Cambly Reviews 257

I tried to apply to work for this firm and 7 others at the same time. Due to their very bad software it was impossible to become a tutor with them. I repeatedly tried to get some sense from their badly trained staff but finally gave up on joining them as all the customer service team would do was to sent me the same faulty link, over and over again. They also did not read my emails properly.

I found Cambly to be a very frustrating and ultimately depressing platform to use. The pay structure is by the minute, which sounds flexible, but in practice, it’s demoralizing. You can spend long periods just sitting there waiting for students to call, effectively wasting your time while earning nothing.

The unpredictability of the platform leaves you feeling undervalued, as you have no control over when (or if) you'll get calls. For those looking to make consistent income or feel appreciated for their time and effort, Cambly is not the ideal choice.

The concept is good, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Cambly needs to address how tutors are compensated and ensure their time isn’t treated as disposable. Until then, I can't recommend it to anyone seeking meaningful work or steady earning.

Tutors Beware
I've been working with Cambly for a while now, and I feel compelled to share my experience in the hopes that it will help others make an informed decision. Unfortunately, my time with Cambly has been far from positive, and I want to highlight a few key issues that potential tutors should be aware of.

1. Poor Treatment of Tutors:
Cambly markets itself as a flexible and rewarding platform for tutors, but the reality is quite different. The company treats its tutors as expendable, offering little to no support when issues arise. Whether it’s dealing with unfair student reviews or technical problems, don’t expect much help from Cambly’s support team. The responses are often generic, delayed, or completely unhelpful. This lack of support leaves tutors feeling isolated and undervalued.

2. Unfair Rating System:
The rating system on Cambly is incredibly stressful. Tutors are constantly under pressure to maintain high ratings, but the system is flawed and lacks transparency. A single bad review can drag your overall rating down significantly, and there’s no clear recourse to challenge unfair ratings. This creates a toxic environment where tutors are left feeling anxious and insecure about their standing on the platform.

3. Low Pay:
Considering the amount of money Cambly makes from its students, the pay for tutors is shockingly low. Tutors are paid by the minute, which sounds decent on paper, but in practice, it’s far from fair. The rates do not reflect the effort, preparation, or emotional labor that goes into teaching. Meanwhile, Cambly is charging students significantly more, pocketing a large profit while paying its tutors a fraction of what they’re worth.

4. Lack of Job Security:
There’s no real job security with Cambly. Tutors can be penalized or even removed from the platform with little explanation. This lack of stability is incredibly stressful, especially for those who rely on Cambly as a primary source of income.

Conclusion:
If you’re considering working for Cambly, I strongly urge you to think twice. The poor treatment of tutors, combined with a flawed rating system, low pay, and lack of support, makes it a very challenging and often demoralizing place to work. Cambly’s business model seems to prioritize profit over the well-being of its tutors, and that’s something I can no longer support.

This ESL Teacher, is Kori Caignou. She lives in Vernon, British Columbia. She was extremely rude to me in the comment section on a Facebook video. I made an innocent comment about a deaf girl being able to hear a loud whistle. Kori responded with, "the kid is deaf, stop fake claiming, and educate yourself. Starting with your misguided impression that deaf means utterly and complete silence..." I wouldn't want her to teach my children. I believe she shouldn't be working with children at all.

It is difficult to find a suitable instructor and the instructors are definitely not professional. Some of them do not pay attention to the hours, they come to the lessons late and there is no make-up. My money was wasted, I regret signing up to Cambly, I wish I hadn't bought it.

I’ve worked as a teacher on Cambly for a few years, and I can confidently say that this platform is deeply exploitative. Cambly takes advantage of the desperation of many educated tutors and teachers, who are often in difficult financial situations. These tutors, desperate for any form of income, end up accepting wages that are far below the legal minimum in many countries.

In my experience, Cambly pays its tutors a pittance — as low as $0.17 per minute or $6 per class. This is barely enough to cover the cost of a cup of coffee, let alone pay bills or live decently. And it’s not just about the low pay. There’s no holiday pay, no sick pay, and no insurance. You’re classified as an independent contractor, so Cambly avoids any responsibility for benefits or labor protections. This is their justification for paying below minimum wage, but the reality is that many tutors have no choice but to accept these conditions because they rely on this income.

Despite these challenges, I had the pleasure of working with some fantastic students — many of whom were truly a highlight of my time with Cambly. But it’s difficult to reconcile the rewarding moments with the harsh realities of being paid so little. Tutors are often at the mercy of technical glitches, no-shows, and last-minute cancellations, all of which further reduce our earnings. If a student cancels the day before, the tutor doesn’t get paid. If a student shows up just to apologize for not attending, the tutor is only paid $1, even though they were ready to work.

After years of struggling on this platform, I’m finally leaving Cambly for a new job that pays almost three times what I was earning there. It’s a huge relief. I wish I could take back the years I spent working on Cambly, particularly during my 20s when I could have been building a more secure and fulfilling career.

To students: Please be aware that the tutors you love are being paid far below what they deserve, and they are likely working under stress, struggling with the platform’s many flaws. Cambly, like many other similar platforms, preys on those who are financially vulnerable and willing to accept exploitative terms. I hope that one day, these companies are held accountable for the harm they do to their workers.

As a tutor with less than 4.9 rating there is no access to priority hours, even after working with Cambly for several years. The rate that students are charged vs what tutors are paid is laughable. Students and tutors alike could do better, other platforms exist.

Really low pay. Has not increased ever. One time I worked an hour for $2.15

Cambly is a decent platform for students and tutors alike. From a Tutor's perspective, it is one of the only platform that allows tutors to accept or decline reservation requests. Tutors can determine at any time if the working relationship with the student is mutually beneficial. For example, Some tutors are not comfortable working with zero level learners. With Cambly, they work only with student's whose level is above that. This makes for a much more enjoyable and productive class.
Some of the very low ratings and negative reviews here are due to an effort from a few deeply unsatisfied and frustrated tutors. Their objective is to tank Cambly, dissuade students and tutors from using the platform. Strangely, though, they still work on the platform and could just as easily find alternative employment, but choose to sow discourse and negativity. Is Cambly perfect? NO. There are many issues technically at times and the pay is quite low for tutors. ( $5-6 usd per 30 minute class) If you are considering Cambly as a student or tutor, keep an open mind and understand that many of the negative reviews are part of an effort to undermine and possibly bankrupt the company. I've worked at Cambly for four years and, though it is far from perfect, I've enjoyed it and will continue to do so.

I was a tutor on Cambly for 2 years and I do not recommend the platform to students nor tutors. Cambly advertising tells tutors that they can make money simply by chatting with people as long as they're a native speaker, while they tell students that they hire world-class vetted tutors that can help with English proficiency exams like IELTS. It's quite frankly dishonest and causes students with high expectations to be disappointed with untrained tutors. Despite the subscription prices rising to both account for inflation and pay employees more, the hourly pay for tutors has been stuck at $10.20 for years. That is absolutely not liveable for most people, especially because no-show and late cancellation pay are not in full! There are constant changes to the website that cause lagging and glitches, the unfair ratings system seems to be run by AI, and the surplus of tutors has significantly decreased the amount of students they get. Even as a casual part-time job, Cambly is not worth it. Please avoid!

Cambly advertises that all tutors have to do is listen to people speak English. Cambly advertises to prospective students that they can become fluent in English on Cambly. These are only two of the biggest lies that this sorry excuse for a company tells. Pathetic pay, poor website with lots of bugs, non-existent customer service, unprofessional and incompetent management, and disrespectful students -- all of that just scratches the surface. Only work here if you're desperate.

Cambly's pay rate is incredibly low. They justify this because the platform is supposed to be for conversation practice, not English tuition. So they aren't paying tutors to teach, just to have a conversation.

The problem is that when they advertise to students, they talk about having world class, native language teachers to teach them.

So then some students come to the platform with high expectations. They then give low ratings because they expect world class English teaching but receive conversation practice.

This then gets tutors in trouble with the way the rating system will make it harder for tutors to meet new students when they have a lower rating.

Where to start? I was a tutor with Cambly for years and it almost destroyed my mental health- and I’m a pretty tough guy. I’m a retired teacher and I thought it would be fun to try and supplement my pension by tutoring online. Choosing Cambly was a huge mistake. Aside from the extreme low pay at .17 cents a minute for talk time only- and 1.70 if a student doesn’t show up, whether the class was 15,30 or 60 minutes and 2.00 for a late cancellation.. the platform has many issues. The company makes constant changes - almost weekly! The changes cause “glitches” like pages not loading, chat box not working, screen-share not working. These are not minor issues because they cause students to give low ratings for the class. A big problem is trying to get into the classroom because the page just hangs.. it causes tutors to be late for class and tutors are punished for being late. I’ve had my internet checked with a fine tooth comb, so have countless other tutors- it’s not the tutors fault! However if a tutor writes into Cambly support for assistance it’s ALWAYS the tutors fault! They tell you “something” is causing a slowdown!! Darn right! It’s the bloated Cambly servers and update plastered upon update that cause so many problems! It got worse and worse. Then they added AI which scans everything- all conversations, chat box- it’s awful because some students would call to discuss personal problems in English because they had no one else to talk to. I had to caution students about this. They raised prices substantially telling students it was to “increase employee salary” leading most students to believe that tutors got a bit of a raise! Which was a lie because tutors are not actually employees- and students don’t realize that. Tutors are independent contractors. It’s a sham business. If you wanna make a few bucks here and there and don’t care about anything else then I guess Cambly or “shambly” as it’s often called- is your game. But if you are a conscientious person and don’t have time to waste STAY AWAY FROM CAMBLY! They do not care about you as a tutor. There is a facebook group for tutors that is constantly being censored! As soon as someone speaks truth the post is deleted. You can find real information about Cambly on Reddit as well. Cambly cares about Cambly- that’s it. It’s a moneymaker for the company owners. They are vampires sucking tutors and students of their “blood”.

And a note to students- most tutors have absolutely no teaching skills- they aren’t even teachers. Cambly hires anyone so you are paying a lot of money for someone who isn’t even a teacher. I just happen to have been a teacher. My students were fortunate.

Cambly insists on hiring native speakers however it pays below minimum wage for several of the countries that tutors come from. Its head office is in California however it no longer allows tutors from this state due to paying below minimum wage. When checking several other states and the United Kingdom the same can be seen. It is my understanding that Cambly has never increased its pay rate for tutors.

The platform itself is constantly changing almost on a weekly basis. This causes complaints and confusion from both students and tutors alike. AI now monitors everything even giving statistics on how many different words a student uses in a lesson. As a tutor it makes you feel like big brother is constantly watching you.

Finally I would like to mention the rating system. There are now two scores which are updated weekly. These have a huge effect on the number of Priority Hours you have access to and therefore your salary. Currently a score of less than 4.90 out of 5 will limit PH to mostly weekends only unless you book your PH 3 weeks in advance. You receive only the 2 scores with no feedback for improvement and no idea who has given you a bad rating. It is therefore impossible to make changes. I have previously contacted Support in the past. After 3 days I received a response that they can’t provide feedback and that I shouldn’t focus on the numbers.

Cambly does not care about me as a tutor! My ratings have dropped substantially without my performance dropping, I also no longer get Priority Hours at all.
I know my performance has not dropped because of my students comments, I have been asking them all to give me feedback. All have been happy and given me great reviews. I also have regulars that book lessons with me on a weekly basis and love our lessons together. Cambly is doing underhanded things behind the scenes to ensure our ratings drop and to make sure we don't get bookings. Our pay hasn't increased in years. They are a bunch of liars and do not care about tutors at all. Looking elsewhere for work now.

This company has gone to the dogs. They have obviously lost a lot of students by putting prices up. So it seems they are purposefully destroying tutor's ratings so that they don't have to give them work. Too many updates, terrible pay, awful support. AVOID CAMBLY!! IT'S FINISHED.

The recent updates have made our working conditions worse. We have an attendance percentage on our profiles now, so in the event of an emergency, we are punished. We can now receive reservations during priority hours, meaning that if a student reserves from 3:45 to 4:00, we get an unpaid gap between 3:30 and 3:45.

The two positives that made me give two stars (and not one):
-A plethora of students and teachers around the world
-Flexibility for both students and teachers to study/teach whenever.

Now for just a few of the negatives:
-Pay is horrible for tutors--it's below minimum wage in a number of US states, bonuses are scarce and not based on giving quality lessons but on quantity. No-shows result in only $1.70 and late cancellations $2. Plus, it's getting rather expensive for students. I've had a couple regulars stop their subscription because they wouldn't be able to afford the new rate.
-It drives me nuts that Cambly advertises "high-quality" tutors (which is a lie because they hire anyone) but they also don't reward those tutors who actually are high-quality. I'm egotistical enough to say that I am high-quality. I've been an ESL teacher for nearly a decade, I've never fallen below a 4.95/5 stars in nearly 3 years on the platform, and I have 100% attendance, but I see no benefits to my hard work, other than consistent bookings. Here's the problem with consistent bookings: I literally have to reject students because I have no time in the day to teach because I need to work two other jobs to survive since Cambly pay is so low. If Cambly paid me even $15/hour I'd work more than my current 6 hours a week because I'd cut back on my other jobs. And, I know so many other tutors are crap because I hear my students complain about how difficult it is to find a good tutor. Cambly literally changed their rating system to accommodate those crappy tutors.
-Cambly can't handly it's own traffic and has constant connection issues. I know it's not my computer/internet because I work remotely all day and never have problems with pages loading, but Cambly crashes, takes too long to load, and the newest thing for me is that it can't handle when I share my screen (my video starts to lag).

Stay away from Cambly until they start to take themselves seriously as an ESL platform. How can they do that? Find quality teachers, pay those teachers appropriately so they want to work for you, and fix your tech problems.

Worst Platform for Teachers – Stay Away from Cambly

Cambly is hands down the worst platform I’ve ever worked on, and I’ve taught on over 5 different platforms in the past 3.5 years. This company is an absolute nightmare for teachers. The pay is shockingly low, with no increases despite inflation and the rising cost of living. They expect you to deliver high-quality lessons while paying next to nothing in return – it’s pure exploitation.

Their support is a joke. If you run into issues (which happens often), don’t expect any help. They either don’t respond, or when they do, their responses are useless. Cambly's "support" is designed to make you feel like you're the problem, no matter what the issue is.

To make matters worse, their servers are constantly crashing. Just look at Reddit, and you’ll see the daily complaints from teachers about the platform’s endless technical problems. The site is always changing, and it’s always for the worse – consuming more bandwidth and becoming more unstable with each update. Yet somehow, the teacher is always blamed for technical issues, even when it’s clearly Cambly’s fault.

Their pay policy for no-shows is completely unacceptable. You can prepare for a full lesson, but if the student doesn't show up, you're only paid for 10 minutes. This happens frequently, and it’s clear they’ve designed this system to cheat teachers out of their hard-earned time and money.

Cambly penalizes you at every turn, for even the smallest mistakes or things beyond your control. Their expectations are ridiculous, but they refuse to support their teachers in any meaningful way.

Of all the platforms I’ve worked on, Cambly is by far the worst. Avoid it at all costs. It’s an exploitative, unreliable platform that abuses teachers, refuses to pay fairly, and is a technical disaster. You deserve better.

Cambly is an AI-mining operation that is harvesting all tutors' personal and biometric data, without exception. As of August 2024, when they enacted their new terms and conditions for tutors, tutors no longer have any choice but to sign away 100% of the rights to every last piece of personal & teaching data recorded on the platform for use in AI development / Cambly promotional materials etc. I enjoyed being a Cambly tutor for a while, but I wasn't willing to sign my soul & all my personal data away forevermore, so this was the last straw. Gutting as I lost a lot of students and friends I'd made on the platform and could no longer even contact them without accepting these awful terms.