Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) is an online marketplace where educators buy and sell original teaching materials and lesson plans.
However, there are significant drawbacks like encouraging teachers to profit from work they’re paid to do, creating inequality in resources across schools, and facilitating plagiarism and copyright infringement. TPT takes a high margin from teacher sales which seems unfair. The concept isn’t the issue, it’s the absurd 45% cut TPT takes from basic seller sales.
Allegations of plagiarism, racist lessons, and poor content quality on TPT have been reported. Nonetheless, you still can make money selling on TPT.
Within two years of selling on TPT, one teacher was paying her rent and on pace to outearn her $45,000 salary. Ten years later she’s a top 10% seller. This indicates TPT’s money-making potential.
Over 5 million educators have downloaded 1 billion pieces of content from TPT. Its headquarters is in New York City, and the content must be original, not copied.
A large number of teachers use TPT resources likely because they find their assigned curricula deficient, indicating a desire to engage students more effectively.
Selling on TPT is subjective and depends on your goals and understanding of the pros and cons.