Scribendi reviews

3.6

60% would recommend to a friend

(42 total reviews)

Tom da Costa

Not enough data to show CEO approval

49% positive business outlook

Scribendi has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 42 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Scribendi employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Management & Consulting industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

42 reviews
2.0
Aug 6, 2017

(Don't) Stand by Me

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There is plenty of work available, and you can choose the projects you like. The board may be a little lean during the summer and at other academic down-times, but I've been able to earn a modest and steady living. They provide tools to enhance your productivity, as well as a knowledge base to help you answer many basic questions as you edit.

Cons

The company does not support their editors. When clients complain, the order is reviewed by their full-time staff. No matter how high your score, no matter how well they esteem your editing, no matter how petty the client's complaints are (including that the client just didn't like a change you made, which they could just choose not to accept in their own revisions), the client is offered a redo or a refund. Frequently, the client requests a different editor for this. Again, no matter how high your review score or what praise was given to your work by the senior editors, if this request is made it will be granted, and you can lose your pay (and your time) for that order. Unfortunately, because all remote editors are contract workers, this is legit, and you have no recourse. I understand that keeping clients happy is how they stay in business--it's part of how all companies stay in business. But there appears to be no point at which the company will stand by the work of their editors, and no point at which the client stops being right--no matter how petty, foolish, or unreasonable they are being in their requests and complaints. The worst part is that clients have figured this out, and they appear to know that complaining enough can get them free services. Clients are not expected to take any measure of responsibility for their own work. You will see some truly abysmal writing in this job, and there appears to be no limit to the expectations placed on you to turn it into something worthy of highest regard (no matter how poorly conceived, constructed, and written it is when it comes to you). At the end of the day, there's only so much you can do without extensively researching and rewriting concepts from scratch (a no-no at Scribendi, and rightly so as that is not editing), but clients expect things to come back to them with no further review or writing necessary on their part, regardless of how dirt-poor the original was. In fact, client complaints often fall under the category of "I don't want to keep this change that the editor made," and rather than simply rejecting that change in the review process (a simple click of a button), they complain and demand a redo or a refund. In short, do not expect clients to be reasonable and do not expect Scribendi to EVER take your side, even when they deem your work "excellent" or a client's complaints invalid.

avatar
Scribendi Response
7y
Hello, and thank you for your feedback. Scribendi aims to provide freelancers with the autonomy to decide what work they wish to accept, so thank you for pointing this out. We are also happy to hear that you had the resources necessary to successfully complete your work. We apologise that you felt there was a lack of support, especially in relation to complaints. However, it is untrue that complaints always result in redos or refunds. We always protect editors from fraudulent (or simply incorrect) complaints, and we look at all complaints objectively through our highly calibrated quality system. A redo is only offered if a specific complaint is valid or if many errors remain in the document, which we believe to be fair. If the error is on the client’s end or Scribendi’s end—and not the editor’s end—the editor will always be paid for the work they have done. If a complaint is valid, however, we do ask our professional editors to take responsibility for their work. Maintaining quality is essential for customer satisfaction, but such satisfaction never occurs at the cost of fairness. It is true that we accept orders from inexperienced and ESL writers. We believe that everyone should have access to our services because everyone deserves the opportunity to communicate clearly and effectively. This does mean that we have to provide a great final product even for challenging documents. However, we never compel freelance editors to accept such documents. Editors only ever have to edit when and what they want, and we believe that this flexibility provides editors with a lot of professional freedom.
1.0
Aug 6, 2016

Totally unrealistic expectations

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

This is a decent remote option, but prepare to be hounded and to edit ridiculously bad ESL papers. The pay is less than my current job. The module for training and picking up work is decent, but you will be expected to take their test and go through their extensive and condescending training (full of bizarre photos of cats) with no pay.

Cons

The team, at first, seems like they are willing to work with you, but they're not. They're all about money, and if you don't earn repeat business for them, you will be fired.

2.0
Mar 28, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Yes, editors can work when they want, but the writing they must edit is so terrible and the pay so little, that the freedom is not worth it.

Cons

Thanks to Scribendi, hundreds of students who can barely write a sentence are getting advanced degrees because they have their papers rewritten by Scribendi editors. You can make a living wage if you can work 8-10 straight hours every day and, thus, do one-day turnaround jobs. But I am a caregiver, so I could not take any jobs that had to be returned in fewer than 5 days. As a result, the most I ever made for an edit was $8/hour, but I averaged $5/hour. For one two-page document that took me 30 minutes to edit, I made $3.25. I was a teacher, so I liked to explain why an edit was necessary. In one of my Quality Assurance checks, I had points taken away for this and was told, "Don't explain how to fix it, just fix it." So the writer, in other words, learns nothing. Many editors obviously pander for positive feedback, which is just sad.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 42 Reviews

Glassdoor has 139 Scribendi reviews submitted anonymously by Scribendi employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Scribendi is right for you.