This agreement is between you (the mentor) and Alongside, the service run at alongsidementors.com by its founders and any company they form to run it. It adds to our Terms of Service and the mentor code of conduct. You accept it when you tick the box in your mentor application or on your dashboard.
1. The pilot
Alongside is in a pilot: a first period where we test and improve the website with a small group of mentors and families before a public launch. We’ll tell you by email and on your dashboard before the pilot ends.
2. No commission during the pilot
- Families book you through Alongside and pay you directly, for example by Venmo or Zelle. You choose what payment details to share; students see them only after booking.
- Alongside charges you no commission or fee for any session during the pilot.
- You set your own rate and are responsible for collecting it and for any taxes on what you earn. Alongside does not handle, hold or refund these payments.
3. Your pilot students stay commission-free
Any student who books you for the first time during the pilot is one of your pilot students. You will never be charged commission on sessions with your pilot students, including after launch, for as long as you mentor them through Alongside.
4. After launch
- Once Alongside launches online payments, sessions with new students (anyone who is not one of your pilot students) are paid through Alongside, and Alongside keeps a commission. It is currently planned at 20% of the session price.
- We’ll tell you the commission rate before it applies to you, and you can stop mentoring on Alongside at any time.
5. Keep Alongside students on Alongside
Students you meet through Alongside are Alongside students. You agree to book and hold all your sessions with them through Alongside, not privately or through another service, and not to ask or encourage them to book you outside Alongside. This also keeps everyone safe: sessions on Alongside follow the code of conduct, can be recorded privately for safety, and parents of students under 18 get copies of booking emails.
6. Showing up
- Wait 15 minutes for a student who is late. After that you can leave, and the session counts as held.
- If you can’t make a session, cancel it from your dashboard as early as you can. A cancelled session is never a strike.
- Each missed session counts as a strike. Two strikes within 90 days pause a mentor’s profile automatically: it’s hidden from students and can’t take new bookings until the Alongside team talks with them. After every call we ask you and the student whether it happened; a missed session counts when you tell us you couldn’t make it, when the student says you didn’t show up and you don’t answer within 2 days, or when the Alongside team confirms it. If you think one is a mistake, email us and we’ll look at it.
7. Other things to know
- When you applied, you confirmed that you have never been convicted of a crime, have no pending criminal charges, and have never been expelled or suspended from a school or college for misconduct. Tell us right away if that changes. A false answer means your profile is removed.
- You are an independent mentor, not an employee or partner of Alongside, and you decide when you are available.
- Alongside may change or end the pilot, or update this agreement with notice. We will never take away the commission-free status of your pilot students.
- Either of us can end this agreement at any time. Sections 3 and 5 keep applying to students you met through Alongside.
Questions? Email alongside.mentors@gmail.com.