An easy to way to start earning money from home online is to become a paid writer as generally, you don’t need any qualifications or previous experience & there’s even the potential to earn quite a handsome income.
But the problem is that there are a LOT of companies claiming they can help writers earn extra cash… So which ones are actually legit? And which ones should you choose?
Today I’m going to be taking a look at a company named Textbroker which seems to be one, in particular, that’s generating a lot of interest. I’m going to be finding out if it’s legit, how it all works & how much you earn.
So if you’ve come across this company & you’ve been thinking about getting started with them then you can rest assured that you’ve landed in exactly the right place to find out everything you need to know before you do.
What Is Textbroker?  |  How Does Textbroker Work?  |  How Do You Get Paid?  |  Textbroker Complaints  |  Is Textbroker Legitimate?  |  A Better Alternative
What Is Textbroker?
Textbroker is a company that connects writers with companies from all around the world who are looking for content (and willing to pay for it). It was originally founded out of Germany way back in 2005 but now it has headquarters in both New York & Las Vegas too.
With over 100,000 authors & 50,000 companies registered on the website, it’s safe to say that Textbroker is one of the larger paid writing companies, and impressively it’s even been accredited by the Better Business Bureau.
So if you’re wondering if Textbroker is a scam then the answer is no, it’s not.
Though whilst admittedly you might not earn as much through Textbroker as you would if you were taking jobs directly, the benefit is that Textbroker handles everything for you so that you can literally focus solely on the writing as opposed to chasing payments.
Free Training:
How Does Textbroker Work?
The great thing about Textbroker is that unlike some of its rivals it’s entirely free to join – so upon visiting their website you can sign up for your free account & then you’ll be invited to submit a writing sample which they’ll use to determine the quality of your work.
Now here’s the important part – you only get one shot at your initial writing sample, so if you submit a poor quality piece of work the first time around then you’ll get a low score & this will mean that there will be very few jobs (if any) for you to access.
On the other hand, if you nail the writing sample then you’ll get a great score & you’ll get immediate access to a whole bunch of jobs at the higher-paying end of the scale, therefore it’s quite important to really go “over the top” on your initial sample.
The score you’ll be graded will be between 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest & 1 being the lowest. You can increase your time over time as you’ll be re-graded after every 5 articles but if you start out with a poor score it will be difficult to get jobs meaning you might not get the opportunity to re-prove yourself.
Then, after submitting your initial writing sample it becomes a bit of a waiting game as you’ll need to wait for one of the Textbroker staff to read through it & determine your score.
This verification process can actually take up to a whopping 2 weeks so you’ll need to be patient.
But once you get verified – you’re in! And from this point onward you will have the ability to browse & complete jobs as you please.
To give you an idea as to the kind of money you can earn, if you get yourself to level 3 (which over time is fairly easy to do) then you can expect around 1 cent per word which will see you getting paid around $5-$10 for an average-sized article.
It’s not life-changing by any means but I think you’ll agree that it’s not bad either. For more information on payment rates you can refer to the chart below which I’ve screenshot from their website:
Plus to earn even more money you could even consider starting a blog & publishing your own content there too, as you can then later monetize it through advertisements & affiliate marketing. You can learn more about how blogs make money by clicking here.
How Does Textbroker Pay You?
As soon as you’ve racked up $10 of earnings in your Textbroker account then you can request a payment, but be aware that Textbroker will require you to a complete a W/9 form (or the relevant tax documentation for your country) before you can even think about getting paid – regardless of the amount.
Once you’ve got all the correct documentation in place you can then request a withdrawal which will be sent to you via PayPal. If you don’t have PayPal then you’ll need to get it because like many other freelancing websites that’s the only way Textbroker will pay you. No ifs, no buts, it’s PayPal or nothing.
If for some reason you can’t get PayPal then you might want to try an alternative way to make money online instead.
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Textbroker Complaints
Whilst in my opinion Textbroker is a pretty great website, being so popular (with over 100,000 users) there are bound to be various complaints. Heck, growing a company to that size without a single complaint would be a miracle!
Rather than list each complaint individually I decided to round them up & list the main things people seem to complain about so that you can hopefully figure out whether it will be an issue for you personally as well.
Location Problems
I’m personally well aware that there are people all over the world who are more than competent at writing quality English articles, however, when it comes to Textbroker unless you specifically reside in the USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia or New Zealand you won’t be eligible to participate.
As you can imagine this has naturally sparked quite a lot of complaints but Textbroker does have solid reasoning & it’s not like they haven’t “tried” to open up to these countries in the past, just sadly it turned out not to be feasible.
Star Rating Issues
When it comes to making money through Textbroker your star rating (level 1 to 5) is literally your livelihood – if it drops you’ll get less work & earn less money, but on the other hand, if it goes up your life will get a lot easier.
Sadly a lot of people feel like they’ve been wrongly judged & that they’re in fact better writers than Textbroker has determined them to be. Unfortunately, though there’s not really a great deal that can be done about this – it’s just one of those things, but as you can imagine this has also sparked quite a lot of complaints too.
Previously though it used to be the companies themselves that would review you which I think was part of the issue, but nowadays Textbroker has done away with that (since they realized it was a problem) and they rely on their own editors to rate you instead. Hopefully, this has helped towards resolving the issue.
Is Textbroker Legitimate?
Yes, in my opinion, Textbroker is indeed a legitimate website for paid writing & if you don’t mind writing it can actually be a pretty good way to earn a modest amount of money online.
Whilst there are a few small downfalls that I mentioned above I think overall Textbroker is probably one of the best freelancing websites for paid writing out there, and their pay rates are pretty good too.
So with it being completely free to join if you haven’t yet tried it then it’s definitely worth a go, and there are no commitments meaning if you later decide it’s not for you then there’s nobody forcing you to stay.
A Better Alternative
The sad truth is that unfortunately most of the programs promising to help you make money online are scams. I can say that confidently after exposing over 500+ of them here on this blog.
But the good news is that even though most of them are indeed scams, there are actually some very good programs in amongst them - some programs that can truly help you to earn money.
And out of all of the legit programs I've seen, the one I would recommend the most to anybody looking to get started online is Commission Academy. In my own opinion, that's the best place to start.
At Commission Academy, you'll be provided with everything you need (including the training & tools) to begin earning real money by promoting products or services for companies like Amazon online.
The best part is that there's literally no limit on the amount you can earn with it & the process is pretty simple which means that it's absolutely perfect for people that don't have much experience.
Some wealthy affiliates even earn as much as 5-figures per month... Or more!
I mean don't get me wrong, that kind of money won't just fall into your lap without doing any work... But the harder you're willing to work at it, the more you stand to earn with it.
So if you're looking to get started but don't know which route you should go down or which program you should join (and don't want to waste money on bogus things that don't actually work), then I'd highly recommend checking out Commission Academy first. You can learn more about it here.