Updated
Top up your pension by talking to the world.
A flexible bit of income in retirement, with no heavy lifting and no fixed hours. If you speak English, people across the world will pay to practise with you.
Nattive launches 1 July 2026. Free to join. No card.
In retirement, one of the easiest ways to earn is getting paid to talk. People learning English pay to practise speaking with a fluent, patient speaker, and a calm retiree is often exactly who they hope to find. You set your own hours, log in when you like, and get paid weekly into your bank.
Your patience is the thing they are paying for.
Many learners want a calm, unhurried speaker with time for them. Being further along in life is an advantage here, not a drawback.
Entirely on your own schedule.
A couple of mornings a week, the odd afternoon, whatever suits you. No shift to turn up for and nothing physical about it.
A top-up that lands every week.
Set your own rate, keep most of it, and get paid through Stripe, straight into your bank account.
Earning in retirement, without the usual downsides
A bit of extra income is welcome, but most of the options come with a catch that makes them not worth the bother. Here is how the usual ones stack up.
Part-time retail or supermarket work
Steady, but it means hours on your feet, a fixed shift to turn up for, and physical tiredness you can do without.
Consulting in your old field
Can pay well if the demand is there. It can also quietly pull you back into the deadlines and stress you were glad to leave behind.
Renting out a room
Real income, but it puts a stranger in your home and brings a surprising amount of admin and upkeep with it.
Just drawing down savings
Perfectly fine, but watching the balance only ever go down has a way of nagging at you.
What suits retirement is flexible, sociable, easy on the body, and topping things up rather than taking over your week.
Talking to people fits all of that, and you have decades of practice.
What we’re building
Nattive
Nattive pays you to talk in English with people who are learning it. You are not teaching and you are not a tutor. You are having a conversation, and you are paid for the time you spend on it.
You set your own rate and log in entirely on your own schedule. A couple of mornings a week, the odd afternoon, whatever suits you. There is no shift to turn up for and nothing physical about it.
Many learners specifically hope for an older, patient speaker who is not in a rush, so being further along in life is an advantage here, not a drawback. You build a rating from your conversations, and a good one brings you more.
You keep most of what you charge, and payouts land weekly through Stripe, into your bank account.
What it looks like in a week
Tuesday morning, after the crossword, you log in and spend an hour talking to someone in Japan about their garden. The time passes easily, you have met someone new, and you have earned a little doing it.
A grey afternoon when you would otherwise be at a loose end, you log in for forty minutes. The conversation is good company as much as it is work.
A week you are away visiting family, you do not log in at all. Nothing to cancel, nobody to tell.
A bit of money, a sharper mind, and a window onto the rest of the world, all from your own armchair.