Most “best cam site” rankings are ordered by which platform pays the publisher the most. This page sets out how the numbers on this site are produced instead — including, importantly, where they come from when we haven’t used a platform ourselves. In short: four platforms we hold accounts on and pay on ourselves, everything else compared from public pages, private-show rates read off the rooms rather than a rate card, and a date on every figure.
What we used first-hand
Four platforms: Stripchat, Chaturbate and CamSoda — accounts we opened and paid on ourselves — and Jerkmate, where we opened an account on 16 September 2026 but have not bought a private show. So per-minute prices there come from public pages, not from our own bills. We use them the same way, so that they can be compared against each other rather than described in isolation. Stripchat we have kept using the longest, so the detail on that platform runs deeper than on the others. Anything on this site about their interface, search, room quality, mobile behaviour and day-to-day use comes from that use.
What we compared from public data
Everything else — LiveJasmin, MyFreeCams, Streamate, SkyPrivate, the random-chat sites and the AI apps, unless a page says otherwise — is compared from public data: checkout pages, help centres and published policies. Checked on the dates shown in each article, plus aggregated user reports from review platforms and forum threads. We label this on every page where it applies, in the words “not one of the platforms we’ve used first-hand”.
AI companion apps are a different kind of product, and how we check AI tools covers cancellation, refunds and account deletion as well as price.
We do not describe an experience we haven’t had. If a page reads as though we sat in a room and watched a show, we did. If we only read the pricing page, the page says so.
What we actually check
- Whether you can watch at all without an account or a card on file
- Token or credit price at every bundle size, converted to a real cost per token
- Private show cost per minute, including extras billed separately such as cam2cam
- Membership fees, and precisely what they change
- Features that genuinely differ between platforms: VR, interactive toys, apps, filters
- On the model side: revenue share, payout minimums and payout methods
How pricing is handled
Token bundles, credit packs and memberships are taken from the platform’s own pricing page or checkout, converted to a real cost per token so platforms can be compared like for like, and date-stamped on the page. Prices move with region, currency and promotion — the checkout page in front of you is always the final word, and we say so wherever we publish a number.
Private shows, tip menus and show minimums are a different case: each model sets their own per-minute rate, and it is not printed on any pricing page. Those numbers we read off the rooms themselves, publish as a range with the date and hour we took them, and never present as one figure for a whole platform.
Where we are uncertain
We separate three things and label them: facts verified from official sources, facts from secondary sources, and claims we cannot confirm. Where a platform’s official statement conflicts with what users consistently report, we show both side by side rather than quietly picking the version we prefer.
How money affects any of this
We earn a commission from the affiliate programs of the platforms we review; the current list of every program is on our affiliate disclosure page. Every affiliate link on our pages carries the rel="sponsored" attribute. That is what pays for the site. It does not decide the order of the rankings: platforms we earn nothing from are measured on the same criteria, and negative findings about Stripchat stay in the review.
Who writes this
Reviews here are published under the site’s name rather than individual bylines: the same people who hold the accounts write the pages, and they answer for them collectively. WebcamsChats is independent — it is not owned or operated by any cam platform, including the ones we earn commission from. More on that in About.
Corrections
If a figure here is wrong or has gone out of date, tell us at [email protected] and we’ll check it against the source and correct it with a new date stamp.
Methodology last reviewed: 23 September 2026.