Updated
What if you didn't have to scroll through hundreds of teachers to find one?
italki shows you everyone. Cambiyo only shows you speakers who are online right now. Big difference.
Cambiyo launches 1 July 2026. No booking. Free waitlist.
You are scrolling through italki teachers again. You have been at it for fifteen minutes. There are 800 of them. You read three profiles, watched two intro videos, and you still cannot decide.
You like one but their next free slot is Friday at 6pm. You like another but they are $25 an hour and you are not sure they are worth it. There is a third who looks fine but has only twelve reviews. The fourth and fifth are good but their schedules don't match yours.
So you give up for tonight. You promise yourself you will book one tomorrow. Sometimes you do. Often you don't.
This is the italki problem. It is not that the teachers are bad. Many are excellent. It is that there are too many to choose from, and you can't really tell who is good for you until you have already paid for an hour of their time. The platform's strength (huge choice) is also what makes it hard to use.
There are two specific things that turn it into work:
One: information overload. Hundreds of teachers, each with a profile, a video, a price, an availability calendar, a list of specialities. You become an expert in choosing between teachers when what you wanted was to practise English. The hours you spend deciding are hours you don't spend talking.
Two: the booking calendar. Your favourite teacher's next slot is Friday at 6pm. It is Tuesday. You wanted to practise tonight. You can probably find someone with tonight free, but the ones with tonight free are the ones you have already tried and didn't click with. So you book Friday and tell yourself you will fit tonight's practice in somewhere else this week.
You won't. Friday will arrive, the slot will clash with something, and the practice rhythm you wanted to build will skip another beat.
It is not italki's fault. The booking-ahead model works for tutoring. Teachers need predictable schedules. Most students want lessons in fixed time blocks. The whole industry is built like this (Preply, Cambly, italki) because for structured lessons it makes sense.
The thing is, you don't always want a structured lesson. Sometimes you want twenty minutes of real conversation, now, with someone who happens to be online. The booking model can't give you that, and it was never trying to.
This is the gap. There are great tutoring platforms. There are average free language exchange apps. There is nothing in between. Or there wasn't.
You don't need to leave italki behind. Keep your favourite teacher. Keep the structured lessons that are working for you. What you need is a different tool for the times the booking model fails, and a way to find someone good without scrolling for half an hour.
That is what we are building.
What we’re building
Cambiyo
You open the app. You see who is online right now. That's it. Not 800 teachers. Just the ones who are live this minute, ready to talk.
You filter by accent: English, American, Scottish, Australian, Irish. You see ratings, prices, and a short profile. You pick someone. You start talking. Most decisions take under a minute.
Speakers set their own prices, starting from $5 an hour, the same kind of pricing you are used to from italki. The difference is that everything you see on Cambiyo is available right now. There is no calendar. There is no booking. There is a short list of speakers who are live, sorted by whatever matters to you: accent, rating, price.
Pay only for the time you spend talking. No package to buy. Nothing to reschedule.
Every speaker is checked before they go live. They send a video selfie. We check their face, accent, and country. Anyone fake doesn't get on the platform. Anyone who behaves badly later gets a warning, then removed.
Speakers are not certified teachers. That is the trade-off. If you specifically want a credentialed tutor with a structured plan, italki's tutors are better suited and you should keep using them. Cambiyo speakers are real people fluent in English (students, freelancers, retirees) paid by the hour to have conversations. They are the right tool for the times you want practice without the planning.
What practice looks like
It's a Tuesday at 9pm. You suddenly have a free hour you weren't expecting. Your italki teacher's next slot is Friday. You open Cambiyo. Sarah is online. You spend 45 minutes talking. The hour you had got used for English practice, which is what you wanted.
It's the morning before a meeting with international clients. You would love a 20-minute warm-up. Booking a tutor for 20 minutes feels weird and most platforms don't let you. Jake is online. You spend 15 minutes chatting about something unrelated. You walk into the meeting warmed up.
It's a Saturday morning. You have already had your italki lesson for the week. You don't need another lesson, you just want to keep your English warm. Claire is online. You talk about a film for twenty minutes. It was not a lesson, but it counted, and your italki teacher's plan didn't have to flex around it.
The clients are happy with the meeting. The next call doesn't catch you off guard. You stop being held back by something you can fix.