If you have any second thoughts about how to make money as a cam girl, know that you can do it almost any way you want. While no one can guarantee that all the methods would pay equally, or even pay at all, there is a lot of flexibility in the webcam industry.
Fun fact: Highest earning webcam model, at one point in time, on MFC (MyFreeCams) never went nude on webcam.
Well, that worked for her, and she made tons of money, 1,000,000 in a year to be precise. But that doesn’t mean the same strategy would work for all the cam girls out there. She was attractive, and it was easier for her. What if you are not? You will still earn, but it’s just going to take more work and intelligent strategies.
Nothing I say in this cam girl guide should be considered a holy grail truth of the camming world; you may also find many successful webcam models who never follow these strategies, but it definitely gives you an idea of how you can decide what works best for you.
Camming- An easier source of money, but…
Camming is famously considered an easier source of money. Whether you do it as a side hustle, to support your education, or to establish a primary source of income, the money that you make depends on how much you give into it. It could be your time, capital investment, potential risks, or the ability to handle the stress and burnouts.
There is no ceiling to how much you can make – I have seen top models making $200/hour, and the super elite models making even $1000+/hour. However, most models seem to make around $40-$50/hour.
You can take it part-time, and generate an average of $40/hour, or you can give your full-time to aim for the $200/hour mark, which is achievable. Most models who make $1000+/hour work at least 5 days a week, and 6-8 hours a day.
How much can you make?
As I mentioned, there is no hard-and-fast answer to the questions like how to be a cam girl or how to make it to the top charts, but if you have got the beauty and skills in sales, reading minds, marketing, emotional endurance, and some decent intelligence, you can definitely top the charts.
Let’s take a formula that gives a rough idea of how much can you make camming if you fall under certain groups. This formula was proposed by an experienced, highest-earning ex-model of MFC.
- Rate yourself between 1-10, combining the above-mentioned aspects into one.
- Multiply the rating by 2.
- Add to the number of hours you are planning to work per week.
- Multiply the resulting number (let’s say X) with one of the following numbers according to the rating you gave to yourself:
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- If you rate yourself between 1-2, multiply X by 0.3
- If you rate yourself between 3-4, multiply X by 0.8
- If you rate yourself between 5-6, multiply X by 2.5
- If you rate yourself between 7-8, multiply X by 4.5
- If you rate yourself between 9-10, multiply X by 8
Let’s take the following scenario:
- You rate yourself 8 out of 10.
- Multiply: 8 x 2
- You work for 25 hours a week, so 8×2+25= 41; X=41.
- Multiply X by 4.5, 41×4.5 = 184.5
Hence, if you rate yourself 8 on the mentioned scale, and work for 25 hours a week for the next 6 months, you can expect to make roughly around $184.5/hour on MFC.
Note: None of this applies if you are not ready to acquire some skills in the above-mentioned departments. Also, if you are a male, this formula is for average to good looking females only.
However, if you do not fall under the criteria and still want to earn from camming, it’s easier to start your own camming site and earn from the commissions you can take from camgirls who would perform on your site.
You can find tons of guides about how to start a webcam business on the internet. Some of the website building methods don’t even require hefty investments, programming skills, or model recruitment.
How earning via camming sites work?
The way you earn depends on the website you work with. Although there are tons of camming sites on the internet, all of them fall under one of two major categories (some fall in both, too): Token sites and Private sites.
Token sites
Have you ever seen a magician or a busker performing on a street? They showcase their skills, entertain the pedestrians, and the crowd throws money at them. Token sites work on a similar model. As a cam girl, you go live in a public chatroom, perform your act, and the crowd throws money at you as token tips.
Most of the high earning cam girls work on token sites themselves. Some of these sites also have private chatrooms, but tips in the public rooms make the most of their income. This model is often lucrative, but also require intensive work and stress endurance. You have to be patient and attractive to make the most out of it.
It’s a personality-driven revenue stream and requires some skills to lure viewers into indirectly monetized channels such as tipping games, contests, tips-based requests for custom acts driven by rate charts (ex. 20 tokens= Twerk, 30 tokens= remove the top, and so on).
Examples of top token sites: MyFreeCams, Chaturbate.
Private Sites
These websites operate on a model similar to the strip clubs. You start your stream in the public rooms (similar to the stage in a strip club), perform some moves (like a pole dance on the stage), and wait for someone to take you into a private chatroom (like private lap dance rooms in strip clubs).
Just like strip clubs, some people might throw some tips in the public rooms as well, but the actual income on such a website comes through the private chatrooms. Depending on the website, guys pay either pay a fixed amount to book a private session or pay-per-minute. Irrespective of how much the guy spends tipping you in the private room, a fixed income from the private room fee or pay-per-minute stream is guaranteed.
Not everyone affords or likes to spend big on private chat rooms, so such websites tend to generate comparatively lower income than token sites. However, if you can drive even 2-3 private room bookings, you would make a good amount of money.
Besides, private rooms are less stressful. If you can connect properly, the one-to-one sessions often encourage your fans to come back for more. You may come across the guys who simply want to talk and zone out.
Examples of top private sites: Jerkmate, LiveJasmin
Which webcam site to choose?
Most of the high earning cam girls I have worked with come from token sites like MFC and Chaturbate. However, it doesn’t mean private sites pay any less. It is just that both kinds of sites require different levels of dedication and personalized strategies. Besides, you should also sort out your earning expectations beforehand.
If you want to earn big, can work for longer hours (typically 5-6 hours a day), take some emotional toll, and endure some public room stress, token sites can be a good choice. Even if you don’t look as pretty as the top models, you can compensate for it with your personality and encourage public room users to tip in different ways.
If you look good, don’t want to take much stress, work for only a few hours a day, are worried about the risks of public rooms, and can do with lower initial income, private chat rooms are good for you. Nevertheless, even private sites can be high-rewarding for certain girls.
Take Luna for instance. She is a part-time stripper, works at a coffee for day-job, and comes online on a webcam site for 2 hours in the evening. She is attractive and has this big chest. She knows people want to see what’s beneath, but she never goes naked in the public rooms. She reserves the main show to attract people into buying her private sessions. This strategy works like a charm for her.
So yes. Choose a webcam site strictly according to your pros, cons, convenience, and earning goals. You should also consider the percentage of fees these websites take. Some sites take 30%, while many take as high as 50%-70%. Some websites also take as low as 5%.
Don’t fall for black-hat tactics
Many cam girls use external payment methods to by-bass tokens and commission to be paid to the camming site. They slip their PayPal or other third-party payment IDs to the fans to save themselves from paying 30%-70% of their earnings to the camming site.
Well, that would be a grave mistake:
- One, PayPal is famous for banning any kind of payment for adult services. If found, it will hold all your payments, and ban your account.
- Two, other third-party payment gateways are not very friendly to adult businesses. Even they charge hefty fees, which may also exceed 30% of the amount.
- If found, the camming sites will ban your account and also freeze your pending payments.
It’s always safe to rely on your camming site for payments. If you don’t want to pay big cuts, go for the websites that charge less. Camming sites manage their operations using their revenue cut in exchange for their services. It’s a necessary cost of doing business that is generally accepted among professional cam models.
If you want to make some off-site earnings, many cam sites also allow their girls to receive gift-cards and gifts from the fans. You can share your purchase wish-list on your profile to receive gifts from the fans.
And if you are fixed on not sharing your revenue at all, coming up with your own membership site is a good idea to do that. There are certain turnkey scripts that you can use to set up your model website without any programming knowledge. These scripts cost not even 10% of what it costs to build a fan membership site from scratch.
Finally
Coming up with your fan membership site is a great way to establish a stable business model in the long term, but it works only when you already have a decent base of fans and followers on social media, camming sites, and other adult platforms like OnlyFans and ManyVids.
So, if you have plans to devise your own webcam modeling business, start with creating your profiles on these platforms first. You can always take the next step once you are popular enough.