Scott Remer is in the business of preparing elite spellers for the words that can end a bid for the championship, and for those clients, the bill arrives fast. For the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which begins Tuesday and concludes Thursday in Washington with 247 competitors, Remer is promoting a high-stakes version of study that blends intensive coaching with a pricing structure competitors say can quickly become decisive.
Remer positions himself as a full-time option for top performers: he is 32 and says he is the country’s only full-time, professional tutor for elite spelling bee competitors. Many other coaches are former champions who are still in school, he said, but Remer has built a year-round coaching operation that he describes as both his livelihood and a response to what he said he learned from being stung by the competition. He also markets his approach through his books and ongoing email updates to families and spellers, according to the report.
Remer’s studio-rate model includes two elements—an hourly fee and a bonus tied to results. He charges as much as $180 for an hourlong private lesson, and if a student finishes in the top 10 and earns a cash prize, Remer can take up to 10% of those winnings as a “performance-based bonus,” he said. He said his coaching business has expanded since the bee returned from pandemic disruptions in 2020 and 2021, and that the pool of contestants has increasingly produced Remer students deep into the competition, when the field typically narrows to about 10 finalists.
Champions who have worked with him credit that kind of sustained, competitive preparation. Dev Shah, now 17, said Remer is “probably one of the most influential figures in spelling over the past 10 years.” Shah and Faizan Zaki, the most recent two champions at the Scripps Bee at the time of the report, posed for photos on the confetti-strewn stage while Remer, holding up a copy of his book “Words of Wisdom,” stood next to them. The report said Remer has coached five national champions and that, during each of the past four bees, he has worked with no fewer than 29 spellers.
Faizan Zaki’s father, Zaki Anwar, described negotiating a reduced rate—$120 an hour—because Faizan was already an accomplished speller. Anwar also described Remer’s results-based bonus as $3,675 after Remer took 7% of the champion’s prize haul of $52,500. Faizan said that even though Remer’s classes cost more, “it’s definitely worth it,” adding that he “saw results.”
Remer’s students are not the only ones who evaluate the model. Some spellers say his methods and pricing can push families to other coaches, especially when the schedule is tight and resources are limited. Navneeth Murali, a University of Pennsylvania student who competed through 2020 and now coaches spellers, said he found Remer “prohibitively expensive” and that it “wasn’t a realistic option” for him. The report contrasted Remer’s fees with Murali’s own rate of roughly $50 an hour and with Grace Walters, who charges $75 an hour and previously coached 2022 champion Harini Logan as well as other champions.
Walters, a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Kentucky, said she limits her roster—describing herself as focused on “quality over quantity”—and said she tries to “get to know each speller as a whole person” to tailor a curriculum. At the same time, Walters said there is a limit to how many students any one coach can serve and credited Remer’s professionalism in the coaching ecosystem, saying that “If everyone was doing it like me, there wouldn’t be enough coaches for all the spellers out there.” The report also included an example of a speller who moved on: Sree Vidya Siliveri, coached by Remer before a 60th-place finish in 2024, did not respond well to his methods, her father Sreedhar Siliveri said, and she later found a new coach before finishing 10th in 2025.
For some competitors, the issue is not only cost but the way the lessons feel. Simone Kaplan, who finished runner-up to the “octo-champs” of 2019, said Remer is “a master of languages” and “pushes his students to keep up with him,” adding that the approach can inspire some spellers to learn and succeed. She also said that for other students, the pressure can feel like they are disappointing Remer if they do not spell every word correctly, which she described as difficult for a kid. In his responses, Remer said his goal is to be supportive while delivering feedback meant to prevent repeated mistakes, describing his goal as being “tough but fair” and adjusting methods based on each child’s needs and personality.
Remer’s path into spelling coaching also helps explain how he sells his expertise. The report said he graduated from Yale in 2016 and earned a master’s degree from Cambridge a year later, and that his study guide “Words of Wisdom: Keys to Success in the Scripps National Spelling Bee” was published in 2010 when he was a teenager. The report also said he first coached a champion, Anamika Veeramani, in 2010, and that he has published three other books. It further described work outside spelling coaching, including a role at the Council on Foreign Relations and communications work for an LGBTQ-friendly synagogue in New York, before his shift to full-time spelling coaching in 2020.
Despite Remer’s profile as a coach who is often seen alongside champions on stage, the Scripps organization avoids endorsing coaching itself. The report said Scripps, a Cincinnati-based media company that has run the bee for a century, does not endorse coaching, but that Corrie Loeffler, the bee’s executive director, described coaching as inevitable given the competition’s intensity. Loeffler said the credit for success should still belong to the children, saying, “It’s hard work, it’s study ethic, it’s perseverance,” and adding that she wants spellers to know they are achieving at a high level while recognizing that “it’s a community” that has supported them.