51Talk is an online English tutoring platform that connects children — primarily ages 5 to 12 — with live, one-on-one lessons delivered by Filipino tutors. Lessons are 25 minutes long and delivered over 51Talk's proprietary "Air Class" platform, which supports real-time audio/video streaming and interactive whiteboards. The company originally built its business serving K-12 students in mainland China but exited that market in mid-2022 after Chinese regulators banned after-school tutoring for minors. 51Talk divested its entire China business for $1 and pivoted to international markets, now operating in Hong Kong, Thailand, the Middle East, Malaysia, and Vietnam, with the Middle East as the primary growth region. Students purchase prepaid course packages — ranging from roughly $365 to $2,960 depending on the market — that carry minimum monthly consumption requirements. Revenue is recognized as lessons are consumed rather than when packages are sold, so 51Talk carries a large deferred revenue balance. The key revenue drivers are the number of paying students, which grew from 37,400 in 2023 to 123,300 in 2025, and average spend per student of roughly $1,000. The cost structure is dominated by tutor costs — 51Talk engages approximately 9,800 Filipino tutors as independent contractors paid per lesson — and sales and marketing expenses. Gross margins are high, reflecting the asset-light model. 51Talk is integrating AI tools for pre- and post-lesson practice as a complement to live instruction, which the company argues differentiates it from purely automated competitors.