Many moons ago, camming websites were almost entirely pay-to-play: girls would tease in public chat mode, but if you wanted to see any holes, you had to cough up cash. Today, the landscape is quite different, and when it comes to the freemium model, few do it as successfully as Chaturbate.
Chief rivals out there include the likes of MyFreeCams, StripChat and BongaCams. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, and in this review, we will look at what Chaturbate brings to the table.
If you’re looking for a massive quantity of fun, engaging and extremely sexual live streams from guys and girls all over the world – Chaturbate might just be the cam site of your wettest dreams.
Chaturbate Review: The Ultimate Free Adult Cam Platform?
For much of the 2010s, Chaturbate had a commanding share of the webcam markets in Europe and North America. It still has a sizable chunk of the global audience and, in most instances, ranks in the top 5 most visited cam websites in major countries.
There’s nothing particularly unique or noteworthy about Chaturbate’s structure, performer composition or otherwise that’s worth mentioning – aside from the fact that it caters incredibly well to those with limited or no funds.
The fact remains: Chaturbate is one of the best cam hubs if you’re not looking to spend.
Chaturbate’s success as a cam platform hasn’t gone unnoticed. It’s been nominated for – and received – several awards over the years. These include Top Adult Brand and Best Cam Platform at the 2020 YNOT Awards and Best Overall Company at the 2018 GFY Awards. In 2017, it even received 14 nominations at the Adult Webcam Awards.
Suffice to say, Chaturbate’s a major player in the webcam game.
Types of Chaturbate Models
While some cam sites have particular model biases (SakuraLive for Japanese, Cam4 for amateurs, etc.), Chaturbate is what we’d describe as a general hub that caters to many tastes and interests. There’s something for everyone here, and their total performer numbers are sufficiently high to ensure you’re always spoiled for choice.
Typically, you’ll find anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 performers online at any one time. Very few webcam platforms get even close to these numbers. Everyone’s welcome, too – no restrictions on male, trans or couple cams.
Female Models
The ladies make up the bulk of the talent pool on Chaturbate. Around 80% of the total cams online when we visited were listed under the ‘women’ tag. We’re talking thousands of girls here, all live and ready to put on a stellar cam performance.
Racial breakdown is fairly typical. We found 250 Asians, 250 ebonies and 600 or so Latinas. Most of the other girls here are Caucasian, but there is an ‘Arab’ tag and we came across 11 women in this particular section.
It’s worth pointing out that Chaturbate has slightly fewer Latinas than spots such as CamSoda and Streamate. It’s not a huge difference, and there are still plenty of Hispanic hotties here – just a lower percentage. Still, given that there are so many camgirls in general on Chaturbate, it’s unlikely to influence your decision-making that much.
The ethnic girls get a lot of love here, too. The two most popular camgirls at the time of our visit were Asian and ebony/Latina. Pretty awesome.
In terms of ages, you’ve got everything from 18 through to 80. We dislike that some girls tag their age as 99 – but what can you do? Chaturbate attracts such a decent variety of girls that no matter what you’re after in terms of ethnicity or age, there’s bound to be a performer here for you.
Male Models
When we visited, the men’s section on Chaturbate has around 1,000 performers – we’re unaware of any platform that carries more live guys than this one. The action here is catered more toward gay performers – there is a ‘straight’ tag, although only 20 guys out of the 1,000 online had it as their preference. It’s clear that the major consumers in this category are gay men.
You’ve got a bunch of tags to work with here, all of which allow you to hone in on the exact type of show you’d like to watch. Examples include muscle, femboy, daddy, chubby, twink, master and hairy. By virtue of its talent pool size, you’ve got a lot of men here who are supremely attractive.
Based on viewing numbers, it would appear that two types of gay men are wanted here more than others: muscular studs and twinks.
Couples
Around 250 couples were live when we visited – a sizable number. The dominant structure was a man and a woman, but we also saw gay and lesbian shows too. Most of the time, it was just one-on-one, but a few group streams were active. Some couples appear to be incredibly popular, and dozens of streams had at least 200 viewers.
The most popular streams featured younger couples – often between the ages of 18 and 23.
Transgender Models
You’re looking at around 350 transgender performers at any one time on Chaturbate: definitely one of the more populated cam platforms if you’re interested in trans girls. To give you a sense of what’s on offer here, these tags are the most popular: Asian, bigcock, femboy, mistress, anal, Latina, ebony and sissy.
There were around 80 Asian, 120 Latina and 25 ebony trans camgirls online. Note that tags on Chaturbate aren’t as ironclad as categories on other platforms – the performers aren’t required to specify their ethnicity. We’d like to see this changed since you’ll only see the ethnicity you’re interested in if they tag it in their description.
Types of Live Shows on Chaturbate
There are plenty of show type options, but it’s worth stressing that many of the performers on Chaturbate are basically always in free chat mode. You can use this website – even without an account – and get an incredible performance. Sure, you won’t have interactivity and attention, but if you’re happy to lurk and jerk – Chaturbate really shines.
Still, there are other ways of enjoying streams on Chaturbate. Let’s have a complete look at the available show types here.
Free Public Chat
The default room and show structure: you can watch the cams without an account and you’ll never be forced to sign up. Chaturbate won’t even be pushy about it, unlike BongaCams. You will need an account if you want to type in chat, though, so that’s something to keep in mind.
If you do create an account to chat, many rooms have a specific setting that requires you to have some tokens linked to your account. This reduces spam, which is particularly important given the sheer size of Chaturbate and how many visitors it gets.
You can visit Chaturbate and see lots of complete, free shows. Note that some performers will use free public chat as a way to solicit private sessions – just because some shows are free doesn’t mean that they all are.
Private Show
Private shows at Chaturbate function similarly to other platforms. You’ll spend a fixed amount of tokens per minute and have some alone time with the performer. Note that Chaturbate does allow spying – this means that anyone can pay a per-minute fee to watch what’s happening. This feed includes both the video and audio.
From what we can determine, it’s not possible to pay for true private (turning off spy mode), but cam performers can disable it as a feature. Performers can also set a minimum length that they’ll accept for a private session, as well as disable it altogether.
Spy Mode
The opposite side of the private show coin, as described above. You pay a fixed rate (generally less than the private show cost) and get to watch and hear what’s going on. You don’t have any ability to interact with the stream – you’re essentially a voyeur.
Password Shows
It’s relatively niche, but performers in password shows won’t appear on the main site’s index page and to enter – you’ve got to have the password. In some instances, camgirls will use this as a way to set up special experiences for a flat rate that aren’t under time pressure.
Chaturbate seems to encourage this as an alternative to group shows you might be familiar with from other platforms.
Hidden Shows
This is somewhat similar to password shows, but more embedded in Chaturbate’s apps functionality. You can often purchase access to these shows with a flat token amount, but you may also find that being a fan club member gives you free access from time to time. More on fan clubs later!
Can I Record Live Shows on Chaturbate?
Chaturbate allows performers to specify whether or not private show recordings will be given to users once a private performance has finished. These are added to your private collection and cannot be downloaded – though it’s relatively trivial to grab a local copy if you know how to use inspect element.
Most performers have private show recordings enabled, but if they don’t, you’ll be told quite clearly before the show starts:
Live Stream Quality
We wouldn’t describe our insistence on high-objective quality cam shows as a crusade… but others certainly would! The fact of the matter is: we care about good bitrates and decent resolutions. Cam sites that offer these are just better. That’s why we were pleased to see that Chaturbate is at the cutting edge of quality in the cam space.
Performers on Chaturbate can stream in resolutions up to and including 1080p. We’re pleased with the bitrates provided, too – it seems as if 5 Mb/s is quite standard. If you couple these objective metrics with a decent webcam and encoding software – you’ve got yourself some of the best-looking cam shows available on the Internet.
Streamate is often cited as one of the go-to places if you care about quality – there’s little difference between the two platforms, since both offer 1080p as a top-end format and high bitrates.
Note that it’s possible to lower resolutions on streams: alongside 1080p, you’ve got 720p, 480p and 240p. Switching between them is incredibly fluid and doesn’t interrupt the feed – awesome stuff.
Interactive Toys on Chaturbate
Chaturbate is frustratingly close to having one of the best interactive toy setups in the game. It supports a practically limitless number of settings and the feedback is fantastic. The problem is – camgirls have to specify what levels do what in their chat and tip menus.
These guys are running a multimillion-dollar operation, and they know that public tipping to activate toys is a big part of the experience. So why on God’s green Earth is this the best implementation they have for interactive toys:
This is in the chat box, no less. Many girls also have it as a bot feature that regularly gets spammed, so it’s honestly not the best implementation. Ideally, we’d like to see a dedicated interface that simplifies things – and keeps chat free from spam at the same time.
We’ve yet to come across any platform that wows with interactive toy implementation. Given Chaturbate’s size and focus on the freemium space – they seem like they’re best suited to get the job done. So please: do it right!
Fan Clubs
If you find a particular camgirl to be your cup of tea, consider signing up for her fan club. This is an extra way to show the performer how much you enjoy watching them. You can pay with tokens or with fiat currency and you’ll be rewarded with a special green username, access to exclusive content and private messaging.
The level of exclusive content you’ll be entitled to depends on the performer – some put a lot up, whereas others are a little more sparse with their material.
Chaturbate Apps
Chaturbate has a few apps that performers can enable. These add functionality and utility to the stream that’s otherwise not available on the default version of the website. Tools available include tip goals, advanced interactive toy integration, chat management and more.
These aren’t particularly useful for the viewers to know about, except that there might be a few you’ll come across and interact with.
Apps have a small space below the stream where they can appear as an add-on utility. We think that a lot of the functionality provided by these should be default. Though we will admit: it’s cool that there’s variety and that you can even write your own apps if you desire.
Getting Around Chaturbate
The homepage is good, but it’s not great. We’re critics here, and there are several things that we’d like to see Chaturbate do to make the experience from the get-go that little bit better.
Firstly: a clear sidebar where you can select age ranges, ethnicities and other potential metrics (hair color, body type, etc.). There are tags here for ethnicities, but not every Asian girl has ‘#asian’ in her stream description, which is required if you want to appear under the Asian tag.
The site as a whole also uses pretty small preview pane thumbnails. It would be so much better if they were bigger – or, at the very least, if we could resize them. There’s currently no way to do this other than to zoom in on the entire page, which makes all of the other elements and interface features supersized, too. It looks weird. Other cam sites manage to offer thumbnail resizing – why can’t Chaturbate?
Advanced sorting would also be appreciated. Streams are sorted by an unknown metric, but likely something similar to a cam score. Allow users to organize feeds based on time online, total viewer count and maybe a few others.
See more hands-on experience in our Chaturbate guide.
Chaturbate’s Interface, Design & Layout
Here’s what Chaturbate looks like when you load up a cam stream:
Pretty good, all things considered.
We have mentioned a desire for Chaturbate to provide a toy activation tip menu – perhaps the same thing for other activities too. You can see that the model here has quite a long list of things you can purchase with tokens, but if you’re mid-jerk, you don’t want to scroll up the page to see what you can do with your fun bucks, right?
Chat can be incredibly messy. Some apps that models can use will automatically update their goals whenever a tip is sent. If you’re sending in lots of 1 tip tokens to activate a Lovense – you’re gonna spam the chat. We did this, take a look:
Not optimal.
The Mobile Experience
Chaturbate has a relatively typical mobile experience: nothing that jumps out as being particularly special or awesome, but it does the job that it needs to do – and pretty well too.
Perhaps the most important thing we look for in mobile experiences is the response time. Chaturbate was snappy and navigating between multiple cam shows wasn’t a problem. We also love that you can resize the streams when holding your phone vertically, picking a particular area to zoom in on. This is our preferred display of horizontal shows on a vertical device.
You can also hold your phone sideways – the site works just fine. You can even choose whether or not you want the chat to be visible as a superimposition – to the best of our knowledge, this is the only site with this in the camming space.
Chaturbate ticks all the boxes and handles mobile browsing quite well. You can even cam to cam using your phone, though with iPhones, it’s limited to Safari.
Chaturbate’s Token System & Pricing
As is relatively typical in the adult camming space, instead of spending cash directly, you’ll use tokens to pay for tips and services. You’ll buy tokens using USD: Chaturbate doesn’t upcharge you for using another currency, but your bank might if you use a credit or debit card that isn’t natively USD.
Here are the current prices for tokens in USD:
- 100 tokens: $10.99
- 200 tokens: $20.99
- 400 tokens: $39.99
- 550 tokens: $49.99
- 750 tokens: $62.99
- 1,000 tokens: $79.99
The bonuses for buying in bulk are actually quite impressive. The lowest cost package equals around 11 cents per token – the highest cost package is around 8 cents. You’re definitely incentivized to buy more tokens, though truth be told, 80 bucks as a top-end price point is hardly that extreme. Well worth the value.
What are Chaturbate Tokens Worth?
If you purchase the $80 package, a Chaturbate token is equal to 8 cents (USD).
What Does The Average Chaturbate Private Show Cost?
Camgirls are free to set their own rates for shows, and there’s quite a lot of variety when it comes to this. You can see different rates in categories, with price points at 6, 12, 18, 30, 60 and 90 tokens. We saw camgirls who charged 6 tokens as well as others in the 120 token range.
That said, you’ll find that most performers are between 18 and 50 tokens per minute. That’s roughly $1.50 to $4 USD per minute.
Payment Methods
Here are the available payment methods for Chaturbate:
- Credit/Debit card (Visa, Mastercard and Discover)
- paysafecard
- Wire transfer
- Cryptocurrency
We’re pleased to see cryptocurrency as an option. We tested it out and got our tokens via a BNB purchase in less than two minutes – incredibly speedy. You may have to wait a little longer for other blockchains, though.
We were pleased to see that all payment methods offer you the same number of tokens at the same price points: there’s no discrimination.
How Will Chaturbate Purchases Appear on My Statement?
When we made a purchase, this is what our bank reported to us:
The domain name mmbill.com itself is relatively vague, but if anyone Googles this – it’ll very quickly show you that it’s associated with Chaturbate. We’d describe Chaturbate’s billing as semi-discreet.
Is There a Refund Policy?
Although you’ll be unlikely to get a refund for spent tokens (except in circumstances where the website is broken or you encounter some other bug), Chaturbate does have some form of a refund policy. Here’s what their FAQ says:
Try to avoid using any tokens at all if you’re going to request a refund – far more likely to go through. It may also just be restricted to credit or debit cards, owing to the issues with refunds via other methods of payment.
Our Verdict on Chaturbate
Chaturbate is one of the greatest freemium webcam hubs on the Internet. The sheer volume of performers here is fantastic – as is the fact that you can watch many of them in full 1080p.
We love that you can tip small amounts of tokens to activate toys, pay for tokens using a wide array of billing options, join fan clubs and enjoy the experience on your mobile phone without any issues. Sure, there are a few issues here and there, but when push comes to shove, Chaturbate is a fantastic place to go for live sex.
It might not be our number one pick (that goes to StripChat), but it’s incredibly close at the top, and Chaturbate wouldn’t have to change much for us to rank it as the number one choice out there for adult camming action.
Definitely worth a visit.
Head on over to Chaturbate.com to sample the action — and let us know what you think!
