Teachers Pay Teachers Review – Scam or Legit? Exposed!

Are you looking for a Teachers Pay Teachers review? But you may wonder if it is a scam.

It could be a good opportunity for teachers who also have an entrepreneurial spirit. It’s hard to pass up the opportunity to help other educators and their students while earning some extra money. However, the veracity of this has been challenged in several quarters. 

I will explain what Teachers Pay Teachers is, how it works, and whether it is worth opening an account.

As a disclaimer, I’m not affiliated with Teachers Pay Teachers. It means I’m not paid to write this review. So you can rest assured that you will get an honest and unbiased review from me.

At the end of this review, I’ll also tell you the best alternative to Teachers Pay Teachers that has enabled me to make a full-time passive income online.

What Is Teachers Pay Teachers?

Educators everywhere can benefit from Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT), an online marketplace aimed specifically at teachers.

The New York City-based company, which has been helping educators since 2006, offers everything from lesson plans to tests and quizzes to whiteboard activities, PowerPoint slides, worksheets, complete curricula, and classroom decorations.

These types of marketplaces are typically used for the occasional purchase or sale of a good. Here’s where it gets exciting: if you make, promote, and sell enough materials, you can turn Teachers Pay Teachers into a small business.

At first glance, it seems like a simple way to make some extra money. However, some have turned it into a multi-million dollar online business.

There are currently 3 million materials available on TPT, and over 5 million teachers have used the site since it opened.

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Is Teachers Pay Teachers a Scam or Legit?

Teachers Pay Teachers is not a scam. As in any other market, there are many shady characters trying to make you quick money by selling you something of dubious quality at an inflated price.

Counterfeit products, however, are a much more serious problem.

Even though they are fantastic, marketplaces can be hard to control. It is not feasible for a team of people to search millions of records.

As a result, some dishonest individuals can steal others’ ideas, modify them slightly, package them with their own goods, and then pass them off as their own.

This seller is definitely trying to take advantage of you.

Some are accused of trying to make a quick buck on this site by plagiarizing content that appears on sites like Pinterest.

Even though Teachers Pay Teachers is reputable, customers should beware of rogue sellers. As a result of these scammers, it is more difficult for new sellers to gain a foothold in the market.

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How Does Teachers Pay Teachers Work?

This is not a good solution if you are looking for a “career” that you can do from home. There is no guarantee of pay, and there are no set hours.

If, on the other hand, you have an entrepreneurial spirit, Teachers Pay Teachers will appreciate your unique perspective.

You can have your online shop up and running in minutes after signing up.

You do not even need a high school diploma… However, if you have taught before, you’ll have a much better chance of connecting with them and selling your items.

Teachers Pay Teachers can be found all over the world, and although they prefer English language resources, those in other languages are always welcome.

The possibilities are as limitless as the imagination of the individual, and that’s one of the things that makes this attractive. On the side, you can make money from the educational materials you’ve already developed.

If you’re serious about this activity, you can reach for the stars.

It won’t be easy, but if you’ve experience with web marketing and take the time to research the needs of the market, you can create something truly remarkable.

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Teachers Pay Teachers Key Features

Teachers Pay Teachers became famous for being one of the first specialized online marketplaces for educational resources. They are not only the first, but also the most popular among teachers because of their:

1. Extensive material database
2. Easy-to-use marketplace
3. Blog

Extensive Material Database

Teachers Pay Teachers states that more than five million resources with one billion downloads have been made available on its marketplace. They offer a wide variety of resources for educators at all levels, from preschool to high school.

• Lesson plans
• Worksheets
• Printables
• Syllabuses
• Unit plans
• Games
• Curriculums
• Projects
• Flash cards

The site’s copyright infringement procedures are questionable, and often the same files can be found in slightly different packaging. 

For example, it is possible to find a lesson plan with eye-catching clipart that costs more than the original plan, and the original creator has no claim to it.

Easy-To-Use Marketplace

Teachers Pay Teachers is a marketplace where teachers can easily exchange and buy teaching materials. The user-friendly design makes it easy to find what you’re looking for. 

You can narrow down the options based on your needs by selecting a specific grade level, subject, format, price, or type. The best part is that you can use multiple filters to narrow down the results to those that match your exact needs.

Blog

The Teachers Pay Teachers blog is a sure thing if you’re looking for something to read. There are hundreds of posts there on a variety of topics, including:

• Teacher life
• Classroom organization
• How to create various materials
• How to incorporate materials in your lessons

They also provide specific blog posts for students at every grade level, from elementary to high school.

How Much Does Teachers Pay Teachers Cost?

Each provider can choose between a basic membership or a premium membership.

• Basic (Free) – earn 55% of your sales minus a $0.30 transaction fee.
• Premium ($59.99/yr) – earn 80% of your sales minus a $0.15 transaction fee on orders under $3.00.

You can make a few cents on something, give it away for free, or charge several thousand.

For as much as $10,000, top-notch providers license complete lessons that span multiple grade levels.

Of course, you have to take small steps before you can take big ones, and the optimal price is around $3.50.

Teachers Pay Teachers Pay

Teachers Pay Teachers money is transferred to your PayPal or Dwolla account on the 21st of each month (US only).

Again, your income potential is entirely up to you.

The average price for a product is around $10, although I’ve seen more expensive offerings, such as lessons on playing an instrument that cost between $900 and $1999.

You can do the math: Their share of sales will be between 55 and 80 percent.

But it won’t be easy, and the sales won’t roll in overnight.

Thousands of people selling excellent merchandise on Teacher Pay Teachers have probably never made a sale.

The research and marketing tactics you need to reach this level are beyond the scope of this study, although there are free materials on the Internet that, while not specific to Teachers Pay Teachers, cover similar topics.

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Teachers Pay Teachers Reviews and Complaints

The feedback on Teachers Pay Teachers is overwhelmingly good. The most typical types of complaints are…

• Teachers are paid. Unless you pay the sixty dollars for a premium subscription, teachers get a significant cut (45%).
• They can spend a lot of time creating materials that no one wants to buy.
• The marketplace is not checked for plagiarism. Someone else has copied a seller’s work and repackaged it.

The positive comments are…

• The satisfaction of giving back and improving the lives of children
• The ability to set your own pricing.
• The opportunity to package original information you created for your own classroom as a product and make money.

Pros of Teachers Pay Teachers

• A fully customizable schedule.
• Teachers Pay Teachers can be used as an occasional side income or as a full-fledged business opportunity.
• Potential for passive income This is important! Passive income has a life-changing compound interest effect.

Cons of Teachers Pay Teachers

• If you don’t start research or don’t make a marketing effort, you could spend a lot of time making things and never sell them.
• It’s a competitive sport.
• To make the business work, you need to learn more about internet marketing, such as SEO (search engine optimization), audience research, and driving traffic to your online store.

Teachers Pay Teachers Review: Final Verdict

For the right person, Teachers Pay Teachers is undoubtedly an excellent option.

Selling already developed educational resources is an easy start to earn a few extra bucks.

However, the Teachers Pay Teachers marketplace can also be used to satisfy an entrepreneurial appetite. This requires a holistic approach, but education is your specialty, so you should be up to the challenge.

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Best Alternative of Teachers Pay Teachers to Make Passive Income

If you want to make a stable and secure stream of passive income, I would suggest you start an affiliate marketing business online.

Affiliate Marketing is perfect for anyone who is new to online business. 

In fact, of all the online business models I’ve tried, affiliate marketing is the easiest and most rewarding so far.  

In affiliate marketing, you can actually run your business almost with zero cost and achieve a steady and sustainable passive income to pay for your bills. You don’t need any initial capital and can even do it as a side hustle.

And if you really want to learn affiliate marketing and build a business from scratch, I’d recommend you to get started with the most reputable platform for affiliate marketing: Wealthy Affiliate.

Wealthy Affiliate is an all-in-one platform for building your affiliate marketing business from scratch. It offers you a free account (including a free website) with comprehensive training on SEO (free traffic methods), which enables you to get started with affiliate marketing right away without paying a penny.

But How Much Can You Earn with Wealthy Affiliate?

A 21-year old student from Wealthy Affiliate was able to earn $7,395 in just 1 week, which means he made more than $1k a day…all while using free traffic methods.

Wealthy Affiliate has existed for 15 years and there are many success stories in the past decade.

To give you more examples, here are some of the other inspiring success stories of Wealthy Affiliate members.

Where to Join Wealthy Affiliate?

Wealthy Affiliate has a very simple pricing scheme. It has free and premium membership.

If you want to feel about Wealthy Affiliate, you can sign up for the free starter membership here (no credit card required). You can select to be a free member with no time limit.

And as a starter member, you can get instant access to the community, live chat, over 500 training modules, 2 classrooms, networking, commenting, 1 free website, access to the keyword tool.

You can enjoy all these values without paying a penny. 

So I strongly recommend you to register a free account and see it yourself.

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