When I was growing up it always amazed me that people could just get paid for putting words together, whether it was in a song or book. I wanted to be able to get paid for my words but it seemed allusive to me at the time. Because I knew I didn't write like a New York Time's author and I definitely couldn't rap like Jay-Z. Fortunately the internet was born and I was able to realize my dream via writing on my own blog. That said there are far more opportunities online for people that dream of writing for a living. There are writing platforms that will hire writers of different skill levels all over the world.
Recently we looked at the writing platform TextBroker, and now we're going to look at one of their competitors in this iWriter Review. There are tons of factors you should consider before writing for these websites. So let's take a look at iWriter.com and see if it's a legitimate site or a scam.
What is iWriter?
iWriter.com is a platform to purchase articles other people have written and write articles for other people to buy. iWriter is a subsidiary of Bryxen Software, Inc. This company mainly does internet marketing but also manages a few platforms like iWriter. It appears to be owned by Brad Callen.
How do you join iWriter?
iWriter is remarkably easy to join, especially compared to some competitors. Once you go to their homepage, you can just click “Sign Up” and fill out the form and wait for confirmation. You're ready to go write then.
How Does iWriter Work?
iWriter has two sections: a client portal and a writer portal. Clients can order articles and specify the length required, general category, and what they would like to pay. If a client likes a writer's work consistently, the client can send the writer “special requests” that pay the writer a bit more, but still cost the client the same.
On the writer's end, there is an open index of all available orders that have not been assigned to a specific writer yet. The writer can pick any article that is open. There aren't too many open at a time, and they go fast, but there definitely is a wide variety of content to choose from overall. The writer can only select a single article to work on at a time and can cancel writing the article at any time without penalty.
Writers also get “rated” on this platform. There is no introductory article review like other sites have, so the rating is solely based on the average of all client reviews (out of 5 stars). Writers below 4.1 stars get no special treatment and can only be assigned the lowest-paying articles. There is then the “Premium” tier, which is 4.1+ stars. These writers can pick up projects lowest on the high-paying bracket. Then there is the “Elite” status, which requires 4.6+ stars, and this is even more high-paying. There's also a rare “Elite Plus” category that requires 4.85 stars or more. Obviously, the higher the rank, the higher the payment.
What does iWriter pay and when?
iWriter uses PayPal exclusively. The interesting part of this platform is that you can specify when you would like to be paid and can keep doing it. They have four payment options (Every 5th of every month, every 25th of every month, every Tuesday, or every other Wednesday). If you want to get paid multiple times a week, you can keep changing your payment setting, and there doesn't appear to be a limit.
The wages are drastically different among the article, even in the same income brackets. Generally, however, it's well less than one cent a word for the “General” (no star requirement) group. The “Premium” can usually pick up a little less or a little more than a penny a word. The “Elite Group” always has more than one cent a word, and usually a little closer to two cents a word. Finally, the “Elite Plus” projects generally have extremely high expectations and research requirements but will reward the author with 5 or more cents per word.
You'll need to wait until you hit $20 to get any payment, but this hasn't ever really been a problem for me.
iWriter Complaints
Where oh where do I begin here? So many complaints, so little article space.
Diluted Market
Unlike some other platforms, iWriter lets literally almost anybody in to write, leaving thousands of incompetent writers to hoard projects and dishearten clients with lack of writing skill. This makes it look like there is no work available, since all jobs get snapped up quickly, sometimes by people who can barely speak English themselves. This also has chased many clients away, and many high quality, high paying clients have gone to other competitors for their articles.
Terrible Clients
This might make me sound mean, but there are some clients who are utterly terrible on iWriter. Many are very kind and decent people, but a lot of unchecked scamming goes on there. Some clients will order articles and “reject” them, and unfortunately that means they're rejecting your payment as well. That's right, sometimes you will not even get paid because a client decides they don't feel like it, and there's nothing you can really do. Oh, and on top of that, the client can leave you a terrible rating and not pay you, which can really make for the beginnings of a bad day. Sometimes, you can tell right off the bat, especially when a client has a 1% approval rating and somehow hasn't been banned.
Drastically Variable Payment
Each client sets a price based on a minimum for tier of writer being requested. So you can get paid very little or very generously depending on the random price of that single article, making it very variable how much money you can make, so don't count on getting that extra bar money for this weekend!
Where's the International love?
iWriter use to be open to a lot of countries, but recently they have been blocking certain countries, at least according to this Reddit.
So is iWriter legitimate or not?
It depends on who you ask. Some writers will claim its a scam because of the crappy pay and the shady clients. But for the most part writers are paid, but only if the client hiring you feels your work is quality or not. This can be very subjective but the reality is the client has more of an advantage here. And they know it and sometimes abuse it. Some writers claim that iWriter is aware of this can do more but they turn a blind eye.
So as a writer you're taking a calculated risk here. You can end up spending a lot of time writing a killer article that can be rejected by an A-hole client. It doesn't happen all the time but it is a risk. I've used iWriter to hire people to write my content and initially my experiences weren't all that great because I would get the crappy writers. But once I started to be a lot more specific about what I wanted and specified only US writers the quality jumped up significantly. So from my experience it has been good on the client side and I've happily paid good writers. But I've also rejected some crappy ones. That said I can see how that would suck as the writer. So although I don't think iWriter.com is an out right scam designed to screw writers over I can see how you could have negative experiences with the platform.
What's Next?
Given the potential of dealing with shady clients that may reject your work at iWriter, I'm happy that this is never a concern for me as a writer for my own blog. I control the content and how much I get paid. I don't have to worry about getting rejected or splitting my money with a third party site. If you want that type of freedom and the ability to earn a real full time income, then Check out My #1 Free Work At Home Recommendation. It can teach you how to make money writing without dealing with the nonsense I laid out above about iWriter.com
That said, if you really want to maximize your income online you need to take a multiple streams of income philosophy and have various ways of earning money. If you understand that putting all your eggs in one basket is a bad idea, then I would encourage you to look at my Work At Home Courses as well. The more options you have the more likely you are to make some real money from home. It's been the secret to my success and hopefully it can be for you as well.
In any event, I've babbled enough. I would love to hear your thoughts about my iWriter Review. Have you used this site? What is your experience? Feel free to post a comment down below on your way out.
I'll speak to you soon.
Eddy with a y
Since I graduated from school and got my diploma, I wanted to look for a job. A job that interested me was being a freelance writer. When I looked at different jobs, I came across a blog post that mentioned IWriter. At first, it seemed like a good place to start my career online. I signed up for IWriter and I had articles of all sorts accepted (and of course some that were rejected). I’ve made money on IWriter as well (almost $800 in total). However, after reading the reviews and complaints from other writers, I’m debating if I should still use IWriter or opt-out for another freelance job.
When I signed up for IWriter, I never checked other writer’s experiences/reviews with the platform, which is a major red flag. I used IWriter for almost two years and I agree there are flaws on the platform. One of the biggest flaws that I noticed is that I can’t leave a low-rating review on a client’s profile. I understand that there are writers on this platform that write poor content (though clients can reject it), but the client’s reasons for rejecting my articles is kinda ridiculous.
As an example, I got a special request for a 2000 word article about an online college course. It took a good four hours for me to write the article, check it, and edit it. I sent it to the client with high hopes that my rating will get to a 4.7. But nope, guess why the client declined my article? They rejected it because it was 729 words, even though the article was over 2000.
To me, there must’ve been a glitch with IWriter because I did write an article with the correct word count, but even still, it also seemed to me that the client didn’t look at the article and just went by the word count. I was so upset you wouldn’t believe it. Currently, my rating is 4.72, but I would like to give a low-rating review to clients. It isn’t fair that they can leave a low review on the writer’s page and lower their ratings but writers can’t do the same.
Another problem I had with clients is that they can leave you a low rating without giving you a reason why they gave that rating. I understand that not every client will like my writing, but I’m a very open-minded person and open to criticism. I’m always willing to improve my writing and how to expand on my vocabulary, so when clients don’t give you a reason, it makes you wonder what the client didn’t like about the written piece.
Also, the Copyscape system they have is not up-to-par. I literally went through an entire 1500 word article because I used “coffee-maker” in my article even though that was what the product was.
I’ve also been looking at other writer’s reviews of IWriter on Glassdoor and another article like this talking about the platform, and it doesn’t seem pretty. Many people say that they pander more towards clients. Therefore, a lot of writers have poor support from the staff of IWriter if a client does something that is not right or legal.
As an example, there have been accounts where the client will reject the article but will use the article anyway so they don’t have to pay the writer. This is not just a scummy thing to do, but also illegal since this is considered plagiarism. Another example of clients doing something bad is the article is a 300 word but in the special instructions, they said the writer needs to write 500 words to get a 5-star rating. These examples show how horrible some clients can be.
Of course, I’m not saying every client on IWriter is like this. There are clients on IWriter that are nice and want more content written, but I feel like IWriter needs to be better if the clients are sketchy and take the writer’s concerns into account as well. Another problem writers are having is that they are banned for no reason.
There are other things about IWriter, but I think my comment is already too long. I personally think of leaving IWriter and finding another work at a home job somewhere else. I love working from home, but I want to be on a platform that isn’t horrible. At least I learned my lesson that I should check other reviews before signing up onto a writing platform like IWriter. I do have my own blog and hope to eventually make money on that. These are my thoughts on IWriter, so to anyone who plans on writing on there, be careful. Sorry for my long comment but I needed to express my feelings. PS: I just discovered this blog. It looks nice and I hope I can find other opportunities for freelance writing here.
Working your butt off to earn $1.50 an hour is crap but I hoped that I would be able to reach Elite status. I received five stars for five of the first six articles I wrote and then received four stars from someone who favorited me and wanted me to exclusively write for them. The reason for the four star, a few grammatical errors. Now, there might be some grammatical errors in my comment here but I’m positive there were none in the article that I wrote this person. I spent nearly thirty of my one hundred twenty minutes researching grammar just to ensure no possible mistakes. I excelled in all my English classes in school. If more than one out of every ten articles receive less than a perfect score, you’ll never even reach premium. I quit after that rating.
In May 2019, the pending payment in the account which was $77 has changed to $0
It is now showing
Next PayPal Payment: $0.00.00
Customer support is also not replying
Is any else facing the same problem
Iwriter is the biggest scam I have ever encountered. Run my friend or else you will be robbed of your sweat.
Can you elaborate on your experience? People are quick to call everything a scam without context. So share your experience.
Well I just hunted down some more reviews on iwriter because I was accepted on the platform last week and I am absolutely horrified. I’ve been rejected 8 times with 3 accepted, and the pay is so bad its comical. Here is one of the job descriptions: “I need 10 reviews (goes on to list 10 Amazon products) each 150-200 words. Use at least two sources for each product. Only work with at least an 80% on Grammarly will be accepted. Don’t write promotional. You will be rejected if you write promotional. Supply sources at the bottom”
Guess what that hot mess pays for providing reviews to manipulate ratings at Amazon? 3.60. 10 reviews 150-200 words each, requires at least 20 sources, and doesn’t want ‘promotional’ even though they are product reviews for less than 4 dollars. This platform is unreal. I’ve never seen anything so bad. At least I sold 3 of my rejected articles on ConstantContent, and I made a lot more than I would have if the client accepted them on iWriter. I have heard that iWriter gets better as writers move up in rating after 20-30 articles, but clients give vague instructions, reject anytime they feel like it with no reason or feedback, and the pay is so low its laughable. I don’t think I can force myself to even attempt improving my rating and reaching the required number of articles. I’m not sure what stops clients from stealing work they reject. It isn’t like ConstantContent where they can only see an image of the work before purchase. I really don’t know what would stop a client from taking the content and rejecting anyway from iWrite because they get everything before choosing to reject or accept. There is no one to contact or address an issue with even if stolen material is found somewhere.
Hey thanks for sharing your experience and insight. I agree the pay on content Mills like this can be very low.
And the employers aren’t the best at providing a lot specific guidance. I learned that the hard way when I initially started hiring writers. I found the quality of writing improved dramatically when I provide a lot of guidance. I would literally provide outlines and videos to ensure I got what I want.
I didn’t have to reject writers as much as I did before this. That said iwriter does provide an image as well. They don’t just give the employer the article so they can steal it like you claim. Unless that’s changed since the last time I used it. And honestly if people want to be shady they can easily use software that can turn images into actual text. So that can happen in other platforms as well including the one you keep referencing in this comment.
Ultimately I think you’ll have good and bad writers on platforms like this. But the fact is there are some writers that are willing to work their way up and can make some decent money with this. It may not be comparable to what they may make offline and even other platforms. But there is money to make.
I initially swore sites like this off because the quality of writers sucked. But I became better with writing my requirements and invested in the higher tier writers and the results were great.
I agree iwriter can improve though. Fortunately that’s the great thing about the internet. There are plenty of fish in this digital sea. You don’t like this one there are plenty more to try. Or do what I did start your own blog and make the money you decide you’re worth. And you don’t have to deal with content Mills or clients.
It may be hard at first but long term it becomes passive income for years to come. Writers at content Mills here get paid once for their writing. Bloggers like me continue to make money with our articles passively for years to come. Which sounds like a better deal long term?
Just went to iWriter.com and they are no longer accepting writers.
That’s interesting. It still seems to be accepting.
iWriter.com is a scam that aims to get frustrated (Standard) writers to spend appropriately $200 within iWriter’s accelerated fast-track affiliate program. I reported them and, they are currently under serious investigation. Buyer be aware!
I tried to join wealthy affiliate but it says that free membership is not available in my country (India).
Hey Anjum,
I’m sorry that may be WA policy now because of issues with fraud or spam.
They ban almost everyone because there are so few requesters at Standard and they always rate you the lowest… Seems like the only way to get up there is by paying the 147$ fee, that is if you have them… I don’t get how people can approve your article and rate you 3/5 every time when you’ve put in so much work for those 500+ words and 2.5$… You can merely buy a sandwich nowadays for 2.5$, and you hardly find any work at Standard…
3 Complaints about iWriter:
1. you can not earn a 5 star review for any article you write unless you pay them the $147 for their fast program. The highest you can earn is a 4.5 per article meaning you can never rank up to the highest two levels of pay.
2. Most of the posters for the beginning level jobs keep the articles “reserved for their favorite writers” this is a violation of the terms and conditions but iWriter does nothing about it. All this takes is a filter for the word “reserved”
3. You never see a link to the articles you write posted so you can not build a portfolio
Thanks for sharing your complaints about iwriter.
I disagree with most of the comments made here. Iwriter is not a scam. I have used it as a requester and as a writer as well. I have made good cash throughout the time I have been working with them. Making over $150 weekly is not bad for a start! All you need to do is establish and build your own team.
Hey Shawn,
Thanks for sharing your own experience. It’s always good to get various perspectives. I’ve had good experiences getting writers here. But I can’t really speak to the make money aspect. But sounds like you’re doing well with it.