Cambly Reviews 

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.

The advertising suggests Cambly tutors are all highly qualified but I find that’s untrue. Some can’t answer basic questions and are unprofessionally behaved. Not suitable for serious learners.

Poor company. Reasonable resources, but it must do better to look after its teachers. I have been increasingly concerned by the general morale of its hard working teachers. I’d highly recommended using other platforms. Avoid Cambly!

Set up both their tutors and their students to fail.

Cambly are a dreadful company to work for. No pay increase since the company started and for most people the pay is way below minimum wage. They promise many things to students that don’t match the tutors they employ, many of whom have zero teaching qualifications or experience. They make unnecessary changes constantly which confuse and annoy tutors and students alike and are rapidly developing a blame culture where everything is the tutor’s fault. Unless you’re truly desperate avoid this company like the plague.

This company is total BS! They deactivated the best tutor, claiming it was to improve customer satisfaction, but my satisfaction with the company has completely vanished. The tutor was incredibly experienced and knowledgeable, providing valuable insights in each session. It seems the company prioritizes its own interests over customer needs. If you want to practice speaking English, it's better to use apps that won't impact your morale.

We have not been given a pay rise in years. If your attendance goes below 95% they threaten account banning. They do not care about their employees at all. You get better pay at McDonalds

Cambly is on its way out. About to be swallowed up by actual serious ESL companies.

I have worked for Cambly for 10 months. Accumulated over 1000 students and averaged 10-12 classes a day 7 days a week. Priority hours were good at the start and I got a lot of reservations but the last month or so they have dwindled to almost zero. Today I was paid my salary and it was followed up with an email that they were deactivating my account. No reason given.

No respect for tutors who are treated as disposable. They have not increased pay in over ten years. Their advertising to students is basically false.

This absolutely terrible company pays well below most countries' minimum wage and hasn't made a single increase in years. It also makes a mockery of English teaching and to prospective students, I would say why sign up to learn English from people who are not qualified to do so? This company needs to be investigated.

Horrible, money hungry company that takes advantage of the tutors as well as the students.

This moneyhungry company doesn’t care about their users. They underpay their employees and meanwhile they keep making the lessons more expensive for the students. The students pay quite a bit of money to do the lessons but the teachers only get a unacceptably small percentage of this money. This selfish company is NOT part of the people who want to make this world a better place.

This platform constantly increases their subscription fees but never increases the pay of their teachers!

My teacher was banned from Cambly without notice. I didn’t even get to say goodbye and I’ve been with this teacher for over a year. This sucks! Cambly always raises their subscription fee and then bans your favourite teacher. Now i have to find another teacher but it won’t be with Cambly! Don’t waste your time signing up to learn here.