I've been thinking that I want to increase my amount of output, and just practice speaking Japanese more often.

I speak Japanese at work, but it is always about the same topics, so I don't get a lot of variety of practice. Then when I find myself hanging out with Japanese people, I can barely participate in conversations.

I thought I'd just go on iTalki and find the cheapest conversation partners possible and just book one person for one hour every weekday.

Thing is, the vast majority of teachers, even the cheapest teachers, on iTalki are charging about 2,000 yen for 60 minutes. That's 1万円 a week. 4万円 a month. A little more than I was hoping to pay.

Thing is I'm not even necessarily looking for teachers here. I'm just looking for conversation partners.

Does anyone have any recommendations for alternative platforms or alternative ideas for how to get speaking practice in?

I've got a full-time job and two kids under five so I can't really just go to a bar every night and chat up the locals or anything like that.

I also work in Japan. Is it an option to go out to lunch with your coworkers and chat casually?

Something like VR Chat might really work for you. It's basically just a digital meeting place where people go and talk to another (and no you don't need a vr set or anything). I've not used it yet, but the way I understand it, there are "lobbies" for language practice/exchange, but also just popular Japanese servers were people go to talk about movies or music and stuff.

Especially if your Japanese is good enough that a teacher isn't necessary, that might suit you and is basically free

I do the same but in Preply. I record each lesson (with tutor's permission), and during my free time if I feel like practicing my output, I would rewatch the lessons and see where I couldve said a phrase or expression better.

For more monologue/explainer type output, I use https://randomtopicgenerator.net/ and https://speechtopicgen.com/ as both of them have non-translated Japanese topic ideas.

Pay for HelloTalk and use the Voiceroom feature. It's like a public lobby people randomly make and you can hop in and chat it up. Tandem has something similar. You can also try VR Chat and join the JP worlds that have a like.. JLPT N3 questions that you need to answer to gain entry. They're really easy though.

Unfortunately that’s right about market rate. (Which is honestly pretty fair but understandably tight if you’re on a budget and paid in yen ).

A few options to consider

1. Start slow if you need to. You don’t need to talk to someone on italki 5x a week for it to be beneficial. Especially if you’re already living significant parts of your daily life in Japanese. Twice a week supplementing what you’re already doing should already have a pretty big impact.

2) If you’re in Tokyo, language exchange meetups are pretty common (but you’ll have to be willing to reciprocate with English)

3) If you enjoy drinking, finding some bars that mostly Japanese people go to (I use google maps reviews to approximate this) is an easy way to interact with a diverse set of folks. Once it’s established that you know Japanese people are usually happy to talk (at least this has been my experience)

Had many good conversation partners at Preply at around 5 euros per hour (\~900 yen).

Preply tends to have cheaper teachers in general.

r/LanguageExchange

2,000 yen per hour is pretty standard in Japan (I wouldn't pay any more than that anyway). Most people that I know, myself included, only take lessons once a week though

As someone else has said, most people would only do 1 lesson a week on italki. Another alternative is to look for your local 国際交流課/international exchange department. It's very likely they have classes available or know about classes that are available. You could also participate in many events that they hold.

It varies a lot by city, but I took an N3 class, N2 class, and an advanced conversation class in my inaka city for roughly 7k? (I don't remember) Yen, twice a week for about 3 months each. Really not bad.

Other than that I also recommend going to a local 立ち飲み or just chill bar. You could also try volunteering, etc.

Look at community tutors. It seems like you just need conversation practice.
Also some of the teachers give significant discounts on 10, 15 and 20 class packages.

Wasabi is another option.

JapaTalk :)