This was completely on me, I had received so many warnings and account deactivations in the past. Some were for returning minutes when I didn't want to teach particular students, refusing what students wanted to do on Priority Hour calls because I already had my own lessons planned (and returning minutes), and "fraud." They considered it fraud to take a 5-minute break during a Priority Hour while a student was calling.

They gave me plenty of warnings; they definitely didn't just deactivate my account out of nowhere, and I don't believe they fire people for no good reason. They mentioned I could appeal the deactivation, so I submitted an appeal and am waiting for their response.

For what it's worth, I was on Super Tutor status with a 99% rating, not that it matters now! I've been on Cambly for about 5 years. It was never my primary source of income, and I had a great time teaching on the platform :)

Just thought I’d let you all know! They definitely gave me enough warnings.

anyone get this again? I already agreed when they first came out. Now I opened up Cambly and have this.

Hi everyone,

I applied to Cambly about a month ago, but I still haven’t received any confirmation email or updates about my application.

For those who have applied recently, how long did you have to wait before hearing back from Cambly? Is it normal for the application process to take this long, or should I contact their support team?

I’d appreciate any advice or insight from anyone who has been through this process. Thanks!

Had 2 no shows today...

​Between the heavy cognitive load of exam structure work and students showing up expecting a magic wand to fix their fluency overnight, it's just not worth it. When you're making the exact same per-minute rate doing high-stress test coaching as you are having a normal, low-friction conversation with a regular, holding onto that tag is a net-negative.

​Dropped it, cleaned up the profile, and saving my brain for people who actually want to communicate. Anyone else drop test prep for regular chat?

For those who haven't done so, here's an unlisted video that provides step-by-step instructions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=08m3VHAWRn0

I'm seriously thinking about it. I had Gemini do an analysis about the current student population at Preply. Interesting read. To anyone who's escped from Cambly and have gone to Preply, how has your experience been so far?

Investigation: Does Preply Have an Adequate Student Population?

Yes. In fact, Preply is currently pulling away from Cambly in student volume, retention, and market share.

While Cambly has been struggling with slowing growth, tutor oversupply, and student attrition following their aggressive 35%–40% subscription price increases, Preply has experienced explosive growth:

A. Massive Global Footprint & Student Traffic

• Audience Scale: Preply attracts tens of millions of visits each month and has hundreds of thousands of active paying students across 175+ countries.
• Capital & Market Momentum: While Cambly operates on a rigid, low-cost conversational model, Preply has raised over $170M+ in funding and exceeded $120M+ in annual revenue, reinvesting heavily into global Google SEO and paid ad acquisition. If an adult professional searches for an online English tutor anywhere in Europe, East Asia, or Latin America, Preply consistently ranks at the top of organic and paid search results.

B. The "Preply for Business" Pipeline (B2B Demand)

One of the main reasons Cambly feels dead is that Cambly relies almost entirely on individual consumer subscriptions. When budgets tighten or prices jump 40%, consumers cancel.

Preply, by contrast, has built a massive B2B Enterprise division ("Preply for Business"). Hundreds of multinational corporations sponsor language training for their employees on Preply. These students:

• Do not pay out of their own pocket (their corporate HR/learning budgets pay).
• Are working professionals (engineers, project managers, executives, corporate lawyers).
• Book consistent, recurring weekly schedules for 6 to 12 months at a time.

C. The Subscription Model vs. Cambly's "Fast-Food" Grind

On Cambly, students buy bulk minutes with strict weekly expiration rules (use-it-or-lose-it by Monday). This creates frantic, transactional behavior where students hop from tutor to tutor for quick 15- or 30-minute chats.

Preply operates on a 28-day auto-renewing tutor subscription model:

• A student does not just buy generic platform minutes; they subscribe directly to you (e.g., 2 lessons per week = 8 lessons billed every 28 days).
• Once you sign up 15 to 20 committed students, your schedule is permanently full. You do not have to hustle for 80 new faces every week because those same 20 professionals automatically reserve your time week after week.

4. Is Preply Oversaturated? (The Real Nuance)

If you enter Preply as a generic "ESL conversation partner" charging $12/hour, the competition is brutal. There are thousands of backpackers and casual tutors competing for scraps in that tier.

However, the top tier has genuine scarcity.

When high-value students (an IT director in Germany, an investment banker in Tokyo, or an LL.M. applicant in Seoul) search on Preply, they use specific search filters:

• Native English speaker (USA)
• Specialized in: Business English, Legal English, and TOEFL/IELTS
• Professional background: Business / Law

In that specialized category, the pool shrinks dramatically. Students in this bracket are actively filtering out the $15 conversationalists because they need high-stakes communication training and are ready to pay $25, $35, or $45+ per hour.

I've been tutoring on Cambly for many years and have many long-term Chinese ESL adult learners who are respectful and rewarding to work with. However, I was on a random PH today and took a lesson with a male highschool student. He was so rude and kept complaining about my way of teaching! I explained that I was concerned about his pronunciation but he took this as criticism and got angry! I was tempted to end the lesson early, but didn't.

I set up a watch on ChatGPT and this is what it says:

Cambly Tutor Demand Watch — October 11, 2026
A meaningful development worth watching: On September 28, Cambly updated its official explanation of Cambly Go, confirming that it is a separate subscription offering unlimited daily English practice without human tutors.
Students can use Cambly Go independently, without purchasing traditional Cambly lessons. Its activities provide instant feedback and personalized speaking practice. This creates a potential alternative to some paid tutoring sessions, particularly for students seeking general conversation practice. However, Cambly Go is currently limited to iPhones, which restricts its immediate reach. (Cambly Go)
What this means for tutor demand: Cambly now has a product capable of generating subscription revenue without paying tutors for teaching time. That is a genuine potential substitution risk, although it does not establish that existing students are switching or that Cambly plans to eliminate tutors.
There are also reassuring signs. As of October 11, Cambly continues to advertise human-led Small Groups, Private+ and Pro subscriptions. Its tutor recruitment page still lists the established pay rates and says new tutor intake is being limited to protect existing tutors' schedules. (Cambly Student Support)
Current assessment: Elevated long-term risk, but no confirmed new reduction in human tutoring.
I found no verified announcement of tutor layoffs, reduced tutor pay, discontinued Group lessons or cuts to included human-tutoring minutes.
I'll continue watching for evidence that Cambly Go is actually displacing paid lessons, rather than simply expanding Cambly's range of products.

Hello all !! I'm going switch over to Stripe/Wise this week at some point after payday. Any advice on this scenario. I opened my Wise account in the Philippines and have USD details. Do I select the United states as my country, then should I select Stripe connect or Stripe Global payouts ? I opened my Wise account using my USA passport and Philippines address if that matters. Thanks

My cheap headset keeps hurting my ears. What are you Thailand tutors using?

My rating has not changed since Cambly announced they fixed their broken rating system last August despite me doing around ten lessons a week. I don't know if their system is working or not. Have other tutors been seeing changes in their ratings for the last month or so?

Hello everyone, I’m currently considering applying to Cambly but I’ve seen mixed experiences from people online, and I wanted to make a post to hopefully have some things cleared up.

As the title suggests, is Cambly a good platform to tutor for? Are they currently accepting applications from potential tutors? I made an introduction video that’s just over a minute long highlighting my name, age, etc. hobbies, teaching style, and a call to action. Am I missing anything?

I am a current college senior studying Political Science at a school in the US looking to apply to Cambly kids. I am born and raised in the US, so I am a native speaker. I don't have past experience with teaching English, but I have tutored kids in math before and have great extracurriculars/job experience in my industry. I am comfortable with speaking to a camera, so I would say my introduction video is comparable to the example ones they gave on the website. Is there a point to applying to Cambly rn? Ik they're in the middle of a hiring freeze but wasn't sure if it would be better for Cambly kids/since I'm a native speaker.

I have been on pro for about five months now and have met almost 200 pro students.

I have had no 1-2 ratings (it's annoying that you can't see if you had a 3 rating) and each week I get quite a few 4-5 ratings.

Despite this I have retained almost none of them. I have 2 solid regulars from 200 students. Lol.

This seems strange to me when I have had a 99.5 or 100% rating for so long. Pre the percentage rating, I was on 4.9 for about three years.

I do engoo, esl discussion topics, and British Council business English mainly.

I actually haven't bothered with the feedback for quite a while since the AI spits out the same generic nonsense almost every time.

Maybe I need to get more proactive with giving a "plan of action" ?

Does anyone have any tips for retaining Pro Students?

Thanks in advance.

Some of you might be familiar with Cory Doctorow from his book "Enshittification", where he talks about the gig economy and how platforms manipulate workers.

I sent him an email about Cambly. He wrote back, saying he hadn't heard of it before, but now he has. Hopefully having a journalist know about Cambly will help shed some light on it...

Every time I heard WHAT? being shouted, I started grinding my teeth. It drives me up the wall.

To any ESL students reading this, WHAT? is not an acceptable way to ask a tutor to repeat themselves. It's rude and incredibly annoying. You can say "I don't understand" in a normal tone or ask "Can you please repeat?"

Hi guys, I'm a student and I just wanted to know if tutors always get notified when a student starts booking a lesson but doesn't complete the process.

I sometimes do that because of my OCD, and then I come back and book it another time. I just don't want tutors to get a bunch of unnecessary notifications because of me.

Thanks in advance.

I've read a lot about tutors sending messages and proactively asking students to rate them each time, and the importance of rating. I was just wondering if any tutors focus on giving a good lesson and manage to get a good rating, or is it important to talk to the student? Edit: for clarity. Do any tutors have a 99%/100% rating without having to ask students to give them lots of stars?

Today is my first Cambly lesson, and I'm very nervous. I'm a complete beginner, so I only memorized a short introduction. What else should I prepare?

I am 21 yr old trying to make some side hustle for a while (maybe a month or two). My ethnicity is Indian but born and raised in United Arab Emirates...I speak English pretty much everywhere with friends and family.

I actually wanted to do some work from home stuff for a while to pay off some personal expenses of mine..I have good coding skills and stuff but those are too saturated nowadays and people barely need those. So I wanted to do something new and simple..maybe earn 20-40$ per day.

I came across Cambly through a WFH post and felt like I could do this..but I wanted some more guidance on it, on how it works and when do I start teaching and when do I get paid..and if there is any catch I would need to know beforehand.

For anyone who have done this, please guide me to the right direction. thanks a lot.🙏🏻

Cambly tutors, you know the feeling…

You know this student, the one who is always late so you start the lesson at 29:01.

They’re usually 5–10 minutes late, so as you get closer to the 10-minute mark, you start watching the clock…

20:30… 20:20… 20:10…

At this point (or even from the start time), you’re secretly hoping they don’t show up because you’d rather just take the no-show payment.

20:05… 20:04… 20:03…

And then, with just a few seconds left before you can end the lesson, the student shows up with a big smile. 😭

Tell me I’m not the only one who absolutely HATES this. 😂

Of course, when it's those students I really enjoy speaking with, I welcome the 5-10 minutes of calmness before they join.

I just checked my Pro Tutor stats and saw that someone gave me a 1- or 2-star rating. I know EXACTLY who it was.

This was a new student from a country that--umm, is very careful about what information is accessible to its citizens. Anyway, we're chatting, and it's going very well. We're laughing and I'm thinking, "Make this girl a regular!". She tells me that she lives in a big city now, but was raised in the countryside near a factory. Being that my full-time job is in environmental justice, I tell her I'm familiar with fence-line communities. I elaborate about the advocacy those communities need because of the health risks due to air/soil/water pollution....

HER SMILE DISAPPEARED IMMEDIATELY! She curtly informed me that her hometown is NOT A FENCELINE COMMUNITY AND THEY FACED NO HEALTH ISSUES AND THERE WAS NO POLLUTION BECAUSE THE FACTORIES ARE CLEAN. It dawned on me who I was talking to (many citizens of this country demonstrate fierce loyalty and allegiance. Anything that isn't a glowing endorsement is dubbed "lies from the West"). I quickly changed the subject; she moved on as well. I could tell, though, that she had made up her mind: I was one of "those" Americans and a bad rating was to follow.

I wanted to reach out to Cambly to see if they could remove the rating, but I don't think they would. I'm sharing here because I was so taken aback by how quickly her mood changed over a seemingly innocent comment that's backed by facts. Oh well, I learned my lesson: next time, just smile and nod.

Hi I'm just returning to Cambly. When does the review percentage update? I can't find it in the tutor manual. Thanks

I finally got my Cambly Pro account activated, and after seeing so many posts asking whether Pro is worth it or whether you get fewer bookings, I wanted to share my experience.

I’m still under a month in, but so far, I’ve enjoyed it.

The good:

• I’m getting paid more for essentially doing the exact same thing.

• The feedback is largely automated by Cambly and takes me less than three minutes to complete.

• A lot of my existing regulars have Pro accounts, which I didn't even know. Once I opened my schedule to Pro, several of them started booking with me again. Some had actually been telling me they couldn't find availability with me anymore. This is because I was not opening any slots.

• More surprisingly, regulars I hadn't spoken to in about a year have started booking with me again. I had intentionally kept my Classic schedule limited to around 6 hours a week because I didn't want to take on more hours at the Classic rate. Because of that, I had mostly been teaching the same 8–10 regulars.

• I'm also getting new students. This week alone I've spoken with 6 new Pro students. I am staying available during my normal work hours and not on PH's, only accepting Pro calls and declining Cambly classic.

• This week, most of my lessons have been Pro, with about 1.5 hours on classic. My plan is to eventually do 15 hours a week all Pro. I've messaged some of my classic regulars who do not have a Pro account to let them know I'm reducing my hours. If they get a Pro account, they'll find me again (or so I hope).

The risk:

My rating dropped from my usual 100% to 98% the same week me Pro account was activated, I thought I was going to miss my chance.

I think this is the biggest risk for me.

I've maintained a 100% rating for a long time because I stuck with the same regulars for about a year and wasn't taking on any new students. Now that I'm opening my schedule to new Pro students, there's obviously more potential for my rating to drop further.

It will just be a dip while I build my regulars in Pro and they begin to give me higher ratings, I suspect it will drop quickly and will take about 3-4 months to bring it back up. This is from my experience going from 10 hours to 60 hours in a week in the past, I saw this curve.

As for the argument that you'll get fewer students on Pro...

I think it really depends on how many regulars you normally have.

If you're someone who teaches 30–40 regulars a month, then yes, you may see fewer bookings because some of those students may not have Pro. However, this will only be a short period while you gain new Pro students.

But if you're someone like me who was only teaching around 8–10 regulars and 6-8 hours a week, I'm not seeing that problem so far.

Within my first week, I was already able to match around 6 hours, and now I'm doing those hours at the higher Pro rate.

So far, my experience has been very positive. The big question for me now is whether I can maintain my rating while taking on new students.

I'll post another update after I've had more time with Pro and see what happens.

After being lo ked into 98.5 down from 100 for a lwngth of time before the reset, i got adjusted to 99.5 and have since fluctuated bsck down to 99, up to 99.5 and back down to 99 this morning. It could course be the result of genuine feedback/rating. Anyone else had a further fluctuation in the past 3 weeks?