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If you are looking for a fun way to make money online, you might look into teaching with Cambly! After a week, I am absolutely in love!
As you may remember, last year, I decided to make my side hustle of teaching English online into my main source of income.
You can read about that in my previous post: 10 Reasons Why I’m Going Full-Time with VIPKid.
VIPKid is an online ESL program that allows you to be in charge of your schedule! Make $16-$22 an hour teaching at home!
Overall, this has been an amazing choice for my family! As a brick and mortar teacher, I was stressed all the time, had no time or energy for my kids, and my house was a mess. AND I was STILL doing VIPKid early in the mornings to help make money to pay for daycare…
Now that I am only doing VIPKid, I am finished working by the time my husband walks out the door for work. I get to stay home and take care of my kids and my home!
At first I was really worried about making ends meet. How could I possibly make enough to quit a full-time professional job? Of course, I don’t make as much as I did and I can’t work the hours that I did, BUT when I took out the cost of daycare, gas, etc. it worked out really well.
The Downside to VIPKid
Although I ABSOLUTELY love VIPKid and I do not regret my decision, one of the downsides that I have found is that I don’t want to take any of those EARLY mornings off because it is difficult to make that money up.
If I know I’m going to be up late, when making my schedule I simply don’t open slots on the next morning. Great! EXCEPT… Now I don’t get paid for that day… Many teachers just open more slots on other days. They wake up an hour early or add some weekend slots…
I am not a morning person and this is hard to do! It’s also not guaranteed that those slots will get filled.
There is also the issue that there are just some months that you don’t book as many classes as you would like. Low bookings have become a problem for many teachers.
So I found myself looking for other online sources of income and finally landed on Cambly.
Other Platforms I Tried Before Teaching on Cambly
I actually experimented with a few tutoring/teaching sites recently and did not have too much success with any of them.
I tried tutor.com, which actually wasn’t bad. But there was a lot of waiting for students and it was so unstructured but with pretty high standards for the tutors. I felt so much pressure with every call!
Later, I tried takelessons.com. This is a completely different type of online work that I am not accustomed to. This is great for people who want to start their private lesson business (music lessons, language, crafting, etc.) but would like a platform to conduct their business so they do not need to make a website with booking features, a payment system, etc.
It is still really YOUR business, and building up a client list, advertising, etc. is up to you. This is great for someone who is ready to do that! However, I was looking for something a little less entrepreneurial…
Teaching on Cambly
Another VIPKid teacher said that she recently started Cambly to make up for some lost bookings on slow months. It doesn’t pay as well as VIPKid but does not require a degree (this seems fair).
It also serves people from all over the world, so you can truly set your own hours, as opposed to VIPKid that is only for Chinese students.
I love this because I have not been able to bring myself to really go “full-time” with VIPKid, because with kids, I can’t really just work nights and sleep during the day. I can go to bed very early with the kids and wake up early and do about 3 hours before Max heads off to work.
Since Cambly is English TUTORING, it does not require a degree and they really emphasize CONVERSATIONAL PRACTICE in their advertising.
They do have structured and guided “lessons” but many people sign up just to have native speakers to talk to as if they were in an English-speaking country. If you moved to a new country, you wouldn’t be learning English from teachers, but from new friends while talking about your favorite TV shows and food. That’s what Cambly does.
Benefits to Teaching on Cambly
Cambly allows me to add some afternoon hours. When Max gets home I can do 2 or 3 hours to fill out my work day.
Why not just do 2 or 3 hours of VIPKid in the afternoons? Well, remember the platform is for Chinese students… 4:00 my time is 5:00 AM Beijing time… Doesn’t really work.
Flexible Schedule
Since Cambly serves people all over the world, you can open your schedule up to fit your needs. There is always someone in the world studying their English!
You can either plan ahead and commit to priority hours (best for new tutors) or open up for reservations or just log on when you feel like and make your profile visible for calls.
No Education or Experience Required
Because of the nature of Cambly, it is not really that necessary to have a degree or TESOL certificate.
Friendly conversation is what most of the callers want so they can have an authentic language learning experience.
Weekly Pay
If you have more than $20 in your balance then Cambly will deposit your paycheck directly to your PayPal account.
This is especially great for those that do Cambly for some extra “fun” money. You don’t want to have to wait a month to get your spending cash.
Experiencing other Cultures
Probably the best part of Cambly is the people! I have met some of the coolest people. I love hearing about their lives. I’ve learned so much just in the week I’ve been teaching on Cambly.
How to Apply (and What it Pays)
If you are interested in teaching on Cambly, the great news is the application is very simple!
I applied and was able to start opening priority hours and taking calls the same day! I was accepted to teach with Cambly Kids within a couple of days.
The pay with Cambly is $0.17 a minute which comes to about $10 an hour. Cambly kids is a little more at $0.20, coming to $12 an hour.
If you are interested in applying you can do that through my link HERE!
Applying was as simple as filling out the application and making an intro video! And if you decide you don’t like it, then you stop. It’s not a big commitment.
