How to Start an Online Quran Academy: A Step-by-Step Guide

Starting an online Quran academy costs less than renting a madrasah, but it takes more planning than most teachers expect. The teaching is the part you already know. What decides whether the academy lasts is everything around it: who you teach, when, for how much, and how families see that their child is learning.

This guide is for a teacher or a small team starting from nothing, in Nigeria or anywhere else. It goes through the ten steps in the order they come up. Once the academy is running, our guide on how to manage an online Quran academy picks up from there.

Step 1: Decide who you teach and what

Before anything else, write one sentence that describes your academy. For example: "One-to-one Quran lessons for children aged 6 to 14, from Qaida to Hifz, with sisters teaching girls and brothers teaching boys." Every later choice, from teachers to prices, follows from that sentence.

• Learners: children, adults or both. An adult learner usually signs in and pays for themselves; for a child, the family follows the lessons.
• Programmes: Qaida, reading with Tajweed, Hifz, revision for those who have finished, Arabic, Islamic Studies.
• Teachers: brothers, sisters or both, and who may teach whom. Many families ask for a sister to teach girls and women, so decide your rule before the first enquiry.
• Countries: learners in Nigeria only, or abroad too. Learners abroad pay more but make the timetable harder.

Step 2: Choose the class format and length

One-to-one classes are the easiest place to start. Each learner moves at their own pace, and a missed class affects only one family. Group classes cost families less per lesson and suit learners who are at the same stage, such as a beginners' Qaida class or an Islamic Studies class. Hifz is usually taught one-to-one, because each learner is at a different place in the Quran.

Settle three numbers for each programme: minutes per lesson, lessons per week and learners per group. For young children, short and frequent lessons work better than one long lesson a week. Write the numbers down: they become your timetable and your price list.

Step 3: Plan the timetable around time zones

Online classes cross borders. Nigeria is on West Africa Time (UTC+1) all year. The United Kingdom, Europe and North America move their clocks forward in spring and back in autumn, on different weekends, so the gap between a teacher in Kano and a learner in London or Toronto changes during the year. The Gulf states do not change their clocks.

• Keep every class time in the teacher's time zone, and tell each family the time in their own.
• Check the timetable in the weeks the clocks change in Europe and North America. Those are the weeks classes get missed.
• Plan Ramadan, Eid and school holidays now, on one academy calendar, not in each teacher's memory.

Step 4: Find and check your teachers

Your teachers are your academy. Families stay with a teacher they trust, and they leave when lessons start late or the teacher keeps changing. Before anyone teaches, check four things:

1. Recitation: listen to them recite and test their Tajweed. If they hold an ijazah, ask in which riwayah and from whom; families often ask about it for Hifz.
2. Teaching: watch a short demo lesson with a real learner, a child if they will teach children.
3. Set-up: a working phone or laptop, steady internet or data, and a quiet place to teach.
4. Reliability: the hours they can teach every week, and what happens when they cannot come.

Agree the pay before the first class: an amount per lesson taught, or a monthly amount. Paying per lesson is simpler at the start, but it needs an honest record of which lessons happened. That is one reason the lesson record in Step 8 matters.

Step 5: Set your price and keep the academy's money apart

Most online academies charge a monthly fee per learner, set by the number of lessons per week. Work the price out from your costs, not from the cheapest academy you can find: teacher pay, internet, the tools you use and your own time. A price you can keep for a year is better than a low price you have to raise after three months.

• Ask for the fee at the start of the month, before the lessons.
• Send every family a clear invoice, and a receipt when they pay. Name the currency on both.
• Families abroad will usually want to pay by card.
• Keep the fees in a business bank account, never your personal one, so you can see what the academy really earns.

In Nigeria you can register a business name with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), and banks ask for the registration before they open a business account. In other countries, check the local rules for a small tuition business. A registered name on the invoice and the account also helps families trust an academy they have only met online.

Step 6: Give every teacher one fixed class link

You can teach on Google Meet, Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Whichever you choose, give each teacher one fixed meeting link and use it for every class that teacher teaches. Families save it, and nobody has to search WhatsApp for today's link five minutes before class.

Before you build a timetable on a meeting tool, check what its free plan allows, such as a time limit on each meeting.

Step 7: Write down your rules before the first enquiry

Families ask the same questions again and again. Answer them once, in a one-page handbook you send with every admission:

• Lateness: how long the teacher waits for a learner, and how long a learner waits for a teacher.
• Missed classes: which ones are made up and which are not. A class the teacher misses should always be made up.
• Holidays: which days the academy closes, and whether the monthly fee changes.
• Fees: when they are due, and what happens when they are late.
• Recordings and photos: whether lessons are recorded, who may see a recording, and that nobody shares a child's picture.
• Contact: whom families message, and at what hours.

Step 8: Keep a short record after every lesson

Decide what a teacher writes after each lesson before the first learner starts. It takes a minute, and it is what makes an academy more than a group of private tutors. For a Quran lesson:

• Attendance: present, late or absent, for the learner and for the teacher.
• What was covered: the surah and ayah range, and whether it was new memorisation, revision or reading.
• How it went: a Tajweed note and a simple grade.
• For the family: what to practise before the next lesson.

With that record a family can see progress without messaging the teacher, you can pay teachers for the lessons that really happened, and the monthly report almost writes itself. A spreadsheet is enough for the first few learners. Our guides to Quran progress tracking and the session and attendance audit template show the columns to use.

Step 9: Find your first learners

Your first learners will come from people who already know you: your masjid, the families you teach now, relatives and friends abroad, and your WhatsApp status. Ask every happy family to tell one other family.

• Offer an assessment lesson. It shows the family how you teach, and it shows you the learner's level.
• Reply to every enquiry the same day, with the timetable, the price and the handbook.
• Keep a list of every enquiry and its next step, so no family is forgotten between the first message and the first class.

Our guide to admissions and trial booking covers the steps from enquiry to first class.

Step 10: Start small, then review the first month

Start with the number of learners you and your teachers can serve well, even if that is five. At the end of the first month, look at the record:

• How many lessons were planned, how many were taught, and why the others were missed.
• Which families paid on time, and which needed reminding.
• Which teachers started on time and recorded every lesson.
• Which questions families asked most. Add the answers to the handbook.

Fix what the month shows, then take more learners. From there, our guide on how to manage an online Quran academy covers the daily, weekly and monthly routine.

Where Fusuli fits

You can start with WhatsApp and a spreadsheet. The time to move to software is when the spreadsheet stops matching what happens: a teacher forgets to record lessons, a family asks for a report, or nobody is sure who has paid. Fusuli (formerly Al-Ibiewi LMS) is school management software for Islamic schools, and it keeps the steps above in one place:

• One class link per teacher, which every class of that teacher opens.
• A lesson log after each class: the surah and ayah range, Hifdh, revision or Tilawah, Tajweed and a grade. The next log continues from the last ayah.
• Families see only their own children's classes, attendance, lesson notes, homework and messages. You send them their sign-in details on WhatsApp.
• Your own calendar, monthly reports, report cards, and fee invoices that families pay online into your account.

It costs ₦500 per learner a month, with no minimum and never more than ₦50,000 a month, and a learner is billed only after their first 5 days. Academies abroad pay the same price by card. There is no free trial, and you do not need one: we set your academy up for you, free. Send us your list of teachers and learners on WhatsApp and we register them. Read more about Quran academy management software, or get started.

Common questions

How much does it cost to start an online Quran academy?

Less than a physical madrasah, because there is no building to rent. The main costs are teacher pay, internet or data, a meeting tool (many have free plans with limits), registering the business, and the software you run it on. Teacher pay is usually the largest, so set your prices from it.

Do I need an ijazah to start?

Opening an academy does not depend on one, but the teaching must be sound. Families, especially for Hifz and Tajweed, often ask whether a teacher holds an ijazah and from whom they learnt. Be honest about what each teacher holds, and have every teacher's recitation checked by you or a qualified reciter.

How many learners do I need to start?

One paying learner is enough to begin, if the fee covers the teacher. It is better to start with a few learners and serve them well than to take many and miss classes.

Can I teach learners abroad from Nigeria?

Yes. Plan the timetable around their time zone and its clock changes, take payment by card, and name the currency on every invoice.

Should I start with one-to-one or group classes?

One-to-one is easier to run at the start, and it suits Hifz. Add groups when you have several learners at the same level who can come at the same time, such as a beginners' Qaida class.