Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
Textbroker is by far my favorite content mill. It’s the platform I used when I started my career as a writer, and I was able to replace a full-time income mostly because of the system. So, how much money was I earning on Textbroker within an hour?
Well, it relied on a lot of different factors. At one point, I was averaging around $25 to $30 per hour. But I wasn’t making that in the very beginning.
There are some major caveats to making that much. Not to mention that my income would often fluctuate.
Still, I wouldn’t be where I am today if not for spending time using Textbroker to may money from home.
What Influences How Much Per Hour You Make on Textbroker?
Textbroker pays its authors per word. This means you can make $0.016 per word as a 3-Star author up to $0.055 as a 5-Star. Your “Star” ranking depends on the quality of content you produce, including things like spelling and proper grammar.
But that’s just the base rate. You could make far more per word through Direct or Team Orders, depending on the client.
To calculate how much you can make per hour, you have to do a bit of math. Essentially, you break down the order as a whole divided by the number of minutes it took you to write it. Then, multiply that by 60 minutes.
So, let’s say it takes you 20 minutes to write a 700-word article at 3-Stars. Writing that article would net you $11.20. When you break it down per minute, you’re making $33.60 per hour.
This is quite realistic as I’ve been able to complete 700-word articles in around 20 minutes.
Although that sounds pretty amazing, you also need to consider what can affect how much money you make on Textbroker. Don’t assume that you’re going to sustain that $33.60/hr rate.
Available Workload
The biggest contributor to how much you’ll make per hour on Textbroker is the amount of available work. Sometimes, there are simply not enough jobs available to keep you writing.
There will be weeks when it seems like there is an endless flow of work available from clients. Then, there will be days when that workload dries up.
Keep in mind that there are thousands of writers on Textbroker looking for those same jobs. This means you are competing with a lot of people, so, you need to be fast and efficient.
How Fast You Can Process Content
Speaking of being fast, the amount you’ll make per hour is also dependent on how quickly you can get the work back to the client. Although some jobs say they won’t need the article back for three days, try to finish it as quickly as possible.
Having a fast turnaround means more potential for you to make money on other orders while impressing the client. He or she could wind up sending you Direct Orders because you have a fast pace at returning the work.
This is how I made a vast portion of the money on Textbroker.
Writing Revision Requests
When a client requests a revision, you’re not going to get paid for those changes. The order will remain the same value regardless of how many times you have to revise the content.
In my case, I’d say around 5% of my clients requested a revision. It’s not overly common, and a lot of them took less than five minutes to complete.
This is why it’s imperative to get the order right the first time. Doing revisions slows you down in terms of productivity. Though, it does make you look far more professional than many other writers.
This greatly influences whether a client will send you Direct Orders or not.
Typing and Comfort
The speed at which you type and the level of physical comfort will play roles in how much you make per hour on Textbroker. This is kind of an obvious point, but it bears mentioning.
First of all, physical comfort reduces stress and strain on your body. This will directly affect how you perform when writing content. The last thing you want to be thinking about when focusing on a job is how bad your butt or back hurt.
Case in point, I vastly increased how much I made during any given week simply by investing in a decent office chair. This resulted in being able to sit for longer periods of time to hammer out the articles.
If I remember right, it only took about a week or two before the chair paid for itself by making me more efficient.
In fact, there are several things to buy as a freelance writer that can ultimately impact how much you can make in an hour on Textbroker. A chair and proper lighting are probably the more important, though.
Having Dedicated Blocks of Writing Time
A lot of people assume that you can work at your leisure when writing from home. The problem is that most clients on Textbroker are businesses that maintain an 8 to 5 schedule.
This means that if you decide to write late at night, there may be less work. Since a lot of writers maintain the same work schedule as those businesses, they’ll pick up the orders much sooner.
Don’t get me wrong, you can still find work late at night. However, there is far more available during normal business hours.
How and Why I Track Textbroker Pay Per Hour
It’s true that content mills such as Textbroker do not have the highest rate of pay when it comes to writing. However, there are other benefits that can go beyond a high payout.
For one thing, it’s quick and easy work. Not to mention that it’s anonymous, which means a disgruntled client can’t tarnish your name and reputation like they can in the real world on social media.
Anyway, this is one of the reasons why I don’t track my income as a pay-per-word job. I calculate how much I can average in an hour and compare it to what I would make working a traditional job.
Sure, 1.6 cents per word sounds kind of paltry. But given how long it takes me to write the articles and my level of quality, I’m still making in excess of $30 per hour on Textbroker.
This includes revision requests.
I have a spreadsheet for writing that I use to track every project. I keep track of how many minutes each job takes me, how many words I write, and how much money the article brings in.
This gives me an estimation of how productive I am throughout the day and how much I make.
After I was able to sustain a weekly income greater than what I was making at the school district for three consecutive months, I quit my job and began writing full-time. This is because I wanted to make sure I could sustain the income before quitting a job with a guaranteed paycheck.
8 Tips to Making More Per Hour with Textbroker and Other Content Mills
I made a career out of writing for Textbroker. In fact, I grew so busy with Direct and Team Orders that I was writing all day exclusively for Textbroker. That didn’t happen for a couple of years after I started writing.
Although everyone’s experience will differ, there are several things that helped me along the way.
To make more per hour on Textbroker and other content mills, try to:
- Pick Up and Complete Orders Quickly: How long it takes you to write and submit an order means picking up another as quickly as possible.
- Trust Your Proofreading Skills: Don’t proofread the same article 10 times. Most clients want decent and quick articles.
- Use Free Tools Such as Grammarly and Hemingway: Free sites like Grammarly or using Hemingway can help reduce proofreading time.
- Work On Getting Direct Orders: Direct Orders can vastly increase how much you make on Textbroker. Treat all clients with respect.
- Apply to As Many Teams as You Can: A large portion of the money I’ve made was the result of being on a lot of teams.
- Reduce Distractions: Every moment you’re not typing for a client is money lost. You’re technically paid per word, so, keep typing.
- Get a Comfortable Place to Write: A proper chair and good lighting can do wonders for your workspace efficiency.
- Use Multiple Content Mills: Sign up with several content mills and go back and forth to find available work.
What about using AI for writing?
Well, if that’s what you’re interested in, you could probably shave off a lot of time with artificial intelligent writing.
Personally, I think technology is already taking too much away from people as it is. So, I’ll never use AI to write articles. But this is solely a personal preference.
I’ll use technology and AI sometimes to determine a good topic structure for keyphrases and headings. However, I’ll write the article myself.
Private Clients Will Pay More
The most important thing to keep in mind if you want to succeed as a freelance writer is that private clients pay more. Now, this doesn’t mean you should discredit content mills entirely.
If it wasn’t for Textbroker, I wouldn’t have grown as a writer as fast as I did. The editors helped me recognize a lot of faults in my writing and guided me to the important things I needed to learn.
Although I was able to quit my job at the school district and write full-time, content mills don’t pay nearly as much as gaining a private client. The way you make money with content mills centers purely around having a quick turnaround.
Hence the term, “mill,” as in to churn out as much as possible in a short amount of time.
I suggest working with sites like Textbroker to bring in a bit of cash and gain experience while looking for a higher-paying client. You can find plenty of them on LinkedIn.
The bottom line is that private clients want to know that you’re capable of producing quality content. This means knowing what you’re doing, especially in AP Style English.
Content mills give you that kind of experience while pointing out what you need to work on.
Understand Your Worth
Instead of seeing Textbroker as a “pay-per-word” platform, focus more on how much you can make per hour by cranking out as much quality content as you can. Then, compare the income to what you’d be making if you had a traditional job.
You’re not going to get rich quickly with content mills. But they can pad the weekly income until you start landing a few clients of your own.
- Can a Blog Be Successful without a Social Media Presence? - October 11, 2024
- How to Get the Most Out of the Reedsy Planning Board - October 9, 2024
- Is it Worth Setting Up a Bookstore on Your Author Blog? - October 7, 2024