) or a bundle. - Mock exam events: many tutors and tutor centres run timed mock days at £35-£75 per child per session. Useful for exam-day acclimatisation; some families do four or five. - Holiday boot camps: £200-£600 per course. Tempting in the summer before the test; usually less effective per pound than a steady weekly tutor. - Travel and parking: in-person tutoring requires getting your child there. A 30-minute drive twice weekly across a year is a meaningful time and fuel cost most parents do not budget for. - Online subscriptions alongside tutoring: many tutors set platform-based homework. Add £15-£40 per month if you are doubling up. Realistically, total non-tutor costs across a full 12-18 month preparation come to £200-£500. Combined with weekly tutoring, a typical family spends £1,800-£3,500 on the test cycle, and intensive families spend £5,000-£8,000.
What actually drives the price tag
Five factors explain why one tutor charges £25 per hour and another charges £80: - Region. London and the South East are 30-50% more expensive than the North West or Midlands. Within Kent, Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks command higher rates than Folkestone or Margate. - Tutor experience and outcomes. Tutors with multi-year track records of placing children at super-selective schools price at the top of the band and book out a year ahead. - Exam-board specialism. GL Assessment, CSSE, and (increasingly rare) CEM each demand different preparation. A tutor who specialises in CSSE will charge a premium in Essex, where alternatives are scarcer. - Super-selective focus. Preparation for Tonbridge, Judd, Tiffin, Henrietta Barnett, or King Edward VI Birmingham requires a level of stretch that not every tutor can offer. Specialists charge accordingly. - Demand cycles. Prices rise in the autumn before the test year as families panic into bookings. Booking in spring of Year 4 typically secures lower rates than booking in summer of Year 5. None of these factors necessarily correlate with effectiveness for your specific child. A £30 per hour tutor who clicks with your child and sets disciplined homework can outperform a £60 per hour specialist who uses a one-size-fits-all approach. References from local families matter more than headline rates.
Platform-based preparation: what £15-£50 per month buys
Online 11+ platforms split into three rough tiers: - Budget question banks (£6-£12 per month): typically chapter-aligned drills mapped to a specific workbook series. Useful for routine practice; no adaptive engine, no exam-condition timing, limited progress reporting. - Mid-tier adaptive platforms (£15-£35 per month, often £180-£420 per year): include adaptive difficulty, progress tracking, and timed mock exams. Question banks are large enough that a child practising 20 minutes a day will not exhaust them in a year. - Premium adaptive platforms (£40-£70 per month, £480-£840 per year): largest question banks, regional configuration for specific tests, AI-driven feedback on writing, and detailed parent reporting. GrammarPrep sits in the mid-tier on price (from £19.99 per month) but offers features more typical of the premium band: GL-format question banks for Kent, Bucks, Trafford, Wirral, Lincolnshire and Warwickshire; an adaptive engine that re-plans the week's practice every Monday based on the previous week's performance; AI feedback on Year 5 writing samples within 30 seconds; and timed mock exams that report a Standardised Age Score, not just a percentage. See pricing for the full breakdown. A full year on GrammarPrep at £19.99 per month is £239 — roughly the cost of six hours of in-person 1:1 tutoring at £40 per hour. Whether that is the right comparison depends on what your child actually needs.
Is 11+ tutoring worth it? An honest answer
Tutoring is worth it if at least two of the following apply: your child has a specific weak subject (often verbal or non-verbal reasoning, occasionally writing) that they cannot crack with parental help and a workbook; you are not confident teaching the 11+ subjects yourself, particularly reasoning or above-level Maths; your child responds well to the accountability of a fixed weekly appointment with someone outside the family; or your target schools include super-selectives where the standard pass mark is not enough. Tutoring is probably not worth the cost if: your child is self-motivated and works well with parental support; you live in a non-super-selective grammar area where the threshold is the standard 'satisfied' line; your budget would be stretched and the financial pressure would itself become a stress source for the family; or your child has 12+ months of runway and can build the same gains through daily reading, an adaptive platform, and disciplined practice. A reasonable middle path for many families is a few targeted blocks of tutoring for specific weaknesses (six sessions on writing, four sessions on non-verbal reasoning) rather than a continuous weekly arrangement for the full preparation period. This typically costs £300-£600 across the cycle, supplements a £200-£400 platform subscription, and produces results comparable with continuous tutoring at a fraction of the spend.
What to do next
If you are at the start of Year 4 or Year 5 and exploring options, the cheapest sensible first step is a free diagnostic so you know where your child actually stands. From there, you can decide what mix of tutoring, workbooks, and platform-based practice fits your child and your budget — informed by data rather than panic. Try the free GrammarPrep diagnostic to benchmark your child's current ability across the four 11+ subjects in under 20 minutes, then read our free 11+ resources guide for the no-cost tools that should form the backbone of any preparation programme regardless of what else you spend. The goal is not the most expensive preparation; it is the right preparation, sized to your child and your family.