XCams Review

XCams differentiates from other European cam platforms by showcasing mostly Western European models. 

It's out with the Romanians, Ukrainians and Russians. In with the French, Italian and Spanish.

It's a brave decision when you consider how much bigger the site could be if it pursued Eastern European hotspots (like its rivals LiveJasmin and Streamate).

While XCams benefits from a tightly focused roster of continental models, this is also its limiting factor. We could only recommend the platform as a "top choice" for a very small sub-section of users. Most notably, guys who like their women to speak Spanish...

Model Selection

5

XCams is a respectably sized cam site. But with 300-450 shows live during peak operating hours, you've got much less choice here.

It's not the worst news in the world. 

We've seen plenty of 'boutique' cam sites deliver big value from small model counts. However, it's immediately obvious that this is no Cam4 or Bonga Cams in terms of Euro-domination.

Female Performers

XCams focuses on female models. There is no option to watch men.

It's immediately clear where XCams sees its value since the second filter option (below gender) is language-spoken.

From the models we saw:

• 90% speak English
• 60% speak French
• 60% speak Spanish
• 25% speak Dutch
• 20% speak Italian
• 20% speak German

Clearly, those numbers don't add up. There's a whole lot of multilingualism on XCams. Some of the women we chatted with spoke five different languages!

The site has recently adjusted its filtering to include a new 'Speaks Well' filter, which sounds the same as a language selector but has very different results in practice. 

For example, while 90% of the models speak English, only 43 of 221 models online (during our last visit) spoke it well enough to attain the 'Speaks Well' filter. Spanish is actually the dominant and 'best spoken' language on XCams.

The remaining filters are kinda funny in their execution:

"What's it going to be today, sir? Small, medium or big tits?"

XCams puts a lot of emphasis on body shape, but none at all on the type of sexual content available.

Some model previews suggest there are 'mistresses', but XCams has zero fetish filtering options.

Just over 10% of XCams models are in the 41+ age demographic.

The site does a good job of ensuring its mature models are truly mature -- not simply young moms in their twenties (like many freemium sites).

Most of the mature models we found were based in France or Spain. There is a separate category for 26-40 year olds, around 30% of the total roster, which contains some attractive European MILFs. 

More recently, the site appears to have doubled down on the traditional recruitment of Latina models (often from Colombia). This has inflated the Spanish-speaking numbers considerably since we last reviewed the site.

Male Performers

Men are allowed to appear on XCams, but only as part of a MF show. There are no gay cams available.

If we look at the broader recruitment policy of XModels, it's clear that there is no intention of catering to this market anytime soon.

Trans Performers

XCams has a Trans section, but it's sparsely populated. During our visits, just 15-20 models were available.

An even smaller percentage of these models (2-3) had free streams available; the rest were private only. 

We can imagine there's a market for non-English speaking TS performers, but there's simply not enough coverage for us to recommend XCams as a viable choice.

Couples

XCams lets you filter by 'Girl & Boy' or 'Girl & Girl' but these streams represent less than 2% of the total shows available. It's more of a token gesture than a go-to feature.

Incidentally, the only time you will see guys performing on XCams is on the rare occasion you stumble into a live Girl & Boy show.

Live Shows

6

XCams follows the premium cam site formula of limited free shows that serve mostly to promote private shows.

Public Free Shows

Free chat mode is available in around 50% of XCams streams, but it is used almost exclusively to attract private customers. Hardly any explicit action is given away for free.

We trawled through the entire catalog of live free shows and didn't find any explicit material that would qualify XCams as a truly 'freemium' site. Most free cams involve the model flirting, posing or chatting -- waiting for her next private show to begin.

The navigation has a filter for Top, New Free and InShow. 

Most of the shows in the 'Top' category were only accessible to paying customers.

Private Shows

This is the engine that drives the XCams business model.

Standard private shows are broken into three tiers:

• 5 credits per min ($0.95)
• 7 credits per min ($1.33)
• 10 credits per min ($1.90)

This is extremely cheap compared to other premium cam sites.

One weird quirk of XCam private shows is that multiple users can chat with the model at the same time, putting it more on par with a Group Show. You have to upgrade to a VIP Show if you want her full undivided attention.

VIP Shows

These typically cost 20 credits ($3.80 per minute). 

VIP shows ensure that the model is only chatting with you. Cam2Cam is available if the model has it turned on.

Voyeur Shows

Voyeur shows are often priced the same as private shows, which... kinda defeats the purpose?

It seems that models have some control over how much you pay to watch somebody else's private show, but many of the models charge exactly the same - whether you are watching (with no interaction allowed), or an active participant.

Stream Quality

7

XCams has an HD filter that allows you to narrow your focus to only those models broadcasting at higher resolutions.

It wasn't immediately apparent what XCams defines as "HD". As a rough guess, we'd say that over 60% of the models were streaming in 720p-1080p. To the naked eye, the quality is decent.

Bitrates clocked in at 2.5-4 Mb/s. 

You cannot downgrade the stream to 480p or 360p if you have a patchy Internet connection. This is normally more of an issue on cam sites that attract an international crowd, but it's a strange omission. 

We're guessing most of the European clientele will be OK with the current setup. 

Streaming quality overall is above average.

Site Design

7

The XCams interface is clean and simple yet it lacks many of the basic filtering options that we're accustomed to with premium cam sites.

Noticeably, there is no way to filter types of shows.

The sidebar allows only basic targeting of physical attributes:

If we compare this to sites like LiveJasmin, Streamate and Flirt4Free, all of those platforms do a much better job of surfacing genre-specific sex shows.

Whenever you tick an option on the XCams sidebar, it assumes that you are narrowing down your selection rather than skipping between categories. So you effectively have to deselect a category before you explore a new one. 

Minor point, but it caught us out on several occasions.

XCams uses portfolio shots instead of live thumbnails, which makes sense given that most of the models are just sitting in front of their cameras, waiting to attract private clients. Normally, we'd expect to be able to hover over the thumbnail and preview what's happening inside the room, but XCams simply serves up an additional photo from the model's gallery. Not ideal.

The Live Chat Screen

XCams isn't wasting any screen real estate when you enter a live chat room. The view immediately switches to full screen, which is great when the model is broadcasting in HD.

The chat window is a self-contained popup in the bottom right portion of the screen. 

It would never work on Chaturbate or MyFreeCams -- their chat rooms are far too busy. Here it's a sensible ploy to let the model take center stage.

Mobile UX

8

The XCams mobile homepage is similar to the desktop version. It uses an infinity scroll to stack live shows in two separate columns.

A simple mobile dropdown menu reveals the same filtering options.

Head into a chat room, and the screen is once again fully devoted to the video feed. 

Many cam sites botch their mobile interface by dedicating too much real estate to the chat window. XCams takes a minimalist approach. New messages are displayed as tiny grey overlays with the stream taking precedence. It looks great.

You can turn your phone sideways and the stream adapts flawlessly. In vertical mode, you can touch and drag the view if the model is not centered.

Extra Features

5

XCams isn't trying to reinvent the wheel. 

We didn't spot too many unique features that you can't find on other cam sites.

A few things we noted:

Foreign Language Models

It's not so much a feature as a consequence of their model recruitment. XCams boasts a huge number of bilingual or multilingual cam girls. You can use the new 'Speaks Well' filter to find girls who are fluent in your language.

As you can see below, Spanish speakers will have the smoothest experience on the site:

Basic Sex Toy Interaction

Around 30% of the models on XCams have an interactive toy enabled.

Unlike freemium sites, where you can tip according to the intensity and length of the activation, XCams restricts you to a single option: 5 credits for 10 seconds, which works out to about $1 per activation. 

We've seen worse value, but the restrictions seem unnecessary.

WhatsApp Integrations

XCams gives its performers a dedicated WhatsApp number that works like an extended content delivery system. You can subscribe to a model's feed and receive videos or images for free.

If you want to reply to these messages, it will cost you 1 credit ($0.19). 

A smart use of push notifications to bring users back to the site.

Virtual Gifts

Designed as a 'fun alternative' to tipping, you can give virtual gifts to your favorite models.

Each gift has a corresponding credit value, so it is still essentially a tip, but the model can show them off in her profile, potentially coaxing yet more tips out of her biggest fans.

Action-to-Spend

5

When we talk about our Action-to-Spend ratio, we're referring to the amount of action you can watch on the site without a) reaching for your wallet and/or b) breaking the bank once you've reached for it.

You won't see any decent action in the free chat rooms. Those on XCams are a far cry from the wild public chat rooms on freemium sites.

Private shows are very reasonably priced: $0.95 – $1.90 per minute for standard private shows or $1.90 - $3.80 for exclusive one-to-one shows.

Experienced cam site users will be aware that Group Shows are often the best value deal for paying customers. Pay a single fee to watch the entire show. Sadly, XCams doesn't have them.

Payment Options

4

XCams's payment system is confusing. The value of your tokens varies depending on how many you bought, which payment method you used and which currency you paid in.

On the plus side, there are plenty of payment options to choose from:

• Credit cards
• Debit cards
• paysafecard
• Neosurf
• Crypto
• Mobile payments
• PayPal

Here's an example of how the true credit value differs:

By card:

• 78 credits - $14.99 ($0.19 per credit)
• 155 credits - $29.99 ($0.19 per credit)
• 320 credits - $59.99 ($0.19 per credit)

By crypto:

• 53 credits - $14.99 ($0.28 per credit)
• 110 credits - $29.99 ($0.27 per credit)
• 235 credits - $59.99 ($0.26 per credit)
• 495 credits - $119.99 ($0.24 per credit)
• 1080 credits - $249.99 ($0.23 per credit)

This is a huge discrepancy for anybody who wishes to pay with crypto (or any of the non-card options).

European customers get a much better deal paying in Euros with around 25% more credits for the equivalent spend of a US customer.

The choice of packages is... plain weird.

When paying by card, we'd expect to see a larger package with a much bigger discount. The credits you get for your money are so random in their denomination that they feel purposefully obtuse.

We put through a couple of card transactions and we can report that billing is fully discreet.

CamsRank on XCams

It's hard to know how to judge XCams when the enjoyment depends on whether you are one of their target customers— somebody who wants to talk to European models in his native language.

For what it's worth, those busty French MILFs are pretty hot.

If we look at the platform objectively, it falls far short of the free action you'll find on European mega-sites like Bonga Cams or Cam4. It also doesn't have the roster size of a premium platform like LiveJasmin or Streamate.

The low prices are an obvious appeal. 

If XCams persists with such a low pricing strategy, we think it should offer some more flexibility beyond the fixed token tiers of 5 cr/min, 7 cr/min and 10 cr/min.

Our biggest criticism of XCams is that many models simply don't think they can make the same amount of money here as they can on other sites. 

So they go elsewhere.