How Much Does Textbroker Pay? Not great, here’s how it works

So how much does Textbroker pay? Well, they pay some writers as low as $0.007 cents per word… before taxes.

That's pretty rough. But all the while, freelance writing is having a moment.

Between Covid-19 changing traditional office environments and the explosion of new blog posts (7.5 million a day!), everyone needs content. And since not everyone enjoys writing, business owners are flocking to content services to help.

Enter: Textbroker.

One of the most popular services for both entry-level writers and frugal website owners, Textbroker connects thousands of people. Those who need content are paired with those who can provide it. It’s a win-win.

It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a way to make money online or a replacement for your 9-5, your time is important. Understanding how much Textbroker pays — and how much you can expect to make — is worth checking into.

What is Textbroker?

Promising to deliver the “right content” for “enthusiastic users,” Textbroker bills itself as a quick-turnaround quality content creation service. Any type of web content you need can be purchased here: page copy, general blogs, product reviews, even e-books.

The whole point is to provide a one-stop shop for all of your web content needs, both for writers and site owners.

Textbroker wasn’t the first platform to connect a writer and a potential client, but it might be the largest. Started in 2008, Textbroker claims to have served 80,000 clients with more than 10 million orders to date. That’s a massive amount of content for a single service to deliver.

Besides the universality of the site, what most people love about Textbroker is its simplicity. In order to write, all you have to do is claim a job — no application or long cover letters necessary.

You will have to submit a writing sample, but that's just to make sure you know how to string a few words together.

Other than that, Textbroker is pretty simple: Claim a job, write the job, and get paid for the job. Rinse, lather, and repeat.

Who Can Write for Textbroker?

For a new freelance writer, Textbroker is a dream come true. The only thing you have to have in order to have a writers’ account is a pulse (and identification). 

Before you get started though, you’ll have to write a “test” article that is unpaid. If it’s accepted, you’ll receive a star rating — anything from two stars to five stars.

Truly fantastic writers with more writing experience will start at four stars, but most will start at two or three stars. The only way to get five stars is to maintain four-star level quality for ten articles and pass a proofreading test.

Five stars is where the big money is at, but it can be difficult to maintain that level. Additionally, there are not nearly as many five-star jobs as there are three or four-star, so it can be hard to find work.

On the plus side, you can get paid whenever you want (up to twice a week), as long as you’ve earned more than $10. That is a distinct advantage over other systems that make you wait a month or more.

How Much Does Textbroker Pay?

Unfortunately, Textbroker has one of the lowest pay scales for their writers of all the content marketing platforms. 

If you’re fortunate enough to receive a four-star rating right off the bat, you’ll enjoy a $0.014 per word. And that’s for SEO content that Textbroker describes as “very good quality.” 

Since the clients will rate you though, whether or not it’s “very good quality” is up to them.

From there, the pay drops. A three-star writer will receive a penny a word, while two-star writers will only receive $0.007 cents per word. That’s before taxes too.

Fortunately, there are a couple of other ways to boost your earnings. Payment for direct orders (which we’ll talk about below) are up to the discretion of the client. 

Team orders — where you write articles for clients as a group — also have a $0.01755 minimum. Most of the teams are pretty inactive, so making money there can be hit or miss.

The real money is found at the five-star level, where an experienced writer can net $0.05 per word. That’s somewhat more in line with industry rates, but still below-average. An experienced writer can produce 1000 (researched) words an hour, which equals $50 an hour.

That’s great money if you can maintain it, but job availability and client reviews could tank that real fast. If you’re writing at a five-star level anyways, you can make more money finding your own clients. Textbroker really isn’t for you, in that case.

Recently, Textbroker started offering their “Thank You” program as a way to reward authors for hitting certain milestones. 

You’ll get a five-dollar reward for writing your first 2,500 words, and $10 for writing 5,000.

You could also receive quarterly bonuses. Earn $3,000 in a quarter, and you’ll receive a $150 bonus, all the way up to receiving $500 for earning $10,000.

And for the truly ambitious who write a million words for Textbroker, you’ll get a laptop bag (with a complimentary luggage tag!). Crank out 25 million words though, and you and a guest will get a three-night trip to Las Vegas.

Those aren’t terrible incentives, but your time might be better spent elsewhere if you’re that committed to writing as a career.

For perspective, War and Peace is “only” 587,287 words. You would have to write that 50 times in order to win the trip to Vegas. 

Is it worth it? That’s up to you.

How to Make More Money on Textbroker

The pay may not seem like much (and it isn’t), but as with everything, there are ways to boost your earnings. 

For a freelancer who appreciates the flexibility of Textbroker but wants to increase their bottom line, stay away from the open pool. Instead, focus on a few key items.

Receive Direct Orders

If you’ve impressed a client with your work, you might get them to hire you direct. If that’s the case, you’ll receive a base of $0.02 per word, but as high as they want to pay you.

Just remember that Textbroker will take their cut too, so what the client pays and you receive are two different numbers.

The advantage of this is three-fold. First, as mentioned, you’ll receive higher pay (or, at least you should).

Second, you won’t have to fight to get an open order as often. This is huge when you lose dozens of job opportunities by simply refreshing your page. The turnover is real.

Third, since you have a relationship with your client, you’ll know more about their particular requests. You’ll know how they want their articles written, which results in less revision requests.

Improve Your Star Rating

No matter where you start, there’s an always an opportunity to improve your star rating. 

Textbroker selects one of your articles to review — at random — and adjusts your star rating accordingly. If you jump up a star (or two), you’ll have access to different articles and higher pay.

You would think improving your star rating is as simple as writing better quality writing, but it’s more ambiguous than that. 

Your spelling and grammar needs to be on point. The best way to do that is run it through a service like Grammarly before submission. An easy-to-read style and lack of “fluff” is also imperative.

But where it seems like Textbroker spends most of their time is on punctuation. Get that right, and you’ll leapfrog others in no time.

Get on Teams

When a group of writers lobby together to take on a certain client or genre, they’ll start a team. Many of these teams are inactive, but others are filled with writers who only write on teams.

In addition to better money, team orders are usually more consistent. You have to apply for them, but finding the right team for your writing style can be a game-changer.

If you can’t find a team to write for, start your own! You can set the rules, the rates, and wait for clients to come to you. You may give up some pay in the process, but it’s a great way to barrel through extra work without having to clone yourself.

Expand Your Freelance Writing 

Though most of us would prefer to stay within our specific niche, at times, you’ll need to diversify. 

Most of the time, this will be because there are no jobs in your genre. Other times, it’ll be because the clients are easier. Either way, you’ll need to learn to put your own personal feelings to the side and crank out what’s available.

Speed is the name of the game on Textbroker, so in order to earn a livable wage, you’ll have to write articles that aren’t fun. Medical diagnoses, product reviews on lip balm, web page copy for a chiropractor — some are more drab than others.

Feel free to niche down, but if you want to keep your hourly rate up, don’t be afraid to branch out.

Can I Make Textbroker a Full-Time Career?

For those who are truly committed to the platform and willing to put in the work, a full-time living at Textbroker is possible. You may feel mentally spent at the end of the day, but that’s part of the gig. A lot of online jobs are like that.

You’ll come out if with a wide range of knowledge though, and most importantly, the ability to write fast. And if you plan on writing for a lot of content mills, that’ll pay back in spades.

How much does Textbroker pay? That depends on if you view it in strictly financial terms. If so, you'll be disappointed, but if you use it to develop your freelancing skills, it can be worth a lot more.

Most writers will agree that Textbroker is a great place to start, but it’s not the best place to build your career. Use it for the experience, have it as a backup, but always grow. You’ll write much better SEO content elsewhere.

Still, if you don’t have many expenses and can afford to live cheaply, Textbroker may be absolutely perfect for you.

Check out our full Textbroker Review for more information.