Unlimited Spanish classes a month for a flat fee sounds like a dream. But behind the convenience is a business model built on overworked and underpaid teachers.
What is Baselang?
Baselang markets itself brilliantly: pay $179/month, get unlimited one-on-one Spanish lessons from one of their 300+ teachers, available around the clock. No caps, no per-session fees.
I still find speaking to be one of the hardest and most daunting parts of language learning, and this business model seemed like a cheap, low-risk way of getting exposure to the language and an opportunity to practice. It seems too good to be true: because it is.
I used Baselang in early 2025 for a few months before cancelling. The product more or less does what it promises, but the more I learned about how the company treats its teachers, the more I spoke with my teachers and looked into how the platform operated, the less I could justify continuing.
In this post, I will be breaking down my experience and each of their advertised claims of their services.
The views expressed in this review reflect my personal experience as a former Baselang student and my own opinions based on publicly available information and community accounts. All claims regarding teacher compensation, working conditions, and company practices are alleged and should be understood as such.
My experience as a student
Scheduling system
Baselang offers a flexible, “book-anytime”, available 24/7 system. The idea is that if you wanted to randomly take a Spanish class at 2 in the morning, they would have someone available, and you can schedule at a moment’s notice.
For the most part, the scheduling system works as advertised, but I noticed the pool of available teachers shrinking little by little in my time there: from close to 400 when I joined to something in the low 300s by the time I left. In addition, it seemed to me like profiles of inactive teachers remained on the platform, even when they are not available to teach, which makes the available pool look larger than it really is.
Baselang can also reassign your favorite teachers to internal projects like their Bootcamp program or DELE prep classes at any time, without notice. What this means is that, for the time that they’re assigned to these programs, your teacher may not be available for scheduling normal classes. I remember asking one of my favorite teachers why her availability had shrunk by half and it was almost impossible to book with her. Turns out, she was assigned to a student in the Bootcamp program and thus has cut back her hours available on the schedule.
Teacher quality
Baselang claims they have a rigorous teacher hiring process, but in my time on the platform, I’ve come to realize the good teachers on the platform are few and far in between. I had an experience once where my teacher was clearly watching TV. I could hear a show going on and he was barely paying attention to the class.
I tried taking dozens of classes before I found teachers that I liked, but I also quickly realized the good teachers are very high in demand: the good ones get booked out the moment their schedules become available.
Another frustration of mine was that even if you book in advance, your teachers can cancel for any reason as well. I don’t necessarily blame the teachers for needing flexibility, but I had a teacher who would always cancel 5 minutes before our scheduled class time. Baselang will get you a “substitute” of course, in those 5 minutes before class–but because the quality of teachers varied so much, I realized it’s genuinely not worth the gamble taking the class with the substitute teachers.
Curriculum
Baselang has a “level system” and a curriculum to go along with it. However, I think it’s quite rudimentary, and the curriculum “in practice” ends up being a teacher reading slides to you while you answer grammar questions.
I personally don’t think this is the best or most efficient way to go about language learning, and I think if the slides were all you did, you would not come out of the program knowing how to speak Spanish. Case in point: I once looked at the Powerpoint slides for their “Level 9” materials (the highest level they offer), and in the “What’s Next?” slide, it seems that they would grade students who complete the level to be at an A2 at most.
I would agree with that assessment if the way you use the program is to just go through the slides with a tutor: the slides only provide surface-level knowledge.
The ethics of language learning
Outside of my subpar experience in the program, what ultimately made me cancel was the ethics of it all.
Baselang charges students $179/month–there is a reason they can offer that price. Based on anonymous comments from the tutors themselves on Reddit, Baselang does not pay their teachers well.
Comment
by u/Dragox570 from discussion
in languagelearning
It’s true, I worked as a teacher for three years and burned out; I quit this past August. There are way too many students, and the pay is a pittance. The funny thing is that in another forum, the CEO explained that he isn’t in charge of managing payments; rather, the group is based in Latin America, and they’re responsible for proposing a salary that matches the cost of living. But for less than $500 (for about 40 hours a week), you can’t live in Argentina—and I don’t think you can in other countries either. […] There’s also all this mystery surrounding the teachers from Venezuela, who are a separate group; from what I’ve heard from students, they’re paid even less… a shame if that’s the case. [Source]
While I cannot find the exact amount that teachers are getting paid, I found it telling that in a Reddit post calling out Baselang for “charg[ing] students $150 a month for the subscription but only pay[ing] the teachers and customer service agents ~$2 an hour”, the CEO responded but did not debunk any of the claims about the low wages, stating:
“As for wages, we try to ensure they are competitive locally. Comparing wages to US wages doesn’t make sense; cost of living is considerably different, and this entire business model wouldn’t work if we paid US wages. We can however offer fair, competitive wages relative to the local market.” [Source]
It is true that the cost of living in many parts of Latin America is lower than that of the US. However, if the $2/hr claims are true (which again, the CEO did not say clearly that it is not, even though it was one of the central claims in the original Reddit post–even if he could not divulge the exact number, he could’ve simply said “we pay our teacher more than $2/h”. But he didn’t.), we also know that the average cost of living in Latin America far exceeds that.
My conversations with my Baselang teachers also corroborated the low pay (I did ask them to share their experiences with me once I got to a level of confidence with them where I can ask that!) I could tell that many of them took on the job because maybe they couldn’t find anything better at that moment. This also means that, many teachers actually disappear randomly, and I’ve had teachers that I just never see again because they’ve moved on from the platform.
I hope I don’t need to convince you that teachers deserve a living wage… but if you do need convincing, trust me when I say that teachers teach better and can be more focused and present during lessons if they are happy and compensated well.
What I recommend instead
Literally any marketplace platform, or freelance Spanish teachers who have their own websites.
The difference is that these teachers set their own rates. They decide what is fair for the services that they provide.
I now use Italki for my language learning. Review to come, but I have liked the variety of teachers, the flexibility in scheduling (obviously less flexible than Baselang but still quite flexible in my opinion).
I also encourage you to make friends in the target language–you can find them through language exchange websites such as Tandem, Hello Talk, or Language.exchange, and it’s a free way to share your language and learn someone else’s!
Final Thoughts
Baselang’s model is cheap and convenient… but unfortunately subsidized by teachers who are overworked and underpaid. Not to mention, it turns out the product itself? Also subpar.