iWriter Review 2019

iWriter Review 2019

Introduction

At the heart of every website or blog lies content. Without content, you’ve not got anything to offer your visitors. And if you have nothing to offer your visitors, then why on earth would they want to be on your website?

Please note that this iWriter review contains sections for both buyers looking to purchase articles, as well as writers looking to sell their content. I’ve tried to make this flow as well as possible, but if you find it hard to follow then please leave a comment and I will consider splitting it out into two reviews.

What Is iWriter?

iWriter, to put it bluntly, is what you call a “content mill”. Basically, people seeking content for their websites, blogs, or whatever (the buyers) can submit a list of articles that need written, and then writers can take those jobs.

It’s designed primarily for getting articles 300-1000 words in length that are tightly targeted around a specific keyword, such as “dog training tips” or “how to reduce mortgage repayment”.

iWriter isn’t just a popular destination for buyers either. It is also popular with people looking to write articles for money; whether that is to supplement their existing income, or to simply make ends meet.

Because people are so interested in iWriter from both sides of the fence, I thought I had better do a detailed review of it. This iWriter review is all up-to-date and relevant for 2019 as well.

How To Sign Up To iWriter

Start by heading over to iWriter.com – here’s the homepage (NB: the site has recently had a makeover, so I will update the screen shots in due course)

iwriter-review

Now from here you need to pick what you are looking to do with iWriter. If you want to get content written for you, then select to “have articles written” from the option on the left.

On the other hand, if you want to write articles for money, then select the “write articles” option.

Depending on which option you choose, you’ll see a signup form a bit like this:

iwriter-signup

Buying Articles

If you’re looking to purchase articles, then you’ll want to pay close attention to this section of the review, which is coming soon.

Selling Articles

If you’re looking to write articles and get paid money for doing so, then you’ll want to pay close attention to this section of the review, which is coming soon.

iWriter Alternatives

  • HireWriters.com – pretty much the same platform, only smaller. I’ve generally found the articles are higher quality than iWriter for the price. However, the owners are rumoured to treat writers poorly. You can read my review of Hirewriters.com here.
  • Fiverr – another place to hire $5/500 word writers. LOADS of competition and you have to actively sell – you can’t just go and grab gigs from an open jobs list. You can actually find reasonable content writers on Fiverr.
  • Constant Content – much more high end. Writers charge anywhere from $5/100 words and up. You can browse pre-written articles and purchase, or request custom gigs. I used to write a bit for Constant Content, but found that their system of writing for buyer requests wasn’t fantastic, and that I just didn’t see the results I was getting from writing for clients I found independently. You can read my review of Constant Content here.
  • Peopleperhour – a newer entry to the fray. This is a cool gig marketplace site. Lots of flexibility for setting your own prices and then working hard to get clients. Solid escrow-type payment system as well which is neat. Good opportunities for buyers as well. Much better than Fiverr in my opinion.

There are loads of other places to either find buyers for your content, or to find sellers offering content for sale. Just do a bit of looking around.

Conclusion

iWriter Review For Buyers

The only thing cheapie iWriter articles are any good for is getting dirt cheap content for PBN sites, buffer Web 2.0s or pump n’ dump affiliate sites. If you are using them as the basis of a serious informational website (or, heaven forbid, promotional content such as affiliate reviews or sales page copy) then you deserve to fail. That’s not me being rude, it’s just the harsh truth.

The quality of the content just isn’t very good, because the only people really writing for iWriter are either those who aren’t good enough to get paid clients elsewhere, or people who just don’t care about the quality of their work. There may be some exceptions to this in the higher content tier, where you pay a much higher price per word. However, in my experience you still don’t get anything particularly good in terms of content when paying the higher prices.

I must admit that the functionality of the marketplace is very good from the perspective of a buyer. You get fast turnaround time, and everything is designed to ensure you get the article you want – even at the expense of the writer. I’ve never had to wait more than 24 hours to get an article returned to me.

iWriter Review For Writers

Let’s make this straightforward: Please don’t. You deserve better than this.

Provided you can actually write a decent quality article (I mean something that is readable and provides at least a little slice of value to the reader) then you should be looking to ply your trade elsewhere. I would suggest trying to independently find clients, or go through a marketplace like Upwork or Peopleperhour that at least gives you a little bit more flexibility to earn decent cash.

The only exception to this rule, from my perspective, is if you’re on skid row at the moment financially and need some fast cash. You could potentially eek out a meager existence writing articles at the lower tier, but it certainly wouldn’t be fun. However, if it beats starving, then by all means go ahead.

I guess you could also justify writing for a content mill like iWriter if you live in a country where  the local currency is grossly undervalued versus the US dollar. If $5 USD equals half a day’s wages working a regular job, then you could no doubt make an okay living from iWriter or similar content mills. However, if you live in the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, NZ etc, then you’ll really struggle to make ends meet.

Of course the crap pay is not the only thing wrong with iWriter from the perspective of someone being a writer. There are other nasty downsides to contend with also:

For example, there have been reports for the longest time of buyers rejecting articles (which, ostensibly means they don’t pay but shouldn’t get the work) and then actually keeping the article by taking the “text image” you receive for proofing, and putting it into an image to text converter. This text image is meant to protect the seller and buyer by allowing the buyer to check the article before sending funds, and the seller by preventing their content from being copied/pasted and then rejected.

Furthermore, the kind of buyers who actually go and spend their money on iWriter tend to be very difficult to work for. Back when I was a poor uni student I did a bit of writing on iWriter, and it wasn’t uncommon to get some total cheapskate loser who was paying $3 for a 500 word article to reject it – despite perfect grammar, spelling, and following their instructions – for some kind of nebulous reason like “not enough depth”. Guess what? You don’t deserve “depth” in your content for $3 per 500 words. All you deserve is a somewhat coherently-arranged set of words that bear a vague resemblance to the topic you wanted to have content written about.

As you can tell, I am still kind of salty about this. However, iWriter is a textbook example of what I like to call the “pricing paradox”. As a rule, the more money you are charging for your services, the less prone to complaining and more satisfied the customers/clients are. On the other hand, bargain basement clients who feel like they are forking out the big bucks when paying $5 for a 500 word article are more likely to complain. I’m sure most people who have done freelancing work, either in the real world or online, will agree with me here.

Conclusion

Overall, iWriter falls down in a number of key areas.

However, iWriter does have some merit as a source of fast-turnaround dirt cheap PBN content, or something that you could put through a spin syntax to blast with GSA or RankerX or something like that.

As a seller, iWriter only makes sense if you are desperate for income or living somewhere were a couple of measly US dollars equals a princely sum in the local currency. Even then, you’re going to have to put up with being treated like DIRT by many iWriter buyers.

The interesting thing with this platform is that there are some good writers on here, and there are also some good buyers who treat the writers well, don’t make unreasonable demands, don’t cheat the system (i.e. rejecting the article but downloading the preview of it so they can get free content). The problem really comes from the fact that most of the time, you either seem to get stuck with terrible buyers who expect far too much for what they are willing to pay for, or if you’re a buyer you tend to wind up having a dreadful writer ignoring most of your instructions and delivering you steaming hot garbage.

If you DO manage to find a good buyer (or vice versa) then the functionality of the platform makes it a total breeze to use. You can quickly and easily write your content, and iWriter is reliable at paying out. As a buyer, you can get fast turnaround and you don’t have to deal with the manual handling of payments etc, as well as enjoying a good level of protection.

If you’re willing to put up with the pitfalls/shortcomings, then there could be potential for you on iWriter, especially from the buying side of the equation. Although it’s generally better to work with independent freelancers who are “off platform”, it’s also handy to be able to get content turned around so incredibly quickly and with minimal fuss. If you build up a list of writers you like working with as well, then your process can become even more streamlined.

You can check out iWriter for yourself here, and register either as a buyer or writer. NB that as far as I can tell, you need a separate account for buying and writing. Check whether you’re registering as a ‘client’ or ‘writer’ depending on what you want.

iWriter Review
  • Score for Writers
  • Score for Buyers
  • Customer Service
  • Ease of Use

Summary

Let's not beat around the bush. iWriter is pretty bad. It is the quintessential content mill, meaning as a writer you get treated poorly by overly-demanding, cheapskate buyers, and as a buyer you'll often find that writers cannot follow simple instructions or straight up steal other content and try to pass it off as their own.

However, there are some situations in which this platform can be very useful - especially if you need a simple, straightforward system for ordering content with fast turnaround times and good security if things go wrong.

As a writer you will have a much harder time of it, but there may be some potential to make OK coin here if you are able to get buyers who are reasonable, and then get them to come back to you for repeat work.

3.4

27 thoughts on “iWriter Review 2019”

  1. Think you’ve hit the nail on the head here, Sam. There are both good and bad writers and clients and the hard part is matching up with someone on the same wavelength.

    Like any platform, you have to learn the ropes. I ordered my first five articles, expecting them to be done by one writer and I got five different writers, which caught me off guard. Some were absolutely atrocious. They were for a running website and were really awful. Even the best one was barely passable, but I suppose you get what you pay for.

    I kept in touch with the best writer, though, and gave him some other topics and once we got used to working together it wasn’t so bad.

    Since then, however, I’ve stopped being lazy and got back to writing my own articles. I only used iWriter due to a few personal problems I had and wasn’t feeling too creative. It is okay if you can be patient and be lucky enough to find someone that you can encourage and nurture. Once you get to know one another then it goes without saying that it will be mutually beneficial and the product will be a lot better.

    Initially, though, you do have to explain the basics, because it seems that most writers don’t even understand what a keyword is! They just go off track and make their own up, totally ignoring the ones you have given them. 🙂

    Thanks,

    Dave

    • Hi David, thanks for your incredibly detailed and insightful comment.

      You basically could have written my review for me.

      As you say, I’m sure there are some good writers on there … but you have to dig through a lot of turds to find the diamonds. On the flipside, so many buyers are unreasonable in terms of what they demand for the price they are willing to pay.

      Regards,
      Sam Frost

  2. writer pays when you are a beginner , but when you go elite and write about the high paying articles its a scam they pay in small amounts like 1$ to 10, but when you write amounting of 50 to 200$ it will never pay i write for a year ,all the high paying articles are just a display to entice writers

    • Hi James, thanks for your comment. I’ve certainly heard similar feedback to yours in the past – basically that high paying articles are dangled there but you’ll probably never get any.

  3. iwriter has turned to be the greatest scam, writers beware, if they have not come for your account, they are coming for it soon. They wait until you have made funds then block your account claiming fraud and same IPs. They have turned into scammers stealing from writers. No matter how you do your best. The best thing is, if you get a good client or writer, link and move out and work directly as soon as possible.

  4. When you see it happening around you, don’t assume it because its not on you. The same tears you see your neighbor cry will soon be on you. Iwriter is a great scam and cant be compared to any other under the sun. You (Iwriter) had the best idea and whoever is managing the site today you are a curse under the sun. This issue of frustrating writers and giving us sleepless nights only to ban account will turn to your life too. They came for my account that I have used for 10 years now “Account banned due to security risk” was the response. I don’t have to say more “RIP iwriter” let’s meet on the judgement day.

  5. Well, the other down with iwriter other than the rock-bottom pricing is that they’ll carry out a comprehensive ban of URLs from a given region. Yes, they did it this August, 2019 and locked out even great writers. So, in short, you cannot, and should not bank on iwriter for long term career progression. In any case why hope to make a career in one of the world’s lowest paying sites?

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