Review Time
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'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.
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 CamblyCambly 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.
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