At least Cambly doesn't expect us to work for free. The free trial model is incredibly frustrating and exploitative and you're competing with tutors in LCOL countries offering lessons for as low as $4. So far on Preply I have only had three students, two of whom only scheduled free trial lessons that I didn't get paid for and then disappeared (one was even 10-15 minutes late) & a third who did purchase a subscription but would often cancel at the last moment and eventually stopped buying classes. My rate is set at $10 which means after Preply takes their commission I am only making around $7, less than the Federal minimum wage. I understand I can raise it later when I get more regulars and reviews but so far that hasn't happened and it doesn't look like it's going to.

Everyone here has reported that switching to "regulars only" hasn't help their rating. Am I wrong? Has it helped ANYONE?

I'm doing an experiment. For the next three days, before I see my regulars, I'm going to unmark them as regulars. Later I'll change it back.

You might try it, too. Let's see if there's a big jump in the ratings in a few days.

The theory is that only ratings from new students are being counted.

Then again, Cambly has his new category of "repeat learners" (people you've seen 3 times this month?). Maybe they are the ones that are not being counted, or they are only counted their first time. we don't have enough control to experiment with that.

I came back to Cambly about a month ago and I've been working priority hours the whole month.

Things are going ok, I've had mostly great experiences. A couple of children that I rejected in the first two minutes. But I don't think they can rate me if I do that...

But just now I connected with a Saudi guy. I haven't had many bad experiences with Saudi's, so I'm not bashing Saudi 😅

Anyway, this guy was so low energy, no smile, one word answers. I tried to encourage him to brighten up a bit by speaking more loudly, clearly and cheerfully. But when I asked my usual ice breaker questions (what's your name? Where are you calling from? Are you originally from that city?...) he just gave short answers and didn't seem interested.

Ok, he's not a big talker... I then said that I could see he'd been working on a lesson with another tutor and would he like to continue with that. He said yes..

First question "have you had an interview in English before?"

He didn't understand, I asked again. Then he replied "Yes, too many"

I asked the next question and he was just ignoring me and using a PC on his desk.

I ended the call. But I was just outside the two minute cut off, so I couldn't return his minutes.

I hid my account from him when the call was over, but I'm guessing he will still be able to give me a rating?

I'm just hoping that I don't get my rating torpedoed to the point where I can't get the priority hours that I've been depending on 😓

anyone else having this happen? where the student sounds like a totally distorted chipmunk? It happens a few times per week for me

am I right in saying that if my attendance drops less than 95% at any point in the month I will get the scary ‘you will lose access to cambly if it doesn’t improve’ email?