With Palfish you can make up to $25 per hour teaching, Chinese adult and students online. With Digital Products you can make 10x that per hour.⚡ Update 2025: When I first wrote this post, I was teaching online with Palfish. It was a great start, but the truth is — teaching for platforms is limited. You only get paid for the hours you teach, and you’re at the mercy of the app, endless competitions and dropping your hourly rate to stay competitive. That’s why so many online teachers (myself included) pivoted into creating digital products, online coaching and online businesses instead.
In this updated post, I’ll give you the full lowdown on Palfish — but I’ll also show you how I transitioned from teaching English online to building a business that’s earned me [27M views/consistent income/etc.].
- Palfish is based in China.
- Requires Online English teachers to teach children & adults.
- You teach uniquely through your phone or ipad – nothing else.
- Has voice and video classes 24 hrs per day for adults and normal BJT prime time for junior or child students.
- Pays by Payoneer.
- Pay rate is determined by if you are an official kids teacher or not, if teaching children’s classes and the success of your mock lesson and / or the price you set for ‘FREE TALK’ lesson if teaching adults and / or the price YOU set for your online seminars and courses. (Sounds good – right!)
- Types of lessons: Child and adult.
- Child lessons are 1-1 or small groups if you are creating your own courses.
- Adults are taught through “FREETALK” which is teaching by voice only or video chat lessons or seminars or courses such as IELTS, business English or whatever subject you want to theme you want to base your course around.
- For the Kids lessons, the lesson plans are provided by the company. Palfish use Person English resources and that is all really nicely put together inside the Palfish app which you have to download from the Google play store or other to install on your iphone or ipad.
PALFISH - YOU CAN CREATE SEMINARS AND COURSES ON PALFISH FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS AND SET YOUR OWN RATE FOR THEM
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REQUIREMENTS TO APPLY TO PALFISH:
- A TEFL / TESOL / CELTA If you don”t have one yet, get a FREE TEFL course here ( course only, you will need to pay for the exam)
- One years expereince of teaching online. If you don’t have that, consider this.
- A native English speaker, or near native with no heavy accent.
- Can work 3.5 hours each week, Beijing primetime hours to a weekly schedule. Beijing primetime hours are from Monday – Friday, 18:00 – 21:00pm and Saturday 09:30 – 20:30 and Sunday 08:30 – 20:30
- Must be willing to teach children.
- A good internet connection of at least: 800 kbps downloading speed or above and 500 kbps uploading speed or above.
- Teach via the Palfish app – make sure it’s the latest version.
- A good, creative background is essential. Props are required here. Palfish will give you $25 dollars if recruited to buy props with.
- Good lighting is essential. See our video on the BEST lighting for teaching online here.
PALFISH PAY RATE:
- Palfish operates a little differently to other ESL companies in that the more hours you do each month, the higher the rate. For example, each month you will start at rate 1, then the more hours you do, a higher lesson rate will be given for those lessons.
- Each month you return to rate 1 again as indicated in the diagram below in the Palfish, pay rate table.
❌ Old:You can earn $12–$22/hr depending on classes.
✅ New: That’s fine as a side income — but remember, you’re capped by hours.
Many teachers I know now sell digital courses, lesson plans, and printables instead — so they get paid even when they’re not teaching.
THE PALFISH SELECTION PROCESS:
- No interview, you just send in your CV and then they invite you for a mock.
- The mock, like for most ESL companies is crucial to you getting the job.
- For Palfish the mock is simply you entering the online classroom and performing a lesson ‘alone’ you have to act like there is a child in the lesson, so practice. This mock is recorded and you thne assessed. The mocks are mostly assessed ASAp and you can be up and teaching the next day with Palfish, it’s a fast recruitment.
- Uniform is a simple, blue t-shirt.
- A good, child friendly colourful backdrop is essential.
- All contracts are of a self-employed status.
- You are paid each month via Payoneeer.
Life After Palfish: From Teaching Hours to Building Online Income
Teaching on Palfish is flexible, but it’s still trading hours for money. If you’d like to:
Create income streams that earn while you sleep
Sell digital resources, planners, or courses
Build an audience that brings clients directly to you
… then it might be time to start thinking bigger.That’s why I created the 365 Plan → the same system I used to move from being an online teacher to building a profitable online business.
Want to see how? Start here and come to my the Free Masterclass That is included with it
