Review: Textbroker.com

If you have a basic grasp of the English language, can write reasonably well and are good at internet research, you can earn a few bucks on the side by writing articles for Textbroker. I love writing online when I am bored at work, because once I select an article to write, I can compose it in Microsoft Outlook and not make anyone suspicious of what I am doing.

What is Textbroker?

No way to sugar coat it: Textbroker is a an online content mill. The site employs a large number of authors who write articles for clients, generally website or blog owners. Articles are submitted and approved via the Textbroker website.

How Does It Work?

Interested authors can sign up at textbroker.com. In addition to providing basic information, you will have to submit a sample of your writing. Textbroker then rates the sample and assigns you an initial author rating between 2 stars (the worst) and 5 stars (the best).

Once you are signed up and accepted, you can begin writing orders for clients. There are three types of orders: OpenOrder, TeamOrder and DirectOrder.

If you are a new author, you will only have OpenOrders available. These are orders that are available to any author that meets the rating criteria set by the client. You can search orders by rating and by category. However, I find that the easiest way to search is by choosing today’s date and searching for all articles requested today. This way, you avoid some of the junky or hard-to-write articles that everyone has passed by. Good article topics will usually get snapped up within an hour or two. One kind of annoying thing is that you can only claim one article at a time. So be sure it’s something you really want to write.

If clients really like you, they can offer you DirectOrders. These are orders that are only available to you. You can accept or reject them as you please, and you can also set your own pay rate. I usually make this rate a bit higher than my pay-off for OpenOrders. If you write quality articles, you’ll be surprised how quickly clients contact you for DirectOrders. There are a lot of crappy writers at content mills, so they are happy to pay a bit more to ensure they don’t have to do a bunch of editing. You can also try to acquire clients by sending them personal messages through Textbroker, but I’ve found that this is not very effective if you are hoping for a higher rate.

TeamOrders are orders that are available to a specific team of writers. Teams are generally a collection of experts on a particular subject, for example web hosting, copywriters or legal bloggers. Each team has its own pay rate, and some can be very lucrative. You can apply for a team on the TeamOrders tab, and you will generally have to submit a writing sample for approval. I haven’t had much luck getting on any teams, but I haven’t spent much time in this area of the site.

Proofreading is one additional way to earn on Textbroker. In order to become a proofreader, you must have at least a 4 star rating and pass an editing test. The test is pretty difficult, and a lot of people do not pass. I wouldn’t worry too much about it if you can’t get approved as a proofreader, because there aren’t usually any assignments available to claim anyway.

What Can I Earn?

Authors are paid per word based on a rating. 2 star authors receive 0.7 cents per word, 3 star authors get 1.0 cents per word, 4 star authors get 1.4 cents per word, and 5 star authors get 5.0 cents per word.  Articles are usually anywhere from 250-500 words, so a 4 star author would get $7.00 for a 500-word article.

How Do I Get Paid?

Once you submit an article, the client has the ability to accept it or send it back for edits. If the client doesn’t make a decision within three days, the article is automatically accepted. I can’t speak for everyone, but I have had only a handful of articles come back for revisions, and the edits have been very quick and easy. As soon as the article is accepted, payment is sent to your Textbroker Pay-Off account.

Once the balance in your Pay-Out account is above $10, you can request money to be transferred directly to a PayPal account. Payments are made every Friday.

How Can I Improve My Rating?

Each article you write is rated by Textbroker and sometimes by the client. Your rating is calculated by averaging the Textbroker rating of your last five articles. So long story short, you have to write better articles in order to improve your rating. It is not too difficult to get a 4 star rating as long as your articles are reasonably well-written. However, it is nearly impossible to achieve a 5 star rating. My guess is that most 5 star authors are not working for Textbroker.

Overall Review of Textbroker

Textbroker: Pros

I like that Textbroker provides me with a super simple way to pass some time and earn some cash on the side. The interface is very simple, and I’ve never had any problem clients (knock on wood). Payouts are consistent, and I always know exactly what I’ll be paid when I accept an article.

Textbroker: Cons

Let’s be honest, you aren’t getting much pay for your work at Textbroker. Since I’m already getting paid at my full-time job, this doesn’t bother me too much. But it’s not something that I can do all day every day. In addition, some of the orders available are really crappy and difficult to write. It can take some time to sift through everything to find something you actually want to write.

Overall Rating: 4 of 5 stars

An easy way to kill a good chunk of time and get paid to do it. Not going to become rich here, but a reasonable source of slush fund money.

Want to sign up for Textbroker? Click here.