Scribbr Reviews

Pros

flexible hours, the people working customer service are nice, very fast growing scale-up

Cons

at the start the salary is lower but if you are good, it'll get better

Pros

Excellent way to be a digital nomad; if you can edit quickly enough, you can earn enough money to live quite a lavish lifestyle in many digital nomad cities. Work from anywhere from just your laptop. Very good for earning side income also. Can be interesting to read different people's theses. Support team is quick to respond and there is round the clock support.

Cons

Work is seasonal and unpredictable during off-season periods (although this is really a function of demand, which can change)

Pros

From a people point of view, the Scribbr team genuinely cares – about the work, about their editors, and about their customers. They're warm and have a collaborative, can-do approach to things. In terms of the work process, it's seamless. If you're looking to work from home and maximise your productivity, then Scribbr will be right up your street. The business is almost entirely online-based, and they take care of... the admin involved in dealing with customers so we can focus purely on editing. Scribbr also provides plenty of support for editors in the form of an in-depth editing-related knowledge base and an editor community forum where you can ask any questions and engage with other editors. For a digital business, they've done a remarkable job of cultivating a culture in which kindness, helpfulness, and integrity take centre stage. They're also constantly innovating and finding ways to improve their service and offer us additional support. The work itself can be tough-going, depending on the quality of the text, but it's also deeply rewarding.

Cons

The quality of each piece of writing varies, and in the past, since the business model worked on a per-word rather than a text-quality basis, sometimes (with a poorly written text), you'd spend more time on a job than you'd get paid for it. That said, Scribbr is currently innovating and working to solve this issue. Finally, if you live outside Europe, the exchange rate doesn't always work in your favour in terms of... earnings. Then again, in my experience, high earnings don't count for much if the work environment is awful. If you value time freedom and working with a company where you feel valued and like part of the family, then the exchange rate fluctuations are a small price to pay.

Advice to Management

Personally, I adore Scribbr. The only advice I have is to keep innovating, keep caring, and really just keep doing what you're already doing.

Pros

This company has a great setup. As an editor, I can choose when and how much I work and which topics I prefer. I get to work on very interesting papers and it’s very rewarding. Even though I live in a different time zone and have never met anyone at HQ, I feel like a part of the team.

Cons

You get paid the same whether the paper needs a heavy edit or a light edit. Papers are usually from non-native English speakers and need a lot of work. To do a proper job on these, you make less money. I believe the company is taking steps to remedy this, and the job flexibility makes up for this issue in my case.

Pros

- Possibility to realize my own plans - You can bring in ideas wherever, whenever - Proactive and independent work culture - Nice and family-like team - Possibility to bring in ideas

Cons

- Implementation of feedback takes some time - Start-up culture tends to be a bit chaotic

Advice to Management

- The new HR management seems to be a good addition - Sometimes people need a bit more guidance, at least at the beginning

Pros

If you are a fast editor, the pay per word can be quite decent.

Cons

The quality of submissions varies drastically. Some people are not even writing in readable English but the management will insist that you edit the document anyway. Sometimes this does not feel completely ethical as there are times when the editor has to essentially rewrite a large portion of the sentences to be readable. Sometimes these orders take so long that the pay per word is very low. There have been times... when I have told management that an order is basically incomprehensible and they will not be helpful, and tell me to just continue editing it even if I have very little idea what the student is saying. Sometimes management is not very helpful when it comes to questions about recurring grammar errors in a customer's order. There have been times when I've made an inquiry about an obscure grammar point I was unsure what to do with and received the reply "Just leave it as it is" or gotten an incorrect answer, which I would then find out was incorrect after doing a lot of my own searching online. It is also difficult with the time difference because editors working in much different time zones cannot communicate with the management as easily.

Pros

Basics: Scribbr is a company that mostly edits papers and theses at the university level (typically BA, but also higher). Practically all assignments are from non-natives, so the work is more about basic fixing of clear issues rather than fine-tuning and tweaking. The company is well organized with an excellent online interface. It's gratifying to work for a company that encourages us to give feedback on how to... improve to the students - seems a step more ethical than some competitors. All the staff are very responsive and kind. The vetting process for freelancers is also quite rigorous, and it seems like a team of competent people; in exchange, the feedback from senior staff is strict but fair, in contrast to what I've heard from some other agencies. Payments are prompt, and I've never had any issues with the company.

Cons

As is typical for undergraduate-level ESL work , most of the assignments range from poor to absolutely terrible in terms of language; it's rare for me to find a single sentence in an assignment that does not require fixing on a basic level. Since the pay is by word, regardless of the quality of the text, the hourly wage is almost never the 20-25 euros the company advertises; I average about 7-10 euros/hour, and that... is after I decided that I will aim to improve each text rather than trying to tidy them to be publication-quality.

Advice to Management

Keep up the good work!

Pros

Je travaille depuis bientôt trois ans chez Scribbr. Pour qui cherche à travailler de manière flexible, ce travail est parfait. J'ai pu voyager à plusieurs reprises tout en continuant à travailler. Il faut aussi noter que l'équipe basée à Amsterdam est très efficace. Justine, qui s'occupe du marché français, est particulièrement réactive et est toujours parvenue à trouver une solution lorsqu'un problème lié à une... correction se présentait. On peut compter sur eux !

Cons

Il est difficile pour certains correcteurs de corriger rapidement (donc de gagner un taux horaire satisfaisant), car les textes ne sont pas toujours d'un bon niveau. Une partie du travail consiste donc à comprendre comment corriger un texte de manière satisfaisante sans rechercher la perfection pour pouvoir être "rentable". Il faut en être conscient.