Cam site glossary: every term, in plain English

The terms

Token

The site currency. Bought in bundles at roughly $0.08–0.12 each, cheaper per token the more you buy at once. Everything paid is priced in these.

Tip

Tokens sent to a performer in a public room. Visible to everyone present. Entirely optional, and what keeps the free room free.

Tip goal

A shared target — a progress bar — that unlocks something when the room collectively reaches it. The most effective conversion device in the industry, because a bar at 80% pulls much harder than one at 10%.

Tip menu

A price list of specific actions, posted in the room or the bio. The clearest and least awkward way to spend anything: fixed prices, no negotiation.

PVT / Private

A one-to-one show billed per minute at a rate the performer sets and shows before you start. Where most money goes and most regret happens.

C2C / Cam2cam

Turning your own camera on during a private so the performer can see you. Always opt-in, usually carries a surcharge, and never a requirement.

Spy / Spy show

Watching someone else’s private at a reduced rate. You see and hear it; you cannot interact and the performer does not know you are there.

Group show

A show several viewers pay into at once, the cost split between them. The cheapest paid tier by a distance.

Ticketed show

Like a group show but with a fixed entry price paid up front and an announced start time. Costs the same however long it runs.

Lovense / interactive toy

A device that responds to tips, at published token amounts. Tip the listed number, the device reacts. Prices are usually in the tip menu.

Whitelist / blacklist

Region blocking. A performer can hide their room from specific countries — usually their own — which is a privacy measure, not a slight.

Knight / king / top tipper

Leaderboard titles for the biggest tippers in a room or period. Cosmetic, sometimes attached to small perks.

Fan club

A monthly subscription to a performer for media and perks. Reasonable value if you watch someone weekly, poor if you do not.

Studio

A company that employs performers, provides equipment and a room, and takes a share of earnings. Studio rooms tend to be better lit and more reliably scheduled.

Independent

A performer broadcasting for themselves from their own setup. More variable in production, more often conversational.

Goal / countdown

A numeric target displayed in the room title, counting down as tips arrive. Same mechanic as a tip goal, shown differently.

Away / BRB

The stream is live but the performer has stepped out. Common, and one reason the "models online" count overstates what is actually happening.

Guest

An unregistered viewer. Can watch everything, usually cannot type — most rooms mute guests to control spam.

Mods

Volunteer moderators appointed by the performer to manage chat. They can mute and ban. They are not staff and are not paid.

2257

The US record-keeping law requiring platforms to verify and retain proof of performers’ age. A published 2257 statement is one of the reliable markers of a legitimate operator.

Category labels are a separate vocabulary

Beyond the mechanics, platforms carry a pile of category tags that overlap, contradict each other, and mostly exist because people type them into the search box. They are search conventions, not a taxonomy.

The one worth flagging, because it confuses newcomers more than any other, is the trans section: trans, transgender, tgirl, shemale and ladyboy are largely interchangeable filters that surface substantially the same rooms, and which one a platform leads with usually says more about when the site was built than about who is streaming. If that is what brought you here, the tags are explained properly here. Everything else on this page applies identically to every category.

The three terms worth understanding properly

Most of the list above is vocabulary. Three of them are decisions, and they are where money is actually at stake.

Token. Not a real currency, and deliberately abstracted from one. Pick a conversion figure — $0.10 is close enough for most bundles — and apply it every time you see a price. Doing that consistently is the single most useful habit available to a beginner.

Private / PVT. The per-minute meter. It is the largest source of unintended spending in camming, not because it is hidden but because per-minute rates sound small and hours do not. Convert before you start, never during.

Tip goal. Worth recognising as a designed mechanic. Nothing about it is dishonest — the bar is right there — but it is engineered to feel most urgent when it is nearly complete, and knowing that lets you notice the pull and then decide, rather than just react.

Frequently asked

What does PVT mean on a cam site?

Private show — a one-to-one session billed by the minute at a rate the performer sets. "In PVT" in a room title means they are currently in one with somebody else, and depending on the platform you may be able to watch that as a spy show at a reduced rate.

What is a tip goal?

A shared target the room tips toward together, shown as a progress bar, which unlocks something when it is reached. It is the most effective conversion mechanic in camming, and knowing it is engineered rather than spontaneous changes how it feels without spoiling anything.

What does c2c mean?

Cam2cam: turning your own camera on during a private show so the performer can see you as well. It is opt-in on every legitimate platform, usually costs extra on top of the private rate, and is never a condition of anything, whatever a chat message says.

How much is a token worth?

Roughly $0.08 to $0.12, depending on bundle size — larger bundles cost less per token. Keeping one figure in your head makes every price in a room instantly legible: at $0.10, a 30-token tip is $3 and a 30-token-per-minute private is $3 a minute.

What is the difference between a group show and a ticketed show?

A ticketed show has a fixed entry price paid up front and costs the same however long it runs. A group show is usually a per-minute rate split live across whoever is in it, so it gets cheaper as more people join and stops billing when you leave. Platforms use the terms loosely, so read the room rather than the label.

Do I need to know any of this to watch?

No. Watching a public room requires no account, no card and no vocabulary. The terms here matter once you want to take part in chat or understand what is being offered — which is exactly when people get confused, which is why this page exists.