In this article, we’re examining two popular content writing services – Crowd Content and TextBroker. Both services have developed a presence in the content marketing world, and we’ll look at the quality level of both, to help you decide what custom content works best for you as a business owner.

Crowd Content Overview

First up, we have Crowd Content. Crowd Content has a streamlined business model, allowing clients to purchase content of varying types, written by expert writers. Crowd Content specializes in blog post and article content, website content, SEO content, press releases, and other content of that nature.

Crowd Content boasts an extremely simple user interface, and clients can order content in a matter of minutes. There is a one-page order form which prods clients with a few key questions about their content requirements – making sure the content matches their branding, tone, and target audience. From there, a content brief is sent to a freelance writer with the relevant expertise, who finishes the writing assignment in a matter of days. Clients are free to message the writer with revisions, touch-ups, or anything they forgot to include in the brief. While we do appreciate Crowd Content’s simplistic approach, some clients might find it too simplistic. The one-page order form doesn’t leave a lot of room for custom content requirements, or to go fully in-depth about certain content needs. Additionally, Crowd Content’s content writing procedure is very straightforward, and lacks the SEO optimization that we’ve seen with competing services.

Quality of Content

Crowd Content’s quality assurance is impressive, but not the most stringent we’ve come across. Crowd Content claims to accept under 10% of freelance writers who apply. This guarantees a certain level of quality, but it’s also far from the 1% or 2% standard we’ve seen at content services such as Compose.ly, Scripted, and Verblio. It also costs less than most of those services, so you’ll have to balance quality expectations against the amount you want to shell out.

TextBroker Overview

TextBroker, upon first examination, appears to have a strikingly similar business model to Crowd Content. TextBroker offers content of various types, including blogs, web content, press releases, and more. Clients sign up for TextBroker, and use their intuitive platform to outline their content needs. From there, the work is shipped off to a writer that handles the content, usually delivering the content within a few days. It’s standard stuff as far as content writing services are concerned.

When you did a little deeper, you might notice one major difference about TextBroker, it’s very cheap. Content starts at 1.5 cents/word, depending on the plan you choose. Even with more “expensive” plans, it hovers around 2.5 cents/word. So even at their “high-end” pricing rate of 2.5 cents/word, 1000 words of content will cost about $25 (plus a small processing fee). Compare this to Crowd Content’s rate of $80/1000 words, and you start to see how inexpensive TextBroker is.

And while this may sound great at first, you have to consider that someone is behind the scenes, writing your content. If you’re paying so little, you can assume they are being paid even less. It’s not to say that TextBroker employs bad writers, just that it seems very difficult to maintain a motivated workforce while paying pennies on the dollar. With content services, you have to do some digging to find a service that matches your business needs. But at a certain point, you get what you pay for. You can’t expect top-quality content at rock bottom prices. You might luck out and be matched with a fantastic writer, but you can’t be surprised if the opposite occurs.

Which Do We Prefer?

For us, the choice is obvious. Quality content is a bare minimum expectation from a content writing service, and there’s only one option that meets this requirement. TextBroker costs significantly more, but there’s a much higher likelihood you’ll be satisfied with what’s delivered.

Remember that there’s an onus on you, the client, during this process as well. Before you hire a content writing service, you need to know what you want. You need to have in-depth knowledge of your business goals, target market, and brand voice. This knowledge needs to be communicated from the outset, so that content can be created which satisfies these stipulations. With this in mind, shop around and find the service that works best for you. Thanks for reading our head-to-head comparison of Crowd Content vs. TextBroker. Good luck meeting your content goals!

In this article, we’re taking a look at Textun, a content writing service with a rather straight-forward business model. We’ll outline Textun’s business model, how their freelance writers work, and provide a comprehensive review of their services. If you’re interested in content services for your business or website offered by vetted expert writers, then read on to see whether Textun is for you.

What is Textun?

Textun is a content writing service for business and website-owners looking to outsource their content creation. For things like blog writing, content marketing, social media posts, SEO content, and more, a content writer can help boost your business’s internet presence. Textun focuses on providing quality, affordable content on a wide range of focus topics, in a variety of different styles.

Textun’s content writing service offerings are relatively straight-forward and simplified. They work with you to create high quality content that suits your needs, your business, and your brand voice. Textun specializes in blog content, website content, product content/affiliate content, product reviews, and more.

Textun employs talented writers who are all native English speakers, with a wealth of expertise on various subject matters. No matter the content you are looking for, Textun will have a writer that is up to the task. All content is fully custom, unique, and ownership is 100% yours. Perhaps most notably, prices are extremely competitive, making Textun one of the cheapest content services available (with prices becoming increasingly more affordable the more you order). Below, we’ll examine the pros & cons of Textun’s service offerings. But first, let’s take a closer look at what you can expect from the process.

Textun Content Creation Process

In order to get an accurate idea of whether a service is right for you, it’s best to start with an understanding of what that service offers. Textun has a relatively standardized process for creating content. This is largely why they are able to keep prices so low.

Once you purchase a content order, Textun will work with you to pin down the type of content that matches your business’s needs. This includes your brand voice, your target market, the style of content (blog, review, newsletter, etc.), and your content goals. From there, they’ll create briefs for your content, and assign the work to a content writer who is suited to the task.

Depending on your deadlines, Textun’s freelancer will turn around the content in a few days. Textun edits all content for syntax and grammar before submitting. They also offer unlimited revisions on all content.

Like we said, it’s pretty standard stuff from a content creation service. Because of this, Textun offers one of the most affordable services around. It also offers content that is rather formulaic, but that’s not always a bad thing. Next, let’s take a deep dive into the pros & cons of Textun’s service offerings.

Pros

Quick and Cheap

As we outlined above, Textun offers relatively basic content. Because of their streamlined approach, Textun is able to turn-around projects quite quickly. Additionally, their prices are able to stay well below much of their competition. It really depends on what you prioritize in a content service. Textun provides quality content that meets your needs, but it is all rather standardized and formulaic. It’s also fast, predictable, and very affordable. If you need a lot of content fast, and you aren’t looking to pay exorbitant prices, then Textun is a decent choice.

Quality Writers

Textun vets all their writers, and they employ a team of writers that are knowledgeable on a wide range of subject matter (travel, fitness, marketing, finance, and so on). Every writer employed by Textun is a native English speaker, and we’ve found quality to be pretty consistent across different subject matter. Don’t expect creative masterpieces or in-depth technical guidebooks. But Textun’s writers provide consistent quality, which is just about all you can expect for the price.

Cons

SEO is Lacking

One significant knock on Textun is their notable lack of in-depth SEO techniques. Unlike many other content services, Textun won’t extensively “optimize” your content for search engine discoverability. They don’t make significant use of keywords, link-building, or other proven SEO techniques. That being said, Textun does write content with your brand voice and goals in mind. It’s still relevant content for your business, and generating content on its own is a big part of SEO. But if you’re looking for content that will be consistently competitive on Google, you need to be prepared to spend a little more.

Formulaic Content

As we’ve noted throughout this article, Textun has a very streamlined process for creating content. You won’t be getting anything revolutionary. Additionally, because Textun employs so many writers, it’s impossible to guarantee that all the content you buy will be of a consistent quality. But that can be said about almost any content writing service. Formulaic content isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, it is often ideal web content, because it is well organized and quite readable. But if you want to separate yourself from the pack, it isn’t always the best choice. As is the case with most of the factors on this list, it really depends what you are looking for for your business.

What Do We Think? You Get What You Pay For

So, the bottom line – what do we think of Textun?

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Textun isn’t a cheap service, but it’s certainly not a “premium” service either. With Textun, you get reliable, well-written web content that will help your business generate web traffic. You also get it for a more-than-fair price. But you won’t get the extensive SEO optimization tools that you’d get from a more extensive (and pricier) content writing service.

Textun is great if content quantity is your goal. You can get lots of content on lots of different topics, and they’ll turn it around quickly. Their editors ensure an acceptable level of quality with anything that gets published, but don’t be expecting a New York Times level of writing aptitude.

Textun is what it is, and that will be more than enough for many. The important part is to have realistic expectations, and to know which content is needed for your business to succeed. If your content needs aren’t overly complex, then we would recommend Textun. If you’re looking for a content service that has SEO optimization built into its service offering, consider Content Refined.

Today, we’re examining one of the major players in the modern content marketing space – Verblio. Verblio is consistently a top choice for website owners who are looking to purchase content for their business. We’ll be examining how it works, if they truly do offer their promise of high quality content, some major features to consider, and whether we think it’s worth your time.

What is Verblio?

We’ll start with the basics. Verblio is a content marketing service that specializes in creating blog & website content. They have a wide base of writers that are capable of handling website content on varied and diverse subject matter.

The Verblio team provides a content strategy and solutions for agencies, publishers, enterprises, and more. This includes web content such as newsletters, eBooks, blog content, podcast/video summaries, etc. It’s a diverse content writing service designed to meet the needs of a wide range of clients. Due to their extensive writer base (over 3000 US-based writers), they are able to handle content on a large variety of topics.

Verblio also works to create content that matches your brand voice, and that is highly relevant/discoverable for SEO. We’ll dive into more detail about this below. Of course, this is how Verblio plugs their own service. Next, we’ll check out how the process actually works as a client. From there, we’ll jump into the pros & cons, to see whether it’s a content service that is worthy of your attention.

How Does it Work?

Our aim of this review is to provide an objective look at Verblio’s services. To do that, it’s essential to have an understanding of how the service actually works. So, as a client of Verblio, how does it all go down?

Creating Your Content Plan

Verblio has a proven service for ensuring that clients get work that matches their brand voice, and get the proper content to help them meet their goals.

First, clients must select a content plan, found here. The plans are reasonably priced, but do note that the base plans do not include back-end SEO optimization. This makes their base rate somewhat misleading. It’s difficult to recommend a content service which doesn’t include SEO optimization, so it’s important to note that this service costs extra.

Once the client has selected a plan, they work with Verblio to carve out a target audience, and to outline the best ways to reach said audience. You tell them who you want to reach, and how you want to reach them. This includes your brand voice (conversational, technical, etc.), and your brand goals. This stage is essential so Verblio can focus on creating content which matches your current branding and messaging.

After you’ve outlined your brand voice and content goals, you work with Verblio to order exactly the type of content you want. You decide how many pieces you want per month, the word limit for each piece, and what is to be covered in each piece of content. Verblio also offers an account management service if you don’t want to handle this yourself. From there, you can set specific titles, calls to action, keywords, and more. You can get quite specific about the content you request. Once you’ve ordered your content, Verblio’s writers take over. Verblio has a rather unique method of handling its writers, which we’ll explain next.

Writing Your Content

Once you’ve submitted a content brief to Verblio, their team of writers has a chance to handle your order. Unlike other content services, Verblio doesn’t specifically assign your content to a writer. Instead, writers get a chance to “compete” for your content. Content briefs are accessible by any of Verblio’s fully-vetted writing team. If they are familiar with the subject matter, they can choose to write the content.

Once your content has been written (usually takes about 2-3 days), it is uploaded to Verblio and you get a chance to review it. You can choose to either accept or decline the work. If multiple writers have handled the subject matter, you can choose the piece that best suits your needs.

This means that you don’t have to accept a piece of content unless you are happy with it. However, it also puts the onus on you to review and accept the content. You can also request tweaks and edits until the content is up to standard. Also, if you are happy with the content from specific writers, you can “bookmark” them and ensure that they write your content in the future. Make sense? It’s a rather unique approach, and we’ll examine our thoughts on it below.

Pros & Cons of Verblio

Now that we’ve conducted a comprehensive outline of the services offered by Verblio, let’s break down the pros & cons so you can decide whether their services are right for your business. Starting with the pros:

Pros

Many Content Styles/Topics

Verblio employs a large & diverse team of writers. With over 3,000 writers on the platform, they have the combined expertise to handle just about any subject matter you can throw at them. This means not only a diverse range of topics, but also a diverse range of writing styles, and content styles (blog, newsletter, etc.). During their vetting process, Verblio has writers designate subject matter that they are familiar with. This means that you’ll be able to work with writers who have a depth of knowledge that is suited to what you are looking for.

Quality Writers Produce Results

Verblio has a decently extensive vetting process for their writing team. Verblio writers need to be experienced, and have a depth of knowledge that is suited to the task. Writers must submit content before they are accepted to the platform. Additionally, because the writers are essentially “competing” for your business, you’ll often have a wealth of options to choose from for any given content brief. You choose the content you like best, and can flag writers that you want to work with for future pieces. The best writers rise to the top at Verblio.

Affordable

Verblio’s services are priced on par with competing content services. In fact, they are on the “more affordable” side of things, everything considered. But do note that Verblio has a progressive pricing plan. If you want to benefit from articles that are fully optimized for SEO, then you’ll have to opt for one of the premium plans.

Cons

Quality Varies

Because Verblio employs so many writers, there will be no avoiding the fact that quality is variable from piece to piece. With so many writers on one platform, it’s impossible to guarantee a consistent level of quality for every piece of content. Verblio has a vetting process for each writer, but this issue remains unavoidable with a writer base this large.

You’ll also find that more popular topics receive more attention. For more technical, in-depth subject matter, there will generally be a much smaller pool of writers to choose from. In fact, we wouldn’t recommend Verblio if you are looking for technical content. You should opt for a more specialized service in this case. In fact, Verblio shifts some of this onus to the customer – requiring them to review content themselves before accepting it.

SEO Costs Extra

Another downside of the Verblio platform is that SEO services are included in the “premium” content plans. SEO is practically essential to succeed in the content marketing space, and it’s hard to recommend a service without it. If you’re considering Verblio, you’ll definitely want to keep this in mind.

Reviewing the Content

Because Verblio’s writing team needs to “compete” for your content, this also puts the onus on you to decide which content you want to publish. For each brief, you might have multiple pieces which are submitted, depending on how many writers decide to take it on. On the one hand, you have multiple pieces you can decide from. On the other hand, it is time consuming to review each submission. However, this problem becomes more manageable the more you use Verblio’s platform. If there are particular pieces you are most satisfied with, you can message writers and have them take on your content in the future. There’s an opportunity to build lasting relationships with writers you trust.

What Do We Think?

Overall, Verblio is a solid content marketing service. It has its share of upsides and downsides. It’s a relatively affordable service that will net you quality content, as long as you are willing to dig for it. Because Verblio writers will all have a chance to submit content for a given brief, you might have to sift through multiple pieces to find what you’re looking for. While this does give you the opportunity to pick content that best suits your needs, it can also become time consuming to dig through each piece. That being said, Verblio does vet each writer, so any piece of content will have a certain standard of quality. If you carefully review the content that is submitted, then you’ll be able to flag quality writers that you can work with going forward. If you put in the effort from the outset, we think you’ll be very satisfied with Verblio’s platform. There are positives and negatives of this approach (which we’ve examined above), and you’ll have to decide whether their platform is right for your business. If you are looking for a more standardized content writing service, then consider Content Refined.

Copify is a popular content marketing service, but it is positioned in a market that has stiff competition. For high quality content, it’s best to take a look at where the experienced, established writers are to see where your business can find top-quality written content, blog writing, article writing, and copywriting service. In this article, we’ll give you a rundown of Copify’s service offerings, and also examine the top Copify alternatives for you to consider.

What is Copify?

Copify’s business model is very similar to competing content services. They offer a variety of writing services, including blogs, web content, articles, newsletters, and so on. As a client, you select the type of work you want, provide a content brief (or work with Copify to create one), and then select whether you want a “standard” article or a “professional” article. Professional articles are written by a more experienced writer, and cost slightly more. From there, Copify sends the brief to one of their qualified writers, who usually turns it around in under 48-hours.

It’s all pretty standard stuff, but what sets Copify’s content strategy apart is its low, low prices. Copify’s rates vary depending on the work, but it starts at around $0.03/word. Needless to say, their writers get paid even less than that, which makes it difficult for Copify to attract talented writers. Because of this, quality can be somewhat shaky. So if you’re looking for a content writing service with a more consistent reputation, consider our alternatives below:

Copify Alternatives

Scripted

Scripted has a similar business model to most of the content services on this list. The difference with Scripted is the quality of their writing team. Scripted accepts under 2% of writers who apply, and pays them above market rates, giving them a top-notch batch of writing talent.

Scripted also has a very intuitive platform. Clients sign up in a matter of minutes, outline the work they want done, and Scripted uses its SmartMatch system to match the work with a capable writer. Yes, all this means that Scripted is more expensive than most of its competitors. But if you want quality content, you need to pay for it. You get what you pay for, as the saying goes. Plus, Scripted is trusted by some pretty major brands, including Adidas, Adobe, L’Oreal, and Ticketmaster.

Content Refined

Content Refined offers content writing services with an extra emphasis on SEO. All of their work is optimized for keywords and relevance, which is a nice touch. Content Refined pairs you with a project manager, who works with you to craft a content brief that meets your content goals. You can be as hands-on or hands-off as you wish during the process. From there, work is assigned to their team of writers, who will deliver the content based on your desired turnaround time. Content Refined has developed a reputation for high-quality content that converts. They are SEO experts, and you can expect them to deliver content to get your business noticed.

UpWork

UpWork is much more than just a content writing service. On UpWork, you’ll find freelance professionals of all sorts. UpWork allows freelancers to create profiles showing off their work. After they complete jobs, clients can rate their work. The best freelancers naturally rise to the top on UpWork, which makes it easy for clients to find quality content writing. This being said, quality work on UpWork doesn’t come cheap. Professional writers know their value, and you’ll have to spend if you want to guarantee quality writing. But unlike many other content writing services, UpWork gives you a direct line of communication with the writer, and you can work together to craft a content brief that precisely meets your goals.

Compose.ly

Compose.ly, like Scripted above, puts a special emphasis on retaining top-quality talent. Compose.ly boasts that they only accept the top 1% of writers who apply, indicating that they are picky about who gets to write for their clients. Compose.ly works with you to craft a content brief that meets your business goals, and also offers basic SEO services for all clients. As you might expect, Compose.ly is more expensive than your average content marketing service. But if you want top quality writing, you need to be willing to shell out a bit extra. Compose.ly is a trusted service, having worked with brands such as Pacific Life, Mail Chimp, and Avvo.

Content Fly

Content Fly is also positioned as a “premium” content writing service. Like certain competitors above, Content Fly accepts only the top 1% of writers who apply. Clients can review each writer’s content, and only writers with consistently high reviews will stay on the platform. It’s a cutthroat environment, but the writers are paid well, so those who stick around are happy to work. And as a client, you benefit from a team of writers with consistent success. Being a relatively new company, Content Fly offers pretty competitive rates. They aren’t the cheapest service, but it’s fair value for what is offered. They also offer free rewrites and touch-ups on all work.

Verblio

Of all the services on our list, Verblio has the most unique approach. As a client, you submit a brief to Verblio outlining the work you want done. The brief is uploaded to a writer portal, where Verblio’s writers get the chance to write the content if it meets their expertise. Multiple writers can tackle the same project – essentially “competing” for the client’s business. Once completed, the client can review each piece, and accept the work they like best. If you’re willing to dig for it, Verblio offers potential to find consistently high-quality content.

Which Should I Choose?

As you can see, the content writing space is competitive. With so many services offering similar value offerings, the difference often comes down to execution. In this article, we examine some of our favorite alternatives to Copify. In fact, we’d recommend any of these services over Copify itself! To find success with a content writing service, you need to have an accurate understanding of your goals. Know your business, know your business goals, and know how content will help you achieve those goals. From there, you can work with one of these services to create exactly what you’re looking for.

In this article, we’re checking out another popular content writing service – HireWriters.com. HireWriters is one of the older content writing services on the Internet. It has developed a, well, shaky reputation from writers and clients. While it advertises itself as a premium service for content marketing and article writing, some claim it does not deliver the high quality content it promises. Today, we’ll see whether this reputation is justified, and whether you should consider HireWriters for your next writing project.

What is HireWriters.com?

HireWriters.com is a basic content writing service. They advertise unique content writing in a variety of areas (article writing, transcription, rewriting, eBooks, etc.). The main difference you’ll notice is that HireWriters boasts prices much lower than competing writing services. For example, clients can get a 700-1000 word article written for $5! But, as you might suspect with a service this cheap, its reputation is not so stellar.

What is the Reputation?

The saying “you get what you pay for” tends to be a pretty reliable indicator of what you can expect from rock-bottom pricing. As such, HireWriters has developed a reputation for sub-par quality, and a less-than-happy writing staff. Writing jobs at this website are underpaid and don’t offer a freelance writer the chance to offer high quality content because of this. That being said, we know that reputations can be misleading, and we want to offer a fair critique. So let’s break it down and see whether HireWriters has earned this reputation. Here are the positive and negative aspects of the service.

Pros

Cheap Content

You aren’t going to find content writing much cheaper than HireWriters.com. In fact, unless you get it for free, you’ll struggle to find prices even close to HireWriters. So if you’re willing to roll the dice and buy some content, then you’re not going to find a place where you can spend less than here. HireWriters also offers rewrites for even cheaper rates.

Varied Content

HireWriters works with a lot of writers, so they’re capable of producing quite a bit of different content types and varieties. HireWriters offers new articles and rewrites of articles, eBooks, poetry, blogs, and much more. Once again, if you’re willing to give it a shot, you might get what you’re after.

Fast Turnaround and Fair Approval Process

HireWriters advertises turnaround times of 1 day (or shorter upon request). This is very fast. Once again, we don’t think these short deadlines are conducive to high-quality writing, but at least you’ll know quickly whether you are satisfied with your work. HireWriters also states that they rarely miss these deadlines, and will penalize their writers in this case. HireWriters also gives you 72 hours to review the work before you accept it, and you are free to reject it if you are unhappy. HireWriters does require you to put the money into escrow upon ordering an article, so you have to contact them directly to reject a piece, in which case they will send the money back to you.

Cons

Low Pay for Writers

If we were really to boil down the problems with HireWriters, it basically comes down to this: Because HireWriters charge such exorbitantly low prices for content, there’s not a lot of money left over to pay their writers. In fact, some writers report making less than $3 per content piece. HireWriters does utilize a ranking scale, where writers earn more if they are more experienced, but it still doesn’t cap out at very much.

Basically, it’s next to impossible to attract top-quality writers while paying rock-bottom rates. They might occasionally luck out and hire a talented writer who is looking to build their portfolio, but they are unlikely to last long. As a client of HireWriters, you can’t reasonably expect top-quality content without being willing to pay for it. Quality content writing should (and does) cost hundreds of dollars, while HireWriters is charging under $10. Something doesn’t add up, and the business model simply isn’t conducive to quality work.

Variable Quality

As we examined above, it’s difficult to expect quality content writing at rock bottom prices. So it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that that’s what HireWriters produces. While there are certainly reports of satisfied clients, it hasn’t been our experience. Essentially, unless you luck out and are paired with a talented writer, the quality will be about as you expect. Then again, perhaps the quality is pretty on-par with what we paid for it, so it’s hard to say that HireWriters is overly misleading.

Shady Reputation

Our experience with HireWriters has been, unfortunately, far from unique. HireWriters has a reputation in the writing community as a less-than-reputable content writing service. Once again, we think it all stems back to the rock-bottom pricing model, but the end result is the same. There are reports of many writers who are unhappy with the employer, and many clients who didn’t receive what they asked for. Of course, we can’t personally verify all of these stories. But at a certain point, if your reputation precedes you, then it’s hard to argue against.

Complaints from Writers

We also can’t verify these claims, but there have been numerous complaints from writers claiming that HireWriters has locked their writing account, cutting off communication. On certain occasions, writers claim to have not been paid for work. Once again, we can’t verify these claims, but they seem numerous enough at least to raise skepticism.

Critique

If something seems too good to be true it probably is, and that’s the case with HireWriters. If you aren’t willing to pay for quality content, then it’s difficult to expect quality content. HireWriters’ prices are low, and their writers get paid even less than that. If you’re wondering how they manage to attract talent by offering these rates, then you probably already know the answer. It’s hard to say good things about a company which doesn’t pay their employees a fair wage. On the other hand, if you really want to risk it, at least your commitment is low. Maybe you’ll get lucky and your work will be assigned to a fantastic writer who gives you exactly what you were looking for. And if not, at least you’re not too far out of pocket. You can also reject the work and get a refund if you are truly unhappy.