Your language lessons deserve your domain,
not Italki's commission.
VeloCMS is a publishing platform for independent language tutors that handles lesson schedule publishing, pronunciation audio embeds, downloadable PDF worksheets, and Stripe-powered paid lesson packages in one place — no platform commission, no algorithm deciding who finds you, no archive locked inside someone else's portal. The Memo Garamond theme — academic serif typography, generous leading, footnote-friendly layout — ships free on every plan and fits the "scholarly but accessible" positioning independent tutors need.
Why independent language tutors keep hitting the same walls
Three different problems, one root cause — none of the platforms they currently use were built for tutors who want to own their students, their curriculum, and their income.
Italki + Preply take 15–30% of every lesson — forever
Run the math for a moment. A $30/hour tutor giving 20 lessons a week is handing $90–$180 directly to the platform every single week. That's $4,680–$9,360 a year. Not a one-time onboarding fee. Not a capped cut. A perpetual tax on every lesson you ever teach, for as long as you stay. That money doesn't buy you better discoverability, stronger students, or additional features you don't already pay for elsewhere. It buys the platform the right to keep you hosted. And the moment you leave, you leave with nothing — no student emails, no lesson history, no curriculum archive, no SEO from three years of profile content you wrote. The platform keeps all of it.
Platform algorithms decide who finds you
Your ranking on Italki today has almost nothing to do with how good a tutor you are. It has everything to do with review recency, lesson count acceleration, response time windows, and promotional boosts the platform decides to run for certain teachers at certain times. When Italki ran a "featured teacher" campaign for Spanish tutors last year, non-featured Spanish tutors saw their booking rates drop for six weeks — not because their teaching got worse, but because the platform rerouted demand toward teachers it chose to promote. You can't analyse why your visibility changed. You can't recover ranking by improving something real. You're farming attention on someone else's land with no lease terms.
Your lesson archive is locked inside the platform
Three years of lesson notes. Custom exercises you built for each student's weak points. Pronunciation audio clips you recorded explaining the difference between Turkish voiced and unvoiced stops. Grammar deep-dives that took an afternoon to write. All of it lives inside Italki's or Preply's lesson portal in a format that belongs to them. You can't export it. You can't reuse it as a free lead magnet for your own website. You can't sell it separately as a self-paced mini-course. When your account closes — or when the platform decides to change its terms — that archive disappears. Independent tutors who own their curriculum can turn three years of lesson notes into ten products. Platform-locked tutors turn those same three years into nothing at exit.
What a language-tutor-first platform gives you
Embedded pronunciation audio, lesson schedules, per-language tagging, PDF worksheets, hreflang SEO, and Memo Garamond — bundled into one platform with no plugin stack and no platform taking a cut of every lesson you teach.
Audio-rich content with embedded pronunciation players
Embed your MP3 pronunciation drills, dialogue clips, and listening exercises from SoundCloud or Spotify directly in the post, so students can play them right where they read. Gate pronunciation packs behind your paid membership tier or keep them free to demonstrate teaching quality to prospective students browsing your lesson blog.
Lesson schedule + recurring booking funnel
Publish your recurring weekly class schedule — Tuesday conversation club, Thursday grammar workshop, Saturday pronunciation intensive — as structured posts. Tag each with the language and level so students filter by what they need. Connect your Stripe account to sell per-lesson slots or monthly subscription access. The booking flow lives on your domain, not a platform profile that rents you shelf space.
Per-language tag system — one site, every language you teach
A tutor who teaches Turkish, Spanish, and Japanese doesn't need three separate websites. Apply per-language tags to every post and lesson — `lang:turkish`, `lang:spanish`, `lang:japanese` — and your tag archive pages become clean language-specific indexes students can bookmark. A new student landing on your site for Spanish lessons never has to wade through your Turkish content.
PDF worksheet downloads: sold as digital products with signed links
Upload your PDF worksheets as digital products and they are stored on Cloudflare R2. Students who buy get a short-lived signed download link, so there is no Dropbox URL to regenerate and no Google Drive share setting to manage. For free worksheets, upload the PDF to the media library and link it from the post. The post editor has no file block, and a plain media link is not gated by membership.
hreflang SEO — one page, right audience in every country
When you write the same lesson in English and in your target language, Google sees two pages and has to guess whether they're duplicates or correct localizations. hreflang tags tell Google they're the same content for different audiences — the English version for students learning from English, the Turkish version for students learning from Turkish. VeloCMS generates these tags from your post's language and region metadata. No plugin, no manual tag editing per post.
Memo Garamond theme — scholarly but accessible
The Memo Garamond preset uses an academic serif type stack — long-form friendly, footnote-ready, with generous leading that makes grammar explanations readable rather than skimmable. It communicates "this tutor knows the theory" without feeling sterile. The same theme handles pronunciation audio, lesson PDFs, and a booking CTA without visual clutter. Ships free on every plan.
Features language tutors actually need
Per-language tag indexes, embedded audio, Stripe lesson packages, worksheets sold as digital products, and hreflang SEO — all in one place without a plugin in sight.
Multi-language tag index — one blog, every language you teach
Tag posts with `lang:`, `level:`, and `topic:` labels. The tag archive pages generate automatically — `/tag/lang-turkish`, `/tag/lang-spanish`, `/tag/level-beginner` — so students can bookmark exactly the content that's relevant to them. Language-specific tag pages carry their own meta descriptions and canonical URLs, which means each language stream can rank independently in Google.
Embedded audio: pronunciation drills and dialogue clips
Embed SoundCloud or Spotify clips in a post with the editor's Embed block, with no extra plugin. A single post can embed multiple clips: model pronunciation, student error correction, dialogue A and dialogue B. Gate the full drill set behind membership with the post-level paywall, or keep clips free to attract new students.
Lesson schedule — recurring class posts with Stripe checkout
Create a post for each recurring class slot, tag it with language, level, and day, and connect a Stripe product for per-lesson purchase or monthly subscription. Students browse your class posts, pick a slot, and land on a checkout flow on your domain. No platform fee beyond Stripe's standard processing. For dated sessions with a seat limit, use Events instead.
Paid worksheets: Stripe-powered, instant delivery
Sell PDF worksheets, audio packs, or lesson bundles as digital products. Students check out through your Stripe account and get a signed download link right after payment, with no manual approval and no email thread confirming payment. To gate a whole lesson instead, set the post to members-only or paid with the post-level paywall.
PDF worksheets: your own storage, no Dropbox dependency
Upload PDFs as digital products or to the media library, where they are stored on Cloudflare R2. Product downloads use signed, short-lived URLs, so you never regenerate a Dropbox link because a student reported it expired, and paid files are not sitting behind a Google Drive share setting. There is no File block in the post editor, so link free PDFs from the media library.
hreflang tags — tell Google your lesson pairs are related
Publish your lesson in English, add the Turkish equivalent post and link them as language alternates in the post settings. VeloCMS emits the correct `hreflang` link elements in `<head>`. Google stops treating them as duplicate content and starts serving the correct version to the right audience — your English lesson to English-speakers learning Turkish, your Turkish lesson to native Turkish students learning English. Two pages, two audiences, one canonical trust signal.
VeloCMS vs Italki vs Preply vs Udemy
| Feature | VeloCMS | Italki | Preply | Udemy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custom domain | Yes | No | No | No |
| Platform commission | 0% | 15–30% | Up to 33% | 37–63% |
| Audio embeds in lessons | Yes | In-class only | In-class only | Video only |
| PDF worksheet downloads | Yes | Upload only — no gating | Upload only — no gating | File attachments only |
| Multi-language SEO (hreflang) | Yes | No | No | No |
| Time to first lesson live | 5 min | 2–3 days (approval) | 1–2 days (approval) | 1–2 weeks (review) |
| Cost per year + commission lost | 0–$348 + 0% | Free host — 15–30% forever | Free host — up to 33% forever | Free host — 37–63% forever |
From Italki or Preply to your own teaching platform in five steps
No developer, no multi-tool stack, no monthly platform commission. Get your lesson schedule, audio drills, and gated worksheets live in an afternoon.
Export your Italki or Preply lesson history
From Italki, navigate to My Profile → Teaching Materials and download any uploaded resources. Lesson notes typed inside the Italki classroom interface aren't exportable — copy them from your browser manually or use a browser automation tool if the volume is high. From Preply, go to Dashboard → My Lessons → Export to download lesson session summaries as CSV. Neither platform gives you audio recordings they created, but any audio files you uploaded separately should be accessible from your account settings.
Upload your lesson archive to VeloCMS
Create posts in VeloCMS's TipTap editor for each major lesson type or curriculum section. Paste in your lesson notes, add your PDF worksheets as digital products or media-library links, and embed audio clips from SoundCloud or Spotify. Tag each post with the language, level, and topic. Your three years of Italki lesson content — which previously generated zero Google traffic and zero subscriber value — now lives on your domain as SEO-indexed content you can promote, gate, and build from.
Set up your per-language tag system
Create tags in Admin → Tags for each language you teach (`lang:english`, `lang:turkish`, `lang:spanish`), each level (`level:beginner`, `level:intermediate`, `level:advanced`), and each topic focus (`topic:pronunciation`, `topic:grammar`, `topic:conversation`). Go back through your uploaded posts and apply the relevant tags. Your tag archive pages generate automatically — students can now bookmark `/tag/lang-turkish/level-beginner` and see only the content relevant to where they are.
Add your first pronunciation audio + worksheet PDF
Open a new post in the editor. Add an Embed block with your SoundCloud or Spotify pronunciation drill. Upload the companion PDF worksheet as a digital product, or to the media library for a free download, and link it from the post. Set visibility to members-only or free, then publish. The post is live with embedded audio and a downloadable PDF on your domain. The whole process takes under ten minutes.
Activate Memo Garamond + open paid lesson packages via BYOK Stripe
In Admin → Themes, click Memo Garamond → Apply. Your site immediately shifts to the academic serif layout — generous leading, footnote-friendly typography, clean heading hierarchy. In Admin → Settings → Membership, paste your Stripe secret key. Set your monthly lesson subscription price or create one-time lesson package products. Your platform is live on your velocms.org subdomain. Point a custom domain CNAME when you're ready to fully leave Italki.
Start a 14-day free trial with lessons, audio, and Memo Garamond. Pro when you need a custom domain and paid packages.
Pro
$9
per month
- Unlimited lessons + audio embeds
- Custom domain + SSL
- BYOK Stripe lesson packages (0% fee)
- hreflang multi-language SEO
- Paid PDF worksheets (digital products)
- AI writing assistant
Business
$29
per month
- Unlimited lessons + audio
- Multi-tutor language school team
- Unlimited AI translations
- Priority support
- Team collaboration
- Advanced member analytics
Questions language tutors ask before switching
Honest answers — no Italki upsell.
Does VeloCMS support hreflang tags for multilingual content?
Yes. When you publish the same lesson in two languages, you can link the posts as language alternates in the post settings panel. VeloCMS emits the correct `hreflang` link elements in the page `<head>`. Google reads these and stops treating the two versions as duplicate content — instead serving the English lesson to English-speaking students and the Turkish lesson to Turkish-speaking students. This is particularly valuable for tutors who teach English to speakers of a specific language, where the same conceptual lesson needs two linguistic entry points in Google.
Can I add pronunciation audio drills to my lessons?
Yes, by embedding. Host your MP3 drills on SoundCloud or Spotify and paste the link into the Embed block of the lesson post. A single post can contain multiple clips, so you can embed a model pronunciation, a contrast pair, and a student error correction example in one lesson. There is no audio-upload block in the post editor. You can gate the lesson with the post-level paywall or keep it free.
How do paid lesson packages work with BYOK Stripe?
In Admin → Settings → Membership, paste your Stripe secret key (copied from your own Stripe dashboard — takes about a minute). Once added, mark any post as members-only, or sell audio packs and PDF worksheets as digital products. When a prospective student lands on gated content, they see a prompt that routes them to your Stripe checkout — your Stripe account, your branding, your revenue. On payment success, VeloCMS grants access automatically. You can set up a monthly subscription (ongoing membership), a one-time purchase (single lesson package), or a per-tier access model (beginner pack vs advanced pack). VeloCMS takes 0% platform fee. Stripe charges its standard 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.
Why is Memo Garamond the recommended theme for language tutors?
Language tutors write two kinds of content: short lesson exercises (dialogue, vocabulary, fill-in-the-blank) and longer explanatory prose (grammar theory, etymology, pronunciation methodology, cultural context). Memo Garamond was designed for academic long-form writing — generous line spacing, humanist serif type stack, footnote-ready layout, structured heading hierarchy. It communicates scholarly credibility without feeling cold. A student landing on a lesson page styled with Memo Garamond reads 'this tutor understands the language at a structural level,' which is exactly the positioning independent tutors leaving Italki need to justify independent pricing.
Can I migrate my Italki or Preply lesson archive?
Partially. Neither platform exports lesson notes as structured Markdown or HTML — any text you typed inside their classroom interface has to be copied manually. PDF and audio files you uploaded to your profile are usually downloadable from your account settings. Student emails are not accessible — Italki and Preply treat student contact data as platform property. The practical migration path is: manually copy your most valuable lesson content, re-upload audio and PDF files, rebuild your schedule structure as posts in VeloCMS, and use a free lead magnet (one free lesson or one free downloadable) to move existing students to your new platform's email list before you reduce your Italki presence.
How do I sell downloadable worksheets to paid students?
Sell the worksheet as a digital product: upload the PDF in Admin → Products and set a price. Buyers check out through your connected Stripe account and receive a short-lived signed download link, so the file is not guessable or shareable by URL. To gate a whole lesson instead, set the post to members-only (or a specific tier) in its visibility settings; non-members see the preview and a sign-up prompt. A PDF you merely link from a members-only post is only as private as its URL, so use a digital product for worksheets you charge for.
Will Google index my English and Turkish versions as duplicates or as proper localizations?
With hreflang tags configured correctly, Google treats them as proper localizations — serving the right version to the right audience rather than flagging either as duplicate content. Without hreflang, two pages covering the same grammar topic in two languages compete for the same search queries and neither ranks as well as a single authoritative page would. VeloCMS generates the `hreflang` link elements from your post's language settings — there's no manual HTML editing, and no separate SEO plugin needed. You pair posts as language alternates in the post settings panel and the markup handles itself.
Is VeloCMS faster to launch than building a Squarespace + Calendly + Memberstack stack?
Significantly. The Squarespace + Calendly + Memberstack stack requires three separate accounts, three sets of monthly billing, three sets of embed code integrations, and three support channels when something breaks. Setup realistically takes 8–12 hours and each tool carries its own monthly bill. VeloCMS is a single platform — lesson scheduling is posts with recurring tags, booking is BYOK Stripe checkout, member gating is built into post visibility, audio embeds are built into the editor and worksheet PDFs are digital products. You can go from signup to a live lesson page with pronunciation audio and a gated worksheet in under an hour. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial, then costs $9/month for a custom domain with BYOK Stripe and hreflang SEO.
Run a free technical SEO, performance, and migration-readiness audit — no signup required.Audit my site
Stop renting your students from Italki. Start your free trial with Memo Garamond.
Lesson schedules, pronunciation audio, PDF worksheets, hreflang SEO, and the scholarly aesthetic your teaching deserves — all on a platform where you own the student list, not Italki or Preply.