OMG, thank you so much for posting this! I literally just created an acct to reply to this thread. I hope you're still on and will see this, OP. I am not including my online identity here, because I need to vent, and I don't want that venting to get connected to my online sexy persona, because pouting is not good for sales!
But, I feel like we could totally be friends, and I'm going to follow you on Chaturbate and see if I can get to know you there in time. (I don't mind you knowing who I am on Chaturbate, but just don't want to write it in the public forum.)
Oh... I have so much to say! I could write my own thread, but instead, I'd rather post to yours to show my support because we had similar experiences I think, and were new on Chaturbate around the same time. I hope what I write here will help somebody out, because I'm about to lay down some reality. I just need someone to commiserate with, to keep my sanity! First, I am so grateful to all the ladies here. I feel like there are a lot of really cool women on this forum, and I have been reading for months and learning a lot. But, let me tell you a bit about my experience because I think it's important to document this somewhere online. I looked all over the internet and found very little confirmation of what I think is happening on Chaturbate now. Most of the posts are reflecting old conditions, or made by people who started years ago. I think the current cam climate there is very different because the market is saturated.
So let me start by saying, I have a PhD, but due to some medical stuff, I ended up not being able to work full time in my field, had a ton of medical bills to pay, and ended up in the world of online camming. I kept reading all this stuff everywhere about earnings potentially being huge - you just have to commit, and stick to a time slot. Need good personality. Etc. So since you can't see me, I'll tell you I'm curvy, with average body and DD breasts. Depending on which angle I am toward camera, I can look thin and tall and fairly athletic, or short and slightly overweight and undertoned, so can fit into a range of preferences but won't do for people who like extremely thin or extremely athletic or very obese as their favorite. I have pale skin and long light hair, although I sometimes wear wigs. I'm told I'm very attractive, with a pretty face, and I get hit on a lot, but of course that is always going to be an individual preference thing.
I spent several months researching online camming before I got on. As a beginner, I decided to go with Chaturbate. I want to give all these details to commiserate with you, BambiBluebell, but also because I hope others looking online will find this thread and see some background that might help them. So, I pointed out my academic background because I am a researcher at heart. I took this seriously. I have read a bunch of threads that pretty much imply that when a model doesn't do well, it's her fault, there's something lacking in her or her performance. And yes, everybody has things they could improve on. But lately, I think it's the market. Because I got a Logitech c930e webcam, which is supposedly the best for this type of thing. I got 300mbps internet installed. I spent about a week decorating a whole room in my home the way I wanted for a good theme, perfecting a 3-point lighting system to be the most flattering in the camera, got a new microphone, and did several hours of video tests before broadcasting. Because I'm crazy, lol! I made absolutely sure the broadcast was in HD when adjusting the controls in Chaturbate for the best quality vs. best speed combo. When the site is busy, it could barely manage a speed of more than 22, and sometimes dropped down to like 6 out of nowhere. which is def not a prob coming from my end, because when fewer people are on the site I got speeds easily into the 30s. It's a problem with Chaturbate. I invested in a bunch of new outfits, and tested all of them out beforehand to pick the most flattering. I made sure my makeup was flawless, and relatively minimal, since I'm going for the natural and innocent look with my branding.
I had a fully designed attractive bio that went with my theme. I had apps and bots, and the most popular games. I made up games on my own, in addition to the ones that were running, to see what got people engaged. I had good music, and good sound. I let people request songs. I smiled a lot. I talked. I typed. I tried blocking all but paying customers from chat, then got desperate and allowed grays to chat too. I had watched Chaturbate models for 2 months and took notes on what seemed to work, who I related to and might be able to have a similar career/clientele to, and also how to handle different situations that come up, all that so I could hit the ground running.
I know I have a good personality, and that I'm comfortable talking with people. I speak in front of and engage with people for a living, so that must be kind of a given. I also am very sexual, and know how to turn people on. So I really don't think this is the problem.
I kept a spreadsheet of everything that happened, because to me I'm running a business. So here's what happened after all my hard work:
My very first day, I was on for 3.5 hrs at a peak traffic time. It was August 2017. I made 552 tokens, which is the equivalent of $7.72/hr, and ended with 54 new followers. Even in the shitty local retail management job I worked part-time, I made $15/hr, and I didn't have to show my tits for pennies... but I know it was just a first day. Still, this "New" tag is bullshit. Either it's not showing, or it does absolutely nothing. I never got more than 18 people in my room, and the average that whole time was only 13 people - most of them gray, some of them bots not even people. I made the good screen shots to bring them in, everything. I had a price list, changed the tags in the front, used as many tags as I could and to my best advantage to bring in likely customers, all that. I tried changing the amounts for goals. You name it, I did it. I only have 2 states in the US blocked from my viewers, everyone else in the world can see me. I put up a privates menu. I'm kind of a master teaser, and extremely flexible, and I know how to use that to my advantage - so when customers told me I have amazing legs and would rake in the dough if I added stocking work, I bought a bunch of pairs and added all that. I also uploaded photo albums for them to buy in the first week that were semi-professionally done. I offered incentives for a fanclub, and also for privates. I'm a good dancer, but after hours and hours of dancing and grinding provocatively, I was exhausted. I tried different hours, different days, trying to find a spot that had enough traffic but where I wasn't competing directly with the big names on the front page. I tried everything I could possibly think of.
In the first week, I totaled 33 hours of broadcasting, so almost like a full-time job, and I absolutely worked my fucking ass off. I made $195US, or a total of only $5.97/hr - well below minimum wage.
By the second week, that got worse. For my first ever paycheck, I logged 55 total broadcast hours in two weeks, and made only $298US - a total of only $5.47/hr. On 8 different sessions I literally made $0! It is hard to keep going when that happens once, much less 8 times! On 4 other sessions, I made $2 or less the entire time. Some days that I did better and got a lot of new followers (particularly the ones that paid well) I was there at the same time the next day. The days/times of the week that were poor, I switched to try different times. So I covered most time slots in a 24-hour period, with many showing up multiple days in a row at the same time, and was on every day of the week. One day I cammed for 7.5 hours straight with no break and no time even to get a drink of water. A few times it was so dead and depressing I logged off after only 45 minutes and tried again later, hoping to pick up more traffic.
By the end of the first 2 weeks, I had 586 followers. The max number of people I ever had in my room was 54. The lowest - which was frequent - was 4. My average in all that time was about 18.
To give you an idea of customer satisfaction, here are the comments customers made, which I wrote down verbatim on my spreadsheet:
"Beautiful
Sexy in every way
Could stare at you forever
You are my dream girl!
I would cross a galaxy to marry you!
Better body than a Victoria Secret model [well, of course that's up to opinion, but the customer is always right, lol!]
You really know how to keep your viewers engaged
Wow, I have never been so turned on by a woman in my life
Fun chat
Great bio
Love the outfits!
You're a goddess, so sexy!
Amazing legs
Gorgeous eyes
Perfect nipples
Stunning
Yesterday was the hardest I've ever cum in my life, and now today you topped it again... Fan for life!
How are you not on the first page? You should be one of the top models here - why is there like nobody in your room? You are
easily better than 99% of the girls camming on here!"
I am not bragging. This is depressing. Those are direct quotes (from customer living in countries all over the world) which I think illustrates my point. Nobody said anything negative. They were outrageously enthusiastic most of the time. But nobody joined the fanclub. Only a few people went private. Of the people who paid enough to give me a rating, only 15 qualified and did so, and I got a 100% satisfaction - which I did allow to be visible. Very few people paid anything. Of my "regular customers" very few paid more than like $5 dollars a day, and some were assholes on top of it. [You know, "PM me, PM me, PM me for free! Show tits for free! Cum show for free! Why are you talking to him? Talk to me and me only!!! I paid you $2 yesterday, I own you for life!"] I wrote 'no demands,' but you know how it goes... they demand stupid shit, and I could block them, but then I have no money at all. I was hoping they could get the ball rolling, and then I would block them when I didn't need them. A few customers were really nice, but they paid me in pennies. Very few ever spoke to me, even when I allowed grays to talk. I was working outrageously hard, for a pittance of what I would make in the real world, even for someone with no degrees and student loans to pay off. It wasn't fun or interesting, because I was almost completely by myself for 55 hours, talking to myself. Whenever I asked questions, tried to engage people in words or typing, no one answered. I think most of them were too busy with their dominant hands, to be really honest. I would get a lot "Ahh - that was amazing! ...Be back tomorrow"s after total silence. Lol. No hands free to type.
So was it really me? I don't think so.
I was exhausted, demoralized, and crying quite a bit by the end of the first pay period. Maybe that sounds extreme, but you have to understand too that this is an extremely emotionally draining job. It's very physically demanding too. It's hard to smile all that time, be engaging every minute of the day, give the perfect answer and look and sound ideal to every customer who comes in (because god knows if a purple comes in and you don't immediately act like he's the only one in the room, he gets offended that you're talking to "grays" and leaves), and somehow juggle the divergent needs of 2 or 3 different penny-throwing customers at a time. You're on, on, on, all that time. Then you're sore, sore, sore. And then you're awake and can't sleep. Or, at least I was. I barely slept at all for the whole 2 weeks, because I couldn't wind down after all that, plus the weird hours when I was trying to find my best time slots. So, admittedly, I went a bit mental.
That persona was really hard to keep up with. She was sweet, perky, smart, easy to talk to, a "good girl," looked flawless all the time, and was constantly eager to please. I wanted to punch her in her face, lol! I tried to create something I could keep up with, that involved a theme I liked and could spend a lot of time doing - somebody that made me happy too! - but the more outrageously kind compliments I got, the more I felt like I had to make sure to live up to that every day, never disappoint, always look perfect and make everybody happy. If you can't tell, I'm a bit of a perfectionist already naturally, lol, so that didn't work well for me. I just sat up all night trying to think what I could do better to bring in more viewers, get somebody to pay more. But nothing was working. I burned out totally.
So I created a new persona with a new account, and linked it to my first one, like a studio. This girl was totally opposite - she had an attitude, was raunchy, was more of a punk-rock style chick, listened to different music and had a totally different setting and lighting. She had a dark edgy wig, and edgier clothes. She wore no makeup at all, or makeup that hid the fact she hadn't slept or might have blemishes from hard living, lol. It was easier to keep up with, because I didn't have to be nice, didn't have to have anything clever to say, didn't have to look directly into camera if I didn't feel like it, could be rude to people who said disgusting things if I wanted to, and could roll out of bed and throw the wig on and whatever lingerie and no makeup, flip the light on, and that was it. No stretching and crazy acrobatics or exhausting dancing and grinding. Just sitting there, saying very little, flashing only what they paid for, teasing only if I felt like it. It was certainly less draining, but I already felt bitter from my experience with Ms. Perky, lol.
This "bad girl" drew in totally different clientele. She got totally different comments. Customers were interested in very different things, and had different fetishes. A lot of butt people, for instance. S&M. Not so much the legs. Nobody with the stockings. Nobody who wanted to see me in elegant dresses and all that. More of a hard core sex club crowd. People were still really complimentary though.
"Beautiful
Sexy
Dat ass tho
Nipples to die for!
Where have you been all my life? Where for that matter have you been hiding on this site? Why do you have so few viewers?"
I worked 5 hours total as this girl, on 3 different days. The first day I made $28US in 2 hrs. Then the next day I made $0. Then the next, I made $2. I got only 53 followers in all that time, no privates, no fanclubbers, no photo album sales. Only 3 ratings, 100%. All 3 days were the same time of day. Mostly just people throwing pennies at me again, and wanting me to do something for nothing again.
I thought I would go back to the Nice Girl when I had recovered my energy, and then just use Bad Girl whenever I was tired and just wanted to make a quick buck, or when I was frustrated and wanted to mouth off to somebody, lol. But, then a hurricane wiped out my home. No shit. So I am only just getting around to considering going back online now. I definitely need the money. But, in a month of working, it nearly broke me. And the last $30 is still sitting in there, because it's not enough to cash out and get paid!
I know this is crazy long, but I wanted to write it to say, IT'S NOT YOU! I worked my fucking ass off. My customers were 100% satisfied. I got rave reviews on the daily. No one pointed out anything wrong. But every time I went on, there were anywhere between 39-44 pages of people broadcasting on Chaburbate. I was never on the front page, even when new - not for either account I created. That is some bullshit, or a change, if anyone tells you they do that. They don't anymore. I was always on like P. 33 - totally lost among the masses. I did whatever I could to stand out, but it's just impossible at this point. The only people who seem to get a lot of views there now who are new are like the one girl I saw who was busy shoving extra-large zucchinis she grew in her garden in weird places. Which is against the rules. Or rape-fantasy couples, which is also against the rules. Or little-girl-acting people, which is also against the rules. Or Colombian or Russian group sex with thousands of bot viewers - of which there are quite a few in that category. I can't compete with 10,000 bots.
Maybe using another site would be better. But, my confidence took a huge hit from this, and everybody says Chaturbate is the beginner site, you shouldn't go to the other ones if you're not good at camming.
So here I am whining, because I will probably go back on in the next few days, because I read that summer is the slow season and money might really pick up in Winter. Especially because my first girl offered a cheerful fantasy that might appeal to people who are depressed from the cold and darkness and snow. And the second girl can exorcise their bitter demons, lol. But I needed to connect with another model who GETS it first, someone who isn't blaming me for not being good enough. Like, I TRIED. But very few people even spoke to me. They made me do all the work. Grays at least talk. Blue and purples mostly give commands, and then stay silent. If they pay, it's often in single tokens - which is 20 cents, people! Am I supposed to act fucking grateful when you throw 20 cents at me and say 'Show me your pussy!!!' And then leave in a huff when I don't because you never paid another dime after that?
I do think I was TOO sexy. I was not naked on cam much, because I wanted to make them pay to get me there. But even so, I was making sexy noises and grinding around a lot, and a lot of guys said they came just from watching me. OK, too much free show, even with clothes on. Noted. Didn't realize that was a concern even when all the bits are covered. But apparently, guys are so used to seeing naked now, being clothed turned them on even faster! Which is why Bad Girl stopped moving almost at all, and half the time just showed her tits in a bikini top with no head in the shot, or just her sexy angry face and nothing else. They didn't seem to care - they still paid her a lot of compliments, and came in and out of the room at about the same rate as the Nice Girl who worked so hard. She made money at just about exactly the same rate. Except that Bad Girl attracted a lot more purple clientele right off the bat. And Nice Girl attracted more scammers trying to convince her they paid her when they didn't, or to give her acct password to them so they could "help her design her page," or "manage the bots for her" etc. Fortunately, I knew all this stuff beforehand from my research and didn't fall for any of it! But she looked so young and innocent, they thought she was an idiot. They assumed the Bad Girl was more street-wise - I guess because of the dark hair? lol.
I hope something in this long rant was educational, or at least entertaining, for somebody! I assume that if I kept at it regularly, I might build up a clientele and make an average of maybe $600US/month, which was my bare minimum goal for my first month without which I couldn't even justify doing it at all. But in the first month, I only made $328US after 60 hours of work, and I felt too demoralized and exhausted to continue, especially after the storm made me temporarily homeless, plus I lost a lot of the stuff I invested in to set up. I do still have the webcam and some of the lighting though, lol! And a few pieces of lingerie. These were small things that were easy to save.
Point being, BambiBluebell, I feel you! This Summer/Fall 2017 has been BRUTAL on Chaturbate for new people. I think people need to lower their expectations a WHOLE LOT if they are joining. On the other hand, if you fit into a niche that stands out and is tough to compete with, you might still do really well. For instance, I noticed that girls who would fit in the super morbidly obese medical category were cleaning up! I just can't compete with them, because guys who are into them find me gross looking. And guys who like super-thin, also find me gross looking. I know my lane. I''m not everybody's cup of tea. But I LOVE some of those ladies, and to be honest they were working a lot less hard than I was - just being normal, taking a shower or chatting while eating, super casual. Some other girls have such a funky vibe and an interesting look or personality, so they had a strong following even without being in great shape, being super large or average either, or frankly without looking like they've even showered or combed their hair in maybe a week. No shade at all, I'm being straight honest and admire their business skills! The bullshit advice all over about webcam girls need to look cute, have great lighting and HD, have a great approachable personality... none of that was true this summer. I saw girls rake in more dough than I did in a week in an hour, and have at least 10k followers, and many of them had terrible lighting, no sound at all, never spoke or barely typed, don't speak any English which a lot of people have said on the internet was necessary for the best money, and/or had a super rude personality. Literally some of them looked like they smelled bad. I watched a lot of girls tell people off and say they hated the job and the customers. Maybe they're onto a negging/humiliation market? I don't know, it got a lot of guys comforting them, and paying them tokens, even if in single increments - but steadily. Bags under eyes, literally clothes with holes in them. I think I saw about 50 hrs of people eating on cam, lol. And not in a sexy way - like a dripping your salad dressing, or sauce on your sandwich, down your face and not noticing or cleaning it type of way. I saw a ton of rule breaking. More dogs than you can count. This is probably part of the reason so many Chaturbate people get their accounts suspended - because they never read the TOS. Or maybe jealous people flag them? I don't know - was terrified my acct too would get locked and I would never be paid, but at least I did get the first payment.
Like no lie, all the advice I read online about how to earn money, did not really apply at all. If you look at the big time girls and couples (I didn't do much research on men because it wouldn't be much help to me), all the ones who have been around since 2015 or before totally fit that concept - the first page names (aside from bot-driven ones) are people who look like professional models, have stellar lighting, nice personalities, all that. BUT the newer people who are successful, whom I kept a close eye on because they are more likely to have a similar experience to me... those people were usually niche market, or break TOS rules to appeal to people with shady interests. Very few of them really had the best equipment or body or look. A lot had no bio at all, or a shitty one.
Some girls I saw were way better-looking than me, clearly professional models, had lighting and HD quality that is literally beyond anything that seems possible with existing technology, and did everything pretty much right - and I saw them dribble by with 12 viewers at a time, and seemingly no tips at all. I saw girls look sad and confused, especially new ones, who looked super dejected and like they didn't know what to do, and I saw them say things about how they doubted themselves, how they have no viewers and no one paying, how they might quit, how they thought maybe they just weren't good looking enough for camming... I wanted to give all these people the few pennies I had made! I see them all trying so hard... but so many barely pull $10-20US/day. A lot of the people who seemed to try less hard, or try not at all, and be less commercially attractive, seemed to be making way more money. I hesitate to say this, because a new flood of slackers may come on and then that category won't make money anymore either! For reals. You need to stand out in a major way.
A LOT of people making good money, or who have a lot of followers, with no sound. Or who never paid attention to the customers or the camera, who were staring at their phone or another screen. No joke, they were boring af. And no joke, I took that as a tip, and went back on even as my "Nice Girl" and tried ignoring the camera and looking at some other screen or typing like I was too busy to be bothered with these people, and every single time my viewer count went up!! They don't want tits n ass. They want to see girls who don't give a fuck, ignoring them and only responding to every 6th question. Again, maybe that's hitting some kind of fetish? Or it's the same reason I get hit on way more when I act aloof and like I don't want to be bothered in my unwashed sweats at the grocery store, than when I act approachable and dress up in real life? I wish to god girls paid, but in my experience so far, girls talk a good game and I love having them in the room, but only guys fork up the cash - so we have to pay attention to the unfortunate psychology of the male mind...
Also, we need to be real that in Summer/Fall 2017, virtually the only people who got any attention had a Lovense or similar object. Don't know how long this will last as a trend. But I'm not about to invest that much in something that vibrates internally and never even touches my clit, that women using seem to jerk like they're having a seizure whenever it turns on and make sounds and faces almost like they're in genuine pain and not at all happy, for a job where I might not even recoup it - because my luck by the time I hook it up, that market too will be oversaturated, lol.
Note also that a lot of these Lovense people didn't even have any sound on, so I have no clue how that even worked. Because I thought it works off of picking up the sound of tokens depositing. But you know, it was a lot of, 'oh, I'm at work/my sister's house, shhhh! Oh god, I'm at dinner with my family, oh no, watch me make my cum face and try not to let them know!...' I mean, to me it got old watching a few hours of that, but I guess not to a lot of Chaturbate customers! They kept a huge following for hours doing that, fully clothed or mostly clothed a lot of the time.
So, this is just an accounting of where Chaturbate is at for new female models. Again, no shade to anybody. You do what works. But this shit is hard. If you don't naturally have a look that is difficult to fill and fits a niche, it's really hard to draw them in. There are 40 pages of people you're competing with, and endless amounts of free porn with pretty people all over the internet, many of them amateurs or couples or lesbian or whatever you could possibly be or ever want to be. My opinion, if you're looking to start fresh in the summer time post-2016, I hope you really love doing this, and would do it for free, or can hang in there for a year to build clientele. Because the pay according to a lot of new people is low. But a lot of older people will tell you it's good if you just do the right things - which I suspect was genuinely true when most of them started. But they already have their loyal fanbase. For new people, it's a lot harder now than I think it used to be. I admire people who have been around for figuring this out and jumping on sooner, before it was every housewife and schoolteacher getting naked online after work. But now... it's not special anymore to be online and be a "regular girl" or a "pretty girl" or whatever who cums or gets naked on demand. You and a million other people.
Much love to all you ladies! Truly. I love watching so many of you, and follow a ton of people myself. But of course I have a lot of opinions, so you can see why I'm keeping this anonymous, lol!
That's why my profile photo is upside-down... because it feels like I'm in upside-down world, lol, and I'm cranky!
Maybe now that I've vented, I can shut up and get back on broadcasting. And update soon that I had better luck! I probably should try being on and not trying at all, just being myself on camera and getting other work done, or masturbating the way I want to and ignoring the customers, so at least I'll enjoy myself whether or not I make money.
But OP, the struggle is real. And it's probably not you.
If you like taking your top off or doing a sex show for $5 or less, Chaturbate is waiting for you! But to be honest, I could be an actual live-and-in-person hooker giving hand jobs in a back alley and make more money. Which, aside from the real-live jizz, is starting to be tempting... I'm broke af right now!
Yes, I know, so many of you will say, "Wall of Text; Didn't Read." But my god, I just needed to get that off my chest. In one of my last broadcasts, I got annoyed and played Lily Allen's "It's Hard Out Here For a Bitch." My customers didn't appreciate it, but it made me laugh...
