Trying to earn extra money writing essays. Just low-paying services -does it get better...?

I recently decided to try my hand at writing essays to earn some extra money. I applied to four sites, which I won't name and all of which had seemingly rigorous application procedures, and in the last couple of days I was accepted to all four of them. I haven't taken any orders yet -- I've just been browsing -- but whoo boy, this is not at all what I was expecting.

Before entering the fray, I had read that the industry standard is around $10 USD/page, minimum, and what do I see on these websites? Fifteen-page papers being offered for 3 dollars a page. Two-page papers for 4 dollars. Annotated bibliographies of 15 sources for like 8 dollars. Just now I read a request for a 25-page paper with dozens of recommended sources that needed written for 50 dollars. Why would anyone even waste time for such a trivial amount of money?

And then some of the orders ask for entire projects based on original research and knowledge accumulated over the course of the semester, but they don't provide any specific information. One person requested a capstone project for a sociology course and provided the instructions but stopped short of actually saying what the capstone needed to be about, and then - I laughed out loud when I read this - asked that the writer create a PowerPoint presentation and do a voiceover. Wouldn't the student's professor notice that it wasn't his/her voice doing the voiceover? :) One of the sites that I joined has a feature that allows public discussion of each order, and the level of English of some of the writers makes me question how they were let on in the first place. I've read such gems as: "I'm gladly complete paper for you But firstly please kindly provide subjects For the heading in each section." I also ran across some obviously fake testimonials written by Emilys and Johns and Peters and Jennifers that contained hilariously, hilariously bad English.

After getting flustered and typing a few rant-y phrases on Google, I found this forum, and I just kind of wanted to ask: are ALL essay-writing websites like this? Are the good, well-paying ones just hiding somewhere and I'm not finding them, or is it really what it seems, an industry dominated by low-paying fraudsters and "professional writers with advanced degrees" who can barely cobble together a sentence in English? I mean, surely there must be some success stories...

You may want to make sure that the four sites don't actually have same owner (it's quite possible, especially if the rates are similar).


Freelance writers generally establish their own rates per page, but yes, $10 per page is minimum if you contract with a legitimate UK or US-based service. On some sites you can make on average $12-15 per page.

It's best to work privately and charge $30 a page and up. Barring that, the U.S.-based companies that I know of are custompapers and SNR. In the UK they have Academic Knowledge. Critical Proof is also British. I don't work for any of them, so I can't tell you anything more in-depth than that.

Indeed there are many who do not have enough time to think that this amount is less or more, they simply need to be able to work for a living it.

I would not say that all the academic writing websites are like that. I would say that all of the 3rd world writing companies and most fly-by night academic outsourcing companies would fall under that description though. You probably ended up signing up with 4 of these companies. We have a pretty comprehensive listing of companies that fall under the description you just gave under the Do Not Discuss List. It would be beneficial to all the newcomers in this field to have a look at this list, take a screenshot of it and make sure that you do not apply or do not have an account with any of these companies. If you accidentally got signed up with them, I would suggest that you stop using that account before your nightmares begin in terms of collecting payment and you being fined for your work kicks in. The payment won't go up, it will go down even more per page as you increase your profile at the company. The higher your position, the lower per page payment you will get. Sure they will increase it at the start, then slowly, the price per page will go down until it becomes the normal payment per page for you and you will find yourself simply putting up with it because you don't have a choice.

Does it get any better? According to my friends who continue to work for academic writing companies since they fear the problems that may arise from working as a freelance writer, the pay does get better but doesn't make you rich. It is all about longevity at the company. If you decide to stay and ignore the low rates per page, you eventually write enough papers to get booted up a step with a slight increase. Say from $.50 to 1.00 per page. Then you can another slight increase depending upon how fast you complete the page and rating requirement of the company. While it won't be enough of an increase to make a sizeable mark in your savings account, it is still money that can help augment your income. My advice is, don't write for just one company. Try to write for several companies. Don't box yourself into a corner just writing for academic companies either. Find other paid writing venues that may be able to use your writing talents. Don't stick to one job. Don't be afraid to spread your wings. That's the best way to get the kind of income you want out of the writer's market.

If you can write well enough to do this for a living, you shouldn't have too much difficulty finding a US-based company that will pay you $20/pg, representing approximately half what they charge their customers for your work.

Collecting money aside as it's a common issue with many third world companies, being fined is a major problem. It seems that some of these companies will note virtually any and all reasons they can think of to fine writers. Perhaps that is why their rates are among the lowest--they know they won't be paying out much to their writers. ;) After all, you can afford to charge $10-19/page if you know you're only paying your writers $1-3/page and then you'll fine them 10-25% (if not more) for "errors" or "issues". A crappy business model, but quite common, I'm afraid.

It will only get worse. While I have done my best to not change the rates for my writers and instead, improve the rates even if only by a fraction, the other writing companies are not doing the same. While I can take a hit in my own income to give it to my writers, the other companies opted to lower the CPP for their writers instead. These companies are selfish and self serving. It is difficult to find a well paying writing company these days. All the companies are trying to survive. Unfortunately, there are companies that do it at the expense of their writers, who are also just trying to survive this new normal.

I am not sure if this is true for all writers but I have heard that some independent writers have had to cut their costs in order to keep their existing clients or win new clients who would much rather have AI write their papers. It is not a matter of skill anymore, it is a matter of if AI can do it for free, why should I hire a human to do the work for me? There is less risk in having AI write the paper so I am not interested in hiring a human. That is the mindset that has led to the constant lowering of the CPP for human writers.

The availability of AI has had zero impact on my pricing, because all of my existing clients already know that my work is worth what they've been paying me.

How has AI affected your pricing for new clients? Do you continue to have the same prices for old and new clients? Or are you open to bargaining when it comes to new clients?

Nope. My prices haven't changed at all.