Writers Work Review (2023): Is It Worth It?

Writers Work is ideal for new freelancers. This Writers Work review explains how this freelance writing service can help you find freelance writing jobs that pay.

I worked as a freelance journalist for years, and it’s not an easy profession. Freelancers must balance finding work with writing and managing their business. So I was excited to learn about Writers Work. It’s a popular platform for finding freelance writing jobs. Writers Work offers resources and courses for freelance writers who want to learn how to get paid to write and start a writing career. Beginners can also submit their work to publications and sites via this platform. I joined Writer’s Work to see if it’s worth the time and expense. In this detailed review, I explain the platform and whether it’s worth your time and money for online writing.

What is Writers Work?

Writers Work is a jobs board for freelance writers. It aggregates writing jobs from a variety of sources and provides tool and services for sourcing writing gigs. Freelance writers can also use it to find online clients and get paid, all while working from home.

There are a lot of writing platforms like this – I have reviewed some of them in the past – and they vary in quality. Some are worth your time. Some are basically scams that should always be avoided. Some are honest but require a lot of work for relatively little reward.

So, where do Writers Work fall when it comes to quality, ease of use, and value for your money and time? I signed up and dug into the system to find out for you, and I’ll talk about everything I learned and rate the experience. But first, some basics:

• Writers Work is an online freelancing platform – everything is managed through their interface, including most communication with clients and the content you send them.
• Writers Work offers writing jobs, including general website content, blogging, copywriting, and social media posts. Unlike some platforms, it doesn’t offer website design, transcriptions, editing, or other gigs.
• You must be at least 18 years old to sign up, and have an online account where payments can be deposited.

How Much Is Writers Work?

Writers Work charges – a full price of $94, permanently discounted to $47. You must pay this before accessing the site’s services or resources. Alternatively, you can pay a $15 monthly subscription and cancel when you’re done. Considering the $47 subscription offers lifetime membership to Writers Work, it’s far better value.

Contrastingly, other freelance writing services for beginners like Bonsai and Flexjobs start at $17 and $24.94 per month, while UpWork takes a commission from a freelancer’s earnings. As such Writers Work is competitively priced, particularly if you pay the $47 fee. More advanced freelance writers probably don’t need to pay for these services as they’ll have clients and contacts they can contact.

Qualifying for Writers Work is easy (in part because of the payment requirement). You fill out a very simple web form with contact information and your email address to get started, writers seem to get accepted quickly, and then you can immediately learn the tools. There are no tests or qualifications.

How I Use Writers Work

I used Writers Work to land some freelance writing gigs and also to evaluate opportunities for writers across a range of niches. Here’s an overview of how it works.

Signing Up

It’s quick and easy to join Writers Work. Use your best email and add your credit card details. Once you’ve paid the subscription, you can immediately access the platform, available jobs and courses.

Refunds

Writers Work has a clear refund policy. The site guarantees a 30-day money-back guarantee if the experience is unexpected. The Better Business Bureau shows a list of 34 complaints specifically focused on this refund: Some said they couldn’t get refunds on time. Many of these complaints were resolved or closed at the time of writing. It’s fair to say a site like BBB is more likely to attract unhappy users rather than satisfied freelancers.

Earnings

How much money can a freelance writer make? And can you use it to earn a living from writing work? Writers Work claims writers can earn $20 to $65 an hour working on the platform.

There is no guarantee that you will qualify for the high-paying, $100 articles, and you can’t predict the availability of articles when you sign up (more about this later). From what I saw of the listings and overall process, with significant work, you could make around $30 per hour – assuming a steady flow of client projects, which may or may not happen.

You could possibly make more. But steep competition for the highest-paying articles (which also tie into experience and time on the platform) make higher figures difficult to reach. Overall, earnings are low to average and largely left up to chance, with limited means to establish a long-term relationship with a client.

Ease of Use

I particularly liked the Writers Work design and interface. Everything is clean, easy to read, and simple to understand or use. Pages are minimalistic where necessary to avoid distractions but informative depending on what data you want to display. I could browse the jobs listings and manage submissions quickly and easily.

This also carries over to the education modules and resources for new writers, which are well-designed and easy to navigate as you watch videos and learn more about the freelance writing process. The service also simplifies looking for jobs and signing up for them. Its minimalistic approach focuses on the most important information, and the required fields are marked clearly when you’re ready to apply.

The platform’s performance was swift and stable while I was using the service. Pages and orders loaded fairly quickly, with no irksome freezes or delays when using the tools. Obviously, this will also depend on your local internet performance, but I found no complaints here. Writers Work offers a mobile-optimized version of their site, although there isn’t an independent mobile app. Using a service like this via a laptop or desktop is easier and faster.

Available Writing Gigs

Good writing platforms enable users to find job listings quickly and easily. Writers Work is primarily an aggregator of other job site posts. Yes, they manage their own postings, but that’s only a minor portion of the site. The main focus is on pulling jobs from other sites like Indeed, Problogger, MediaBistro, JournalismJobs and other sources. The site makes it clear when jobs were posted.

You could find these gigs directly on those job boards. However, the advantage of using Writers Work is that they are all pulled into one spot for easy browsing. You can also search based on employment type, location, keywords, source site, etc.

If you find a job you like, click on it to read more and apply. The listing shows pay per article or word, and words needed, which makes it easy to judge the post and move on quickly. As to how many gigs are available – this can vary over time. When I checked out the service, there were dozens of opportunities across several big niches, including finance, tech and health. I also found several blogging and copywriting gigs, which paid well.

New writers may need to limit themselves to entry-level jobs, which will sharply cut down on available posts. Other jobs may self-limit by simply paying too little. Again, the primary value of the service comes not from the availability of unique jobs (at least not yet, in our experience), but the ability to view a wide variety of jobs collected from different platforms, all in the same spot. Check out our Bookfunnel review.

Job Applications

You can find job listings on Writers Work by either browsing the marketplace or searching for them with relevant keywords. Applying to job postings depends on the advertiser’s requirements rather than Writers.Work. Each individual listing has its own requirements. Some will have an email address to send a message to. Others will redirect you to a posting on another job site.

Some may have links to online web forms or other processes you need to begin. If you’ve ever searched on something like Craigslist for jobs, then the feeling is a similar, albeit more organized. Conversely, competing platforms like UpWork require employers and employees all work within their platform.

Writers Works’ approach has benefits and drawbacks. Some posts are easy to read and apply to within the writing platform. Others take you down a rabbit hole of work and research. However, you don’t have to pay Writers Work a percentage of your earnings like competitors.

Where Writers Work shines when the advertiser links directly to the platform. Then you can use the platform’s tools to apply with your portfolio and create content, without visiting other sites. This isn’t always guaranteed, but it’s clearly one of the primary goals of the platform.

Submissions

Users can also use the writing platform to manage submissions to traditional and print publications. These are a combination of free and paid submissions. In my job search, I found dozens of magazines across niches like nature, women’s health, and teen and literary fiction journals, all looking for submissions. Writers Work indicates what the publication focuses on, the submission requirements, word count, potential earnings, and a contact email.

You can then email the editor directly or click through to the submission page on the publication in question. These publications are lesser known than more prominent websites like ProBlogger, but they’re an excellent way of building a portfolio. It’s also hard to see how a writer could find these gigs otherwise, as they are from lesser-known sources.

Writing and Text Editor

Writers Work offers a good text editor. It’s a nice-to-have rather than an essential tool. More experienced writers often have their preferred text editors to use, and then copy and paste content to wherever it needs to be. But if you want to use Writers Work’s editor, it’s complete and usable, providing useful data in ways that don’t distract you from the job at hand.

I especially like the automatic tracking tools included in the text editor, which can save time when examining your content metadata. This includes tools that let you know at a glance how many words and characters the body of your content has. Again, this manages to be useful without being too intrusive.

Basic formatting is also included. There are even trackers for how long it would take to read the content vs. speaking it out loud, and – particularly useful for those who are working for a client based on time – a tracker for how long you’ve spent on a document.  

Grammar Checks

Grammar checks are readily available now no matter what platform you use, thanks to extensions like Grammarly that check your sentences and phrasing for any problems.

If you don’t use something like Grammarly, Writers Work includes an automatic grammar and spellchecker that notes issues. It’s not a full grammar tutor, but it can help you spot potential mistakes. It’s easier and faster to use a dedicated grammar checker. Read our Grammarly review to learn more about that tool.

Article Scoring

Writers Work also includes some great article scoring along with its text editor. You get a readability score and a report on the reading level grade of the content. If you highlight a word, you can search for definitions or synonyms right in the text editor for easier replacement.

I would have liked to see checks for plagiarism and other tools that are useful for judging the quality of work, but overall the tools should prove useful for any freelance writer. For more, check our guide to the best plagiarism checkers.

Goals

Writers Work has some options for tracking goals and time spent on articles if you want to add more structure to your freelance writing. Again, this tool is probably more helpful for beginners than those who have already built up a freelance business, but it’s still nice to see goal-oriented tools included.

Since you’re paying to sign up for this service, the value you get from it is really important. So, does Writers Work offer a lot of value for money? Well…in some ways, certainly for new writers, but your mileage may vary.

The Writers Work University

Writers Work provides a University for users to learn about how to start freelancing and improve their writing skills. This content is generally well-presented, acting much like an online learning class you can explore at your leisure. Brand new writers will get the most out of it, while more experienced writers can skim through and take a look only at subjects that interest them.

The University is divided into a few different modules, and each module has several topics, like “Time Tracking and Project Management” or “Publishing Your First Article.” Most of these topics are delivered via video with a section to take notes, and often have supplementary materials you can download if you really want to study up.

The University teaches copywriting basics as more high-paying gigs exist for copywriters. This may be a key merit of Writers Work for new writers hunting for profitable writing jobs, especially since it’s high-quality content.

Portfolios and Profiles

Once you’ve signed up, the next step is to create a profile within the platform. It even includes a “hire me” button. After creating a profile, you can join the Writers Marketplace. Here, employers and media companies can find your profile and DM you if they’re interested in hiring you.

Here’s a benefit I didn’t expect but enjoyed: Writers Work lets you set up your own portfolio using the site’s tools. This is more or less required if you want to create a robust profile that will net you more work, but the process is fairly simple. You upload photos, experiences, and documents to help showcase your work.

You may have already done this on LinkedIn or a similar writing platform while building your personal writing brand. However, doing this inside Writers Work gives you an easy way to directly link your portfolio without depending on outside sites or building one with WordPress. Then, when pitching a client, you could send them a link to your public profile.

Productivity Tools For Freelancers

Writers Work offers several tools for managing your freelance writing career. You can create projects and track time spent on each project. And you can also create and manage To Do list items per project or client. The ability to track time spent on projects is nice, as some clients bill on a per-hour rather than a per-word basis. It’s good practice to get into the habit of tracking how long you spend on specific projects or jobs.

However, it’s fair to say these tools are more suited for beginners. When I worked as a full-time freelance, I used a dedicated app, like Rescue Time, and project management software, like Trello, to track time spent on gigs.

Review Criteria

For this review, we took out a premium subscription to Writers Work. We used the service to find writing gigs in several niches and compared it to competitors which we’ve also reviewed. We also tested its various tools and submission features.

Why You Can Trust Us

I worked as a freelance writer and journalist for several years. My work has appeared in various national newspapers and online publications like Forbes. I also asked another freelance writer to review this service with me for a second opinion. I also wanted to see how it could help writers earn more, as I recently discovered that freelancers earn just $420,000 per year.

Is Writers Work Legit?

Writer’s Work is a useful service for new freelancers rather than more experienced writers. $47 isn’t a huge amount to pay if it saves you several hours searching job boards and you land a paying gig. It also offers several other helpful tools for freelance writers, including quickly building a portfolio. It’s a good platform for taking freelance writing more seriously. If you’re unhappy, it offers a money-back guarantee.

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