Cam4 Review

Cam4 dials up the smut factor by promoting its wildest streams at every opportunity. 

The homepage looks like a PornHub category page -- there is zero holding back, zero pretences that we're looking for anything other than explicit sexual content.

The word 'candid' comes to mind. Many of the top Cam4 models are just ordinary men and women, sat on the sofa, whacking one out for the cameras. 

Model Selection

7

The first thing we noticed on Cam4 is that the models are extremely game and willing to broadcast highly explicit shows for free, even to small audiences.

Female Performers

Cam4 is a European cam site and while the models come from all over the world, the primary market is undoubtedly Europe. Normally if we hear that the models are from Europe, we jump to the conclusion: oh, Eastern Europe. 

Not exactly. You'll spot a lot of girls from France, Germany, Italy and the UK. 

Cam4 will automatically detect your region and attempt to serve up streams from models near you.

The content is much more sexualised compared to other free cam sites. Cam4's algorithm promotes explicit shows, so the girls are much more direct -- perhaps a consequence of the liberal Euro focus.

Male Performers

When you access Cam4, you will be asked to select girls, guys or all performers. 

If you choose 'All', it immediately becomes apparent that a huge part of the active roster is male cams. There are just as many male performers as females. The official line is 60% women, 40% men -- but it feels closer to an equal split.

Some countries we viewed only had men broadcasting. America is the dominant country for male models, followed by the UK, Colombia, France and Germany.

We noted that the males on Cam4 are even more exhibitionist than the women. Most of the male cams cut straight to guys in their bedrooms or living rooms, fully exposed and masturbating live on air.

Trans Performers

Most of the Trans shows we saw contained immediate full or partial nudity. You can access a separate Trans filter to browse through all these cams in one place.

We found between 70-100 active TS cams during peak hours.

The regional profile of TS models shifts back towards Colombia and the Philippines. USA and Italy also provide plenty of performers.

Couples

A decent selection.

Cam4 averages between 30-50 couple cams at any given time. It also has one of the most diverse mix of couples we've seen on a cam site. The breakdown between MF, FF and MM is very evenly split. And just like the solo cams, there's minimal holding back. 

One minor complaint here: the filtering system is not completely accurate -- it includes a lot of solo shows in the couples section.

Live Shows

6

We'd describe Cam4 as a freemium cam site. The majority of the action occurs in free public chat rooms, and you can watch a good deal of explicit content without paying a penny. This is how most users enjoy the site.

Free Public Shows

Raw, explicit and to the point.

The free public shows on Cam4 feel distinctly more 'porny' than other free cam sites. As if you've landed in the homemade category on PornHub. 

Most performers rely on tips from satisfied punters, and they don't hold much back. We've seen various complaints from models that it takes a lot of work to earn the same money on Cam4 as it does on other sites. 

This is surely a consequence of the default smut factor being turned up several notches.

Private Shows

Click the 'Private Shows' tab in the top navigation and we are taken to a completely different grid-style listing of performers. This interface doesn't have live thumbnails, which surely can't be helping their conversion rates.

Still, it's nice to have a clear indication of rates per minute. 1 Cam4 token works out to 16-20 cents, with the cheapest shows starting at around 6 tokens per minute (<$1.20). 

That's insanely cheap.

We put this down to the sheer amount of raw explicit content that Cam4 surfaces for free. Users are less incentivised to pay for private shows, and those that do will generally pay less than on other freemium platforms.

Group Shows

Models can run group shows where you will have to pay a fixed fee for entry. These are even cheaper than the private shows, often as low as $5 for a 60-minute group show.

Voyeur Shows

Cam4 documents a process where models can enable Spy Mode on their streams, letting users drop in to watch private shows for as little as 3 tokens per minute (<$0.60).

In practice, we haven't seen any instances of this option being available on the site.

Stream Quality

6

One thing that immediately stood out to us was the "HD Cams" option in Cam4's header. 

This is not actually a category on Cam4, but rather an external link to LiveJasmin. 

What does it say about Cam4's view of their stream quality that they'd be willing to send the most discerning 'premium' customers to a different platform?

Ironically, there's nothing wrong with the technical streaming options on Cam4. We found streams running at 1080p with bitrates comfortably above 5 MB/s. Support exists for both 30 and 60 FPS. 

Clearly, the platform is capable of delivering excellent live streams. The issue is that their average model does not have the tech setup to take full advantage of the available options.

Site Design

8

Cam4 has a simple but effective layout. The shows are presented in a flexible grid with a dynamic thumbnail pulled from the current show. When you hover over a thumbnail, it reverts to a live feed.

Some sites opt for static thumbnails, or worse - portfolio shots. We much prefer Cam4's approach.

If we look at the filtering options, you have a 'Filters' tab on the left hand side. Tap this and we find the options below:

A couple of small complaints here. Firstly, the Country and Language dropdown are ordered A-Z, meaning the lists start with Albania and Afrikaans -- instead of something more user-friendly, like United States and English.

We'd also like to see a number count so that we can preview how many shows are available, particularly when searching by country. Many countries return zero results.

Live Chat Interface

Chatting on the web version of Cam4 is a smooth experience. You've got a simple 60/40 vertical split. The performance on the left, a large chat window on the right. If we're being picky, the chat window seems unnecessarily large for the relatively sedate pace of the chat. 

(This site doesn't attract the Yellow Walls of Tips that you'll find on a fast-moving site like Chaturbate or MFC.)

At the bottom of the stream you'll find a simple tip and gifting interface:

Scroll down further and Cam4 does a good job of integrating custom clips and personalised content that the model has on sale. Finally you have the bio, awards, gifts and tags. 

We're deducting a couple of points for the presence of banner and pop-up adverts. They are fairly non-intrusive, but you can disable them by purchasing the Cam4 GOLD Membership at $19.99 per month. 

Mobile UX

5

The Cam4 mobile experience is patchy. 

It's clear that the interface has been designed with a desktop-first mentality. 

Take the unusually large chat screen, for example. On desktop, this is just a minor design quirk. But in mobile, the chat window takes up an excessively large part of the screen real-estate.

Other platforms do a much better job of focusing on the live video.

We also noted that if you switch your screen horizontally, the interface freezes and glitches. You have to switch back vertically to interact with the show.

Likewise, the banner and pop-up ads aren't particularly intrusive on a laptop, but they're much more annoying on a mobile phone.

Cam4 would benefit from a new mobile-first design where the live action is given priority.

Extra Features

5

Cam4 has some basic extra features, most of which we've seen implemented on rival sites.

Gold Membership Program

Cam4 offers a Gold membership program at $19.99 per month. 

The main highlights include ad-free browsing, unlimited private messaging, automated chat translations (very useful with the global distribution of models) and various token drops.

Interactive Toys

Cam4 models with tip-activated sex toys can be found in the Live Touch category. 

We were surprised by the lack of shows available here. Just 20-30 streams available - even during peak hours in Europe. Sex toy tipping is much less of a focus on Cam4 than on rival freemium sites.

Gifting vs. Tipping

Cam4 uses a novel gifting system where you can send virtual gifts instead of tips. These have a redeemable token value, so it's effectively the same as tipping, but with an additional 'trophy'. 

Gotta love that dopamine hit.

Models can showcase gifts on their profile pages, and will often use them to encourage dedicated 'super-fans' to compete with each other. 

Who can be the most generous? Disclaimer: it won't be us!

VR Cams Returning Soon?

Cam4 was a pioneer in the virtual reality space. 

Eli Darling, AKA 'Porn Queen', launched one of the very first VR cam shows on the platform back in 2016.

Since then, Cam4's VR cams have disappeared and are no longer listed on the site. However, there is still a VR landing page which promises 'new VR experiences coming soon'.

It's been there for a while, though. Don't get your hopes up.

Action-to-Spend

10

Cam4 gets a perfect ten in our coveted action-to-spend ratio.

Firstly, the free public shows - you're not going to find many cam sites serving up this much explicit action for free. We can debate whether it would be nice to have a bit more variety in terms of virtual-GFE style cams, or higher-end production. But for sexual content, Cam4 is a goldmine. 

Then we look at the private shows. Models can price these as they see fit. Here's a rough breakdown of the private show price distribution from our visits:

• 18 tokens ($3.60 per minute) -- 40%
• 12 tokens ($2.40 per minute) -- 20%
• 40 tokens ($8 per minute) -- 10%
• 6 tokens ( $1.20 per minute) -- <10%
• All other price points -- 20%

While a few models will charge what we'd consider to be 'premium rates', the vast majority charge below the industry standard. The Group Shows (if you can find any) are even better value. 

On all levels, Cam4 offers a ton of action for those on low-to-no budgets.

Payment Options

6

Cam4 uses a token credit system that could probably be simplified. 

How much a token is worth depends on how many you purchased. Discounts of up to 20% are available for bulk buys, which is on par with other freemium sites:

• 50 tokens: $9.95 ($0.20 token value)
• 100 tokens: $18.99
• 250 tokens: $44.95
• 500 tokens: $84.95
• 1,000 tokens: $159.99 ($0.16 token value)

We'd prefer the base token value was worth $0.10 instead of $0.20. It would make calculating the true cost of shows so much easier. Cam4 is dirt cheap, anyway, so why not flaunt it?

The site has four payment options available:

• Debit cards
• Credit cards
• PayPal
• paysafecard

PayPal transactions are around 10% more expensive. You only get 45 tokens (instead of 50) for the $9.95 package.

We placed several test transactions with Cam4 and none of them were traceable back to a cam site. Billing is fully discreet.

There is no clear refund policy, except for a guarantee that if a model abandons a private show for more than 5 minutes, you're entitled to a refund. 

CamsRank on Cam4

It's hard to compare Cam4 to other freemium cam sites. It just feels different. 

Dare we say... a little bit budget?

Much of that can be put down to the raw, gritty, homemade nature of the streams.

If we compare the top models on Cam4 to those on Chaturbate or MyFreeCams, you can really see the difference in production values and 'mood setting'.

Cam4 is more of a hardcore free-for-all: ordinary guys and girls, with no filter, cutting straight to the sex. It somehow manages to feel less staged and more like a porn site.