Hi everyone! First of all, I want to say that I haven’t been involved in this for a long time, so a lot of the memories have faded. I’ll just share what I remember.
About Toys
At first, I didn’t have any toys (just my fingers), so later on I bought a rubber dildo. Since I’m quite petite, I tried to choose toys that weren’t too large. So I got a dildo that was 16–18 cm long and 3.5 cm in diameter, which ended up being way too much for me. I couldn’t even use it, so I had to throw it away and reorder, paying a lot more attention to the size this time. Literally right after my first payout, I ordered a Lovense Lush (a remote-controlled bullet vibe) from the official website, and it took about 2–3 weeks to arrive. It’s an interactive toy that connects to webcam sites and vibrates based on tips. Pretty much an essential tool for every camgirl to engage with their audience. The more a member tips (sends a donation), the longer and stronger the vibration gets.
To be honest, the Lush was also a bit too big for me, so I couldn’t keep it inside for long. In the end, I just held it against my clit over my panties. (Little secret here: the most sensitive part of the female body is the clitoris, not the inside of the vagina, as many people assume. Essentially, clitoral stimulation is what gives all the pleasure, even during penetrative sex, because the organ has deeper internal roots. And here’s another industry secret: most girls don’t actually enjoy those internal vibrations. As one cam model friend put it: ‘It just shakes your guts.’ So if you see a girl squirming like a snake from those vibrations, 90% of the time, it’s purely an act. It’s especially wild to watch trans performers squirming with a bullet vibe up their ass. That’s truly Oscar-worthy acting right there.)
Later on, I picked up a few more dildos and a Lovense Domi vibrator (that iconic ‘wand’ style vibe, similar to the classic Magic Wand). The Domi came with this cool elephant-shaped attachment where you could insert its ‘trunk’ inside, though some people actually manage to stuff the whole ‘wand head’ in there.
Just to mix things up, I also bought nipple clamps, a gag, and a bedazzled butt plug with a rhinestoned base (which I never actually used, except for a couple of photoshoots).
By the way, one time a representative from an adult toy site reached out to me on Instagram. They offered me two toys of my choice in exchange for native ads—an Instagram post and a livestream using the toys. At first, I thought it was a scam, but I went ahead and filled out the order form anyway. And sure enough, a little while later, two toys arrived. In the photo, they’re the yellow bird and the seal. Really cool toys: one is a air-pressure wave stimulator (for suction-style clitoral vibes), and the other is double-ended (vacuum stimulation on one side, regular vibrator on the other).
I messaged the rep to let them know the package had arrived safely and that I was ready to do the promo, but they told me that advertising their products had just been banned on webcam sites—so I could just keep the toys for free. Both turned out to be pretty awesome, made of nice material with decent motors. In fact, I still have one of them to this day.
And that’s pretty much everything when it comes to my ‘toolkit.’ Obviously, there’s a whole world of other stuff out there—fucking machines, custom RealDolls with customizable dicks, fisting toys shaped like fists or even scarier things, plus that whole wild Bad Dragon lineup, not to mention a million and one BDSM gadgets. But I never used any of that on my streams.
Ways Into the Cam Industry
Here’s another nuance to the industry: there are solo models like me, who register on platforms independently and buy all the stream gear themselves, and then there are webcam studios. Studios take a cut of your income, but in return, they provide literally everything: a location, a PC setup with a webcam, makeup, outfits, and even moderator support to coach you on how to engage with viewers more effectively.
Let me break down which route into the industry is actually better.
If you want to dive into this on your own, you’ll have to figure everything out from scratch using Google and some common sense—and you’ll be lucky if there’s someone around to give you a hand. But more importantly, you need upfront capital: a PC or laptop that can actually handle streaming, a high-quality webcam, lighting (softboxes or ring lights are a huge plus), a mic (optional, but it definitely improves audio quality), a bed or couch with a nice-looking backdrop, sexy outfits, makeup, and of course, toys. That said, you can also stream from a phone, which simplifies things quite a bit. On top of all that, you’ll need to register, set up OBS, connect your smart toys, and configure your payment payout methods. And remember, you won’t get any promotion other than what you do yourself—the entire marketing side falls squarely on your shoulders.
Studios, on the other hand, provide absolutely everything. You don’t have to figure out a single thing other than how to present yourself on camera—and even then, they’ll likely help you out. Plus, if it’s a good studio, they’ll promote you alongside their other top models. They might even offer you a chance to do a duo stream with a friend. But of course, in return, they’ll take a 30 to 50% cut of your net income. On top of that, you’ll actually have to commute somewhere and most likely stick to a full 8-hour shift schedule.
IMO, it’s much better to grow independently at your own pace, without being tied to quota targets or giving away a chunk of your earnings. Though I get that this path isn’t for everyone. If you ever see job listings saying ‘remote/computer work for women, super high income, flexible hours’ on classified sites—that’s almost certainly what it is.
About the Platforms
Truth be told, this industry has been around for about 20 years now, and over that time, an absurdly huge number of adult streaming platforms have popped up. I mean, pretty much every major porn site has its own webcam platform nowadays.
But I’m going to stick to the ones I’ve actually tried myself.
«Bongacams was my main platform—it was the first one I registered on, and I did almost all of my streaming there.
Since I worked there the longest, I’ll highlight a few of its key features: they take a cut of about 50% of your earnings, but if you hit their weekly hour quotas, you get an extra 10% bonus; the interface is pretty simple and user-friendly, with full Russian language support; and they offer tons of payout options, both in fiat and crypto.
Bongacams has a massive Russian-speaking user base, which makes interacting with the audience a lot easier.
Chaturbate—I registered here about six months in, after someone recommended it to me. It’s the most hyped-up platform out there and probably has the biggest traffic in the West. Super popular in the US and Western Europe. Top models can easily pull in 15–20k viewers live. But as a result, the competition is insane. One major downside for me personally was that everything is in English—both the UI and chatting with viewers. I only gave it a shot for a few weeks, and at first, the money was actually coming in, probably because of that newbie boost status. But then my viewer count dropped off a cliff—people would just pop in and leave. Chaturbate also has a ton of plugins and all sorts of add-ons that I just never quite wrapped my head around.
Stripchat—I registered here purely because I heard about their great starter perks, like an initial viewer boost. Turned out to be total fluff. The viewer count is a fraction of what you get on Bonga or Chaturbate, and my overall experience was just people dropping in, leaving, and complete radio silence. It was like that the whole time, so I really didn’t vibe with it.
ManyVids—this one is actually an adult video marketplace geared towards fetish content, though they have a streaming feature too. My partner and I gave it a try. Over several streams, we only had one person make a silent tip without asking for anything in return. We never really figured out how to drive traffic there. Most likely, the setup is meant for promoting videos from your store, plus streaming helps boost visits to your profile and contributes to your account’s overall ranking.
Besides those, I’m thinking of giving MyFreeCams, Streamate, and a couple of others a shot just as an experiment.
Just like in regular streaming, you can work multiple platforms at the same time using multistreaming. A lot of top models do this—I’ve seen it firsthand. But to be completely honest, I still haven’t figured out what the most efficient service is for pulling that off.
Talking Income
To be completely honest, I didn’t keep books, and I don’t have exact stats on hand (I’m really not a math person). But I can give you some ballpark numbers. On average, it was around $700-800 a month, dropping down to $500 in some months, and going over $800 in others. For the record, I was far from the top ranks and mostly stayed somewhere in the middle, though I still had my loyal regulars. Plus, it all depends on your drive. I wasn’t streaming 7 days a week for 12 hours a day across 5 platforms all at once (though some people actually do that)—my streams averaged around 4 hours. That’s what I loved about this job: you hit your quota in the morning, and then you have almost the whole day free.
On top of that, promotion is key. Top models have built-up Twitter, Reddit, and Insta accounts with tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers. Starting out, I didn’t know any of this and only started promoting myself much later. Also, I didn’t spend a single ruble on marketing the entire time I was streaming. It was all just funneling traffic from the platform and relying on organic social media algorithms. If I were doing this now, I’d approach it differently. But I’ll break down promotion in detail in another post.
Sometimes there were days when I’d make just 5 bucks a shift, and on other days I’d pull in half of my entire monthly earnings. I had one regular who’d call me into private shows for half an hour or more. Wish he did it more often, though, because it was pretty expensive. On top of that, the site takes a double cut: first they make money on the token conversion, and then they take another 50% from the models. So for a member, tokens are expensive (around 5 to 5.5 rubles), but for a model, they’re cheap (around 1.5 rubles, depending on the exchange rate). Personally, I think those platform margins, while high, are pretty fair. If nothing else, their overhead is massive, especially for platform development and buying servers to handle video streaming.
That said, a chunk of viewers still seem to think that for a single token you should instantly strip naked and start aggressively cranking away. What’s even crazier are the ones who try to bait you into showing, doing, or taking off something for free, promising they’ll tip you later. But it’s super obvious when they try that (the platform actually displays every member’s token balance), so the only way a model gets fooled is if she’s a total beginner.
My biggest single tip was 5,000 tokens. A guy just came in and dropped it all at once without writing a word. I put on the best show I could, of course, though it’s totally possible he didn’t even stick around to watch. I used to see that kind of thing on Twitch, too: while some people are calling you a sellout, others are throwing away what amounts to a average worker’s monthly salary without asking for anything in return. At the end of the day, it all comes down to an individual’s financial situation—people just have wildly different means.
Show Types and How Streams Work
On any of these platforms (at least the ones I’ve tried), a model has several ways to make money. A quick side note: on sites like Runetki, there’s pretty much zero show content in the main room and everything happens strictly in privates, but I’ll focus on the options available on Bonga.
Free chat is when you’re streaming in the open room, and anyone can watch you just by clicking the link, even without an account. The huge advantage here is that anyone can throw a tip your way, and as the show gets hotter, more and more people start pouring in (which is especially noticeable during a couple stream). Group chat is when a few users invite you to a separate show just for them. Spy mode is another private chat initiated by one person, but other users can jump in and watch without being able to type in the chat. Full private is self-explanatory—it’s just you and the person who called you in. A lot here rides on how generous or horny that single member is; it can last anywhere from a minute to 20 minutes, ranging from intense wild jerking off to someone who just wants to sit and talk. I’ve had all kinds of cases, which I mentioned back in my first post.
On top of that, on almost every platform, you can list your photos and videos for tokens (the site’s internal currency), and they’ll stay up for sale just like on a marketplace. IMO, this is the least lucrative part of the whole process because people come to watch you live, so usually only your most dedicated fans end up buying them.
Another important aspect is that you could redirect viewers to your social media accounts. My very first followers on Insta and Telegram actually came from Bonga. That said, you can’t promote just anything—the site rules explicitly cover this, especially when it comes to potential competitors.
The Rules
There are quite a lot of platform terms and rules—it’s a huge, lengthy agreement. I’ll just focus on the main ones that stood out to me.
No unauthorized people on camera. If there’s anyone else in the frame, their ID must be fully verified on the site—no exceptions. No pets on camera either; even paperwork won’t help you there, it’s just a strict no (unlike Twitch). No violence or blood, even if it’s staged. No hardcore fetishes like copro or pissing. Promoting competing platforms (as I mentioned earlier)—or really advertising anything at all—is strictly prohibited. And of course, making arrangements to meet up in real life is a huge forbidden topic. I’ll cover this in more detail below, but it’s a crucial point because a lot of people mistakenly think webcamming is just a shop window, like a red-light district.
Hate, Toxicity, and the Social Side of Things
As I see it, any kind of public online activity comes with its fair share of hate and toxicity, simply because it’s impossible to please everyone. Plus, you can’t ignore the trolls who just get a kick out of intentionally bullying people. In the adult industry, there’s even more of it because it’s so much easier to find the exact sore spots and buzzwords that will get under someone’s skin. That said, I run my social media targeting a Western audience, and over there you’re way more likely to encounter support or genuine interest rather than hate.
That reminds me of a story: this guy from my past (we were never even together, I actually turned him down) decided to message my sister after seeing what I do for a living. She had known about it for a long time by then (plus, like I mentioned in my last post, I got leaked almost immediately). Honestly, what does he even care about my life? The guy’s been married for ages and has a kid, judging by his social media photos—he should be focusing on his family instead of giving me life advice and notifying my relatives about my job. We talked probably over ten years ago.
And of course, he claimed he didn’t find me himself—that a friend showed him. Right, sure, a friend—who else could it possibly be? Definitely not him sitting there choking the chicken and stumbling across me on the platform. Except how on earth would his friend know I was an old acquaintance of his, or what I even look like, considering I don’t know any of his friends? I get that there are people out there who just want to ruin your life, and sometimes they turn out to be people you know.
And here’s another funny story: the landlord of the apartment I was renting at the time actually hit on me after accidentally finding out that I do webcamming. Classic situation here too—a wife and a toddler, whom he actually brought along once to collect the rent money. At first, everything was quiet, and he acted like a complete gentleman. But after he found out what I did for work, he texted me crude stuff a few times about how much I turn him on and how he wanted to come over to «drink tea» with me. Look, I get it—it’s one thing when married people sit online needing an outlet, but this was taking it way too far, in my opinion.
After I moved out, he even called and tried to blackmail me, claiming I had spilled Coca-Cola (which I don’t even drink) behind the couch, and begged me to come back around 9 PM to clean it all up. But we had thoroughly inspected the apartment before I handed over the keys, and everything was perfectly fine. So I warned him that I had saved every single text conversation, and I promptly told him where to shove it. By the way, it really is best to screenshot messages like that—you never know when you’ll need them.
A few more words on the social aspects. People have asked me—and honestly, I’m not the only one who gets asked this—»What if you have kids? What are you going to tell them, and how will they be treated at school?» Personally, I don’t plan on having children at all, but even if I imagine having them, my response would be this: it all boils down to how you raise the child and how you explain your line of work to them. As for potential bullying at school, nobody is really safe from that anyway; it all depends on the specific school and environment the child ends up in, as well as their friends and teachers. Back in our day, you could get bullied over wearing the wrong jeans, having the wrong haircut, or just having bad taste in music. These days, I feel like kids have become much more open-minded and progressive. And that trend is only accelerating. If I had kids, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
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