A salary hides the answer. This free calculator divides your real gross monthly salary by the hours you actually work — contact time plus marking, prep, admin and meetings — and compares it against what you would charge for an hour of private tutoring. No signup and no email required to see the result.
The Department of Basic Education gazettes the salary scales each year. Salaries run across 432 notches determined by your post level and your REQV, the value SACE assigns your qualification. The lowest notch is R169 707 a year, roughly R14 142 a month. A newly qualified Post Level 1 teacher with a four-year B.Ed. (REQV 14, the standard requirement since 2019) starts materially higher, and the top of the scale for a principal sits above R1,3 million. The April 2026 adjustment was CPI-linked with a 4% floor and a 6% cap.
Because a monthly salary is divided by every hour the job actually takes, not by contact time alone. Marking, preparation, admin, meetings, sport and the work that goes home on a Sunday all come out of the same figure.
Most teachers on Minerva keep their post and work around it — evenings, weekends and school holidays. What you should check is your own employer's policy on outside work and any disclosure it requires. Your school or department can answer that; we cannot.
Income outside your salary generally has tax consequences, and earning non-salary income can mean registering as a provisional taxpayer. Minerva is not a tax adviser — speak to SARS or a registered tax practitioner.
Minerva's 15% covers payment processing, hosting, curriculum review and South African support. There is no subscription, no listing fee and no withdrawal minimum. For comparison, the established South African teaching-resource marketplace publishes a 65% seller share and pays out every second month above a R150 threshold; Minerva pays monthly on the 5th with no threshold.
Nothing on this page is a Minerva earnings projection. Every figure is derived from the numbers you enter. What you actually earn depends on your subject, how much you publish and what students book.