I recently came across an ad for ContentFly. This is a site that pays writers for content and then sells the content to businesses and online magazines. Some of their clients include Medium, Inc., and the Wall Street Journal. I hadn’t head of them, so I looked them up.

The basics

In a nut shell, ContentFly works like most “content mills.” They get content requests from businesses, and then they put the request on their dashboard for writers to claim. First come, first served, but we’ll get more into that later. ContentFly does send out email notifications when there is new work on the dashboard, so there’s that.

Applying

Here is the application form. To get accepted, you have to write a 750 word blog post. They don’t pay you for the sample, but they also say they won’t use it and you retain the rights to the article. If you get accepted, they give you an assignment. If they don’t like your work they terminate your contract and you don’t get paid for the article, according to their guidelines posted here.

Here is a copy of their contractor’s agreement.

Ratings

Once you complete your work and submit it, you are given a rating. There are three writer’s ratings.

• Tier 1- A writer with a 9 or 10 rating.

• Tier 2- A writer with a 7 or 8 rating.

• Tier 3- A writer with a 5 or 6 rating.

Here’s how ContentFly says they come up with their rating system:

Content Rating = Customer Rating - Deadline Rating - Spelling/Grammar Rating.

Customer Rating: The customer provides a rating from 1 to 10 for your finished piece. 10 means they love it, 1 means they were very disappointed.

Deadline Rating: If you miss the specified deadline for a job you’ve claimed, you’re docked 4 points from the rating assigned by the customer (Customer Rating).

Spelling/Grammar Rating: When the internal ContentFly team does a check on your submission, if we notice blatant spelling/grammatical errors or wrong use of language (e.g. US vs. UK as directed by the original brief), you’re docked 2 points from the Customer Rating. 

Your rating determines how much work you are able to get. Tier 1 allows you to have first pick of any available job. After an hour, if none of the Tier 1 writers pick up the assignment, Tier 2 gets to take jobs Tier 1 writers didn’t want. After another hour, Tier 3 has access to the crumbs the Tier 1 and Tier 2 writers didn’t want, basically. You can learn more about their rating system here.

The pay

Apparently, they already have more than 100 writers in their systems. Their top writers write around 15 to 20 pieces of content per week and make around $700 (their ad says $1,000, but they contradict themselves elsewhere). ContentFly says that compensation averages around $0.05 per word.

Each ContentFly client pays $250 per month for 4,000 words of content. That’s their base package. So, the writers get paid around $200 for the 4,000 words and ContentFly takes a $50 cut. Clients can get bigger packages where they can get more content. The biggest package is 32,000 words for $2,000 per month. So, if my math is right, ContentFly is taking a $400 profit from the biggest package.

The pay system isn’t automated, though. You’ll need to submit an invoice at the end of the week to get your payment. They only pay through PayPal.

Here’s the full ad they posted on ProBlogger:

Hey there! We're ContentFly, a start-up that matches small businesses looking for content help with writers.

We're looking for an eager freelance Content Writer to join our team. Your role, in a nutshell, will be helping us write articles, blogs, social copy, etc. for our growing customer base.

How does it work? If you're accepted into our writer base, whenever a new content request (job) comes from one of our customers it's automatically pushed to you and available on a dashboard.

The job will include a brief, required length, compensation details, and the deadline for submission.

If everything sounds great, you can claim the job and have it completed by the deadline. You invoice us weekly and get paid via PayPal.

Some FAQs:

1) Generally, most of our content is Website articles, Blogs, and Social Media posts.

2) Average project duration is usually around five days (~1000 words). You can take on as many projects at once as you want.

3) Compensation averages at $0.05/word. Note! Most of our writers earn an average of $1000 per month!

4) This is a contractor position and is freelance, you're compensated based on the number of words you write.

5) You only deal with us, never the actual client. So it's hassle-free and a seamless way to make some extra money!

What's the catch? There is none.

You get the listed compensation details; no hidden fees or payment required from you. But we do have very high standards, and one or two poor rankings or missed deadlines will get you moved out of the roster.

Next steps in the application process are submitting your application details and including a portfolio of your best work at http://writers.contentfly.com

Important: If you need an idea of the style of writing and quality we are looking for, you can check out our blog here before submitting your application: https://contentfly.com/blog

My No-Fluff Freelance Writing Starter Pack teaches you how I make a living at home as a freelance writer. It includes my two books, a social media marketing guide for writers, invoice template, contract template and more. Just $29.97!