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Welcome to the Compose.ly
Everything you need to know to create great content with Compose.ly.
What's All This?
What's All This?
We're so glad to have you as part of our freelance community. On this page, we've compiled info about our most frequently asked questions and things even we know can be a little tricky for editors new to our platform. You'll find the table of contents below, with sections we've laid out to explain each major aspect of working on our platform — from keeping your account information updated to editing projects to handling revisions.
Once you've had a chance to read through, you'll need to take the short quiz to confirm your orientation completion. After we get your answers, we'll start matching you up with clients, and you should start seeing projects to choose from within the next few days.
In the meantime, browse our other resources here in the Learning Center to get ready to hit the ground running!
Section 1: Updating and Maintaining Your Account
Section 1: Updating and Maintaining Your Account
Get matched. Get paid. Get support.
Learn how to update your profile with your expertise, interests, and availability, so we can match you with the right projects.
Get Matched: Build your profile
Get Matched: Build your profile
Click My Account and Personal Data to update your information.
Add a short, third-person bio to help us know what projects to send you. We use the information on your profile page in two main ways. Our Community Manager references your experience, expertise, and preferences when adding you to client teams, and some of our clients choose to run the content you create with your byline. (Most only publish writer names — we know, editors are often co-creators! — but a few are interested in crediting editors, as well.) We’ve created a resource about Crafting a Strong Bio to help you understand how to create a great profile that will highlight your expertise, encourage readers and clients to trust your content, and help you grow your online presence and credibility as a writer, editor, or subject-matter expert in your niche. Here's an example:
Franny Finance is a financial expert specializing in debt management and retirement planning. She holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Purdue University and earned her CFP from the American College of Financial Services, and she works as a financial advisor at Northwestern Mutual. Her published articles appear in Forbes, Yahoo! Money, and Money.com. In addition to finance, Franny has significant experience editing legal and marketing-related content.
Check out this resource on Choosing Your Profile Photo for more tips!
We also encourage you to update the Additional Info section of your profile. This is the place to share the extra stuff that didn't make the cut for your official bio but might still be helpful in getting you matched with projects in your area of interest. Feel free to include any of your unique interests such as bird watching, pickleball, or even cage diving with sharks! You never know when we'll get a client wanting to cover those exact topics.
Update your bandwidth (approximately how many words you plan to edit each week) so we know how much work to send you. We won't hold you to it, but it helps us plan. Please update this regularly as your availability changes.
You can also set your email notification preferences. Do you prefer to receive immediate email notifications about available projects you can claim, or would you rather get a daily roundup? Choose what fits your working style best.
Get Paid: Link your PayPal account
Get Paid: Link your PayPal account
Connect your PayPal account under My Account and Billing Info. In order to link your PayPal and Compose.ly accounts, you'll need to make sure that the name and email provided are the same on both accounts. If you need to change your name on your Compose.ly account in order to do this, please reach out through the Compose.ly Bot to let our team know.
Your balance is paid bi-monthly, on the 9th and the 24th of the month. All projects marked complete by the client from the 1st of the month through the 15th will be paid out on the 24th and all projects marked complete on the 16th through the end of the month will be paid out on the 9th of the following month.
For example, on February 9th, you'll receive payment for all projects completed from January 15th to January 31st. Then you'll be paid on February 24th for all projects completed from February 1st to February 15th.
You can review the status of your projects under the My Projects tab — filter by Completed. Under your My Account tab, you can review your payment records in Payment History and Pending Payments.
Payment is processed after the client marks the project as completed. If the client takes no action, projects auto-complete in 7 days.
Get Support: Project communication
Get Support: Project communication
Ideally, the project guidelines will include everything you and the writer need to create a great piece of content. If you have questions, we're here to help.
The Compose.ly team manages all communication with the client. You can direct your questions straight to us through the Compose.ly Bot chat feature in the lower-left corner of your project dashboard. A member of our community support team will work on getting you the answers you need to complete the project. Support messages are generally handled between 9am and 5pm EST. Please do your best to get your questions in by the end of the support day, to avoid missing deadlines.
If you have a question for the writer, you can ask them directly through the chat for that project.
Please keep in mind that our support team will get back to you as soon as we're able, so no need to worry that we've ghosted you if you don't hear back right away! If you haven't received an answer to your question and the deadline is looming, please don't submit the project. Just hold onto it, even if that means the project going overdue, and wait to hear from our team. We'll remove any late penalties on your account once we're back in office and can get your question answered.
Section 2: Claiming and Crafting Projects
Section 2: Claiming and Crafting Projects
Get claiming. Get curious. Get crafting.
Learn how to claim projects, navigate project guidelines, and start editing.
Get Claiming: Only write the projects you want to
Get Claiming: Only write the projects you want to
Unlike during the trial phase, you are not required (or expected!) to claim every project in your Find Projects tab, only the ones you’d like to take on and will be able to complete.
You'll start with a limited number of words you can claim at a time. After you've successfully completed several projects, we'll lift the limit, and you can edit as much as you want!
You’ll find plenty of available projects under the Find Projects tab. If you've set your account to send you email notifications about new projects, you can also access this tab through the link provided in the email.
If you're not seeing enough available projects on your account, reach out to the Community Manager through the Compose.ly Bot to request being added to more editing teams.
If you see a project you’re interested in, click the Available button to get more information. Double-check the word count, payment, and deadline, and read the description thoroughly to make sure the project is a good fit for you, your interests, and your schedule.
If it looks good, click the Claim This Project button, and then click Okay to confirm. The project is all yours!
Get Curious: Navigate project guidelines/brand profiles
Get Curious: Navigate project guidelines/brand profiles
You'll find the projects you claimed under the My Projects tab. Click one to open your project and start editing.
First things first: Review the guidelines.
The number one concern from clients who request revisions is that the writer didn't follow the guidelines closely enough. The second most common concern is that the writer has misunderstood the client's business service/product or brand voice. Make sure to review the guidelines thoroughly enough to ensure the writer has correctly understood them. There's no use in cleaning up a project that doesn't fit the brief!
Ask yourself: Who is this client?
Watch for links or attachments in the project guidelines that offer more insight into the client's preferences. Some clients will also have their own style/branding guide — and in many cases, Compose.ly will have an in-house guide that's tailored specifically to that client. These guides may include tips on a client's preferred style, tone, sourcing, formatting, CTAs, and more. Reading all available materials can help you anticipate the kind of feedback a client might give, thus helping you avoid revisions (or at least making them much easier).
Ask questions: Are there any important details missing?
Perform a preliminary review of all guidelines once you've claimed the project. This will help you determine any important questions to ask right away. Many clients have a brand-specific style sheet. Look for supporting documents listed within the Project Description or the Brand Profile. If you're left wondering anything, reach out to our support team through the Compose.ly Bot.
The sooner you ask questions, the sooner we can get you answers. Avoid saving questions for the last minute. Our team isn't online in the evenings, so we won't be available to answer last-minute questions before a deadline.
Get it together: Organize and research.
As you read through the guidelines, take note of any preferred headings the client's provided, and collect the keywords they want included. You'll need to double-check that the writer's draft includes them. Then, consider the approach the writer has taken, and ask yourself if it's likely to satisfy the reader's intent — that is, to deliver the information the reader was searching for. If in doubt, try searching for high-ranking content related to the topic. We're aiming to one-up the next best article out there.
Quick tip: Check the client's blog
In addition to the project guidelines, brand profile, and supporting documentation (like a style guide or an example piece), the client's blog can be a great resource for understanding how to approach a given issue — whether it's a question of word choice, usage, style, formatting, perspective on a topic, or something else entirely.
Get Crafting: Edit the project
Get Crafting: Edit the project
Once you've reviewed the guidelines, the style sheet, and the brand profile, it's time to start editing!
Ask yourself: What does the reader want?
Our job is to find the delicate balance between what the client wants to communicate and what their target audience is looking to learn. Most of our content is SEO-focused, which means we're trying to get clients' content to show up first on Google and other search engines. Ensure that the writer has produced an article about what people are hoping to read without replicating other articles that are already out there. The aim is to make yours significantly better than the competition. Ask yourself:
Will this piece stand out from all the others?
Are the writer's ideas innovative, fresh, and interesting?
How does the approach differ from what's already out there?
Focus on the details, but think big picture.
Sure, it's important to pay attention to grammar, spelling, sentence fluency, and all the other small details, but don't forget to think about the bigger picture as well. Is the writer truly following the guidelines? Does their writing match the client's preferred brand voice and tone? Does this piece give the reader what they came looking for?
Don't get so caught up in the details that you end up with a grammatically correct piece that doesn't match what the client actually requested. And on the flip side, if the content is spot-on but riddled with errors, the client is likely to point that out right away and return it for corrections.
Double-check your work.
After you finish editing, take a moment to re-review the project guidelines to confirm what you've produced aligns with what you think the client was asking for and what you think the reader will be looking for. Run through any lingering Grammarly suggestions to see if you agree (we know, we know, it's not always right!). Double-check any sections you may have reworked heavily to try to weed out any inserted errors. And take a final spin through your headers. In SEO pieces, headers are a crucial part of a piece's organization and the reading experience, too. Check that they're clear, consistent, logical, and tailored to the body content that follows each heading.
A note on word count:
Aim to submit a piece that closely matches the client's requested word count. We have a small buffer: you may submit projects 5% under word count or up to 10% over word count. The pay rate is based on the requested word count, so it won't increase or decrease if you come in a little under or over. If you're working on a project with a word count that doesn't feel realistic, send us a message as soon as possible. Some clients won't approve word count changes, so do your best to work within the requested parameters.
Got questions?
You can always reach out to our support team through the Compose.ly Bot in the bottom left corner of your screen. We're generally available from 9am to 5pm EST, so try to get your questions in before we're off for the day! If you don't hear back, just hang onto the project until we're back in office and can answer your question.
Section 3: Submitting and Deadlines
Section 3: Submitting and Deadlines
Get it in on deadline. Get extensions. Don't get a strike.
Read on to learn more about submitting your final draft and what to do if you have questions or are worried you may be running behind on a deadline.
Get It In on Deadline: Submitting projects
Get It In on Deadline: Submitting projects
Read over the piece one final time before submitting. Our freelance editors are almost always the final eyes on a piece, so we're trusting you to make sure it's ready for the client. Even the best editors aren't perfect, but we're aiming to be as close as humanly possible.
Fix what you can, and request revisions when needed.
Because you have the final say on a project, you should feel empowered to make any changes, corrections, revisions, or updates that you feel will improve the piece. If you can fix things up within a reasonable amount of time, go for it. If, however, you feel the piece needs major rework that will require a lot of heavy lifting, you can request a revision from the writer. If you request a revision, the writer will have 24 hours to address your notes, and then the project will come back to you to finalize.
Writers typically appreciate the chance to make fixes themselves rather than receive a low rating if you feel they've really missed the mark. But keep in mind that requesting more than one revision on the same project almost guarantees it'll be late to the client, so please do everything you can to hit everything in one revision request and clean up the rest!
Quick tip: Communicate with the writer
While there's no need to get the writer's approval for every change, writers do take pride in and feel ownership of their work. If you've chosen to make extensive revisions without looping the writer in with a revision request, consider giving them a heads-up via the message box or your note when you provide your rating to help them understand why. If a client requests a revision, it goes to the writer first, and if they see a version of their work that's significantly different from what they submitted, they might be thrown off. Keeping them in the loop is a professional courtesy and it simplifies revisions, too!
Submit publish-ready content.
Remember that when you hit submit, the project is being delivered directly to the client so submitted content should be ready to publish.
Quick tip: Use Grammarly
No one's perfect, and there's no shame in using tools that help you get closer to perfection. We suggest installing Grammarly — a free tool — to help avoid simple mistakes. (Sure, typos happen to everyone, but they don't look good on anyone.) Remember, though, that the use of AI in any form is against our policies and could mean us closing your account permanently. Be careful of this with tools like Grammarly or Hemmingway, which now offer AI assistants.
When you submit your draft, be sure there's no remaining:
Notes for the [client / editor]
Lorem Ipsum text
Unresolved comments
If you need to, use the message box to communicate with the writer. Remember that writers are freelancers like yourself, though, so they receive the exact same project guidelines and won’t have any extra info. If you need additional direction outside of the guidelines, use the Composely Bot to message our support team.
Check the final content title.
Make sure the final content title is in the purple bar, the Suggested Title field. If you like the one the client supplied or they make clear they'd like to use it, use that. If you have a better idea (or if the provided title has any errors in it), tweak what's in the title field. Double-check that you haven't also included the title in the body of the project as an H1. The client will get a project with a double title at the top, and that just looks weird.
When you feel confident your draft is ready to make your reader's day, click Submit.
Rate your writer.
For each project you edit, you'll be required to submit a star rating along with feedback for the writer in the form of clickable feedback flags and a brief note. Please review the project rating rubric here. Everyone's inclined to be nice, and we appreciate that, but honest ratings help everyone deliver better content. Not everything is 5 stars, and a 3 means the content is "good." Please do your best not to be too nice — but of course, don't be mean, either! Writers are people too.
Add the feedback flags that best reflect issues you saw in the project. (We track these over time, and they help us spot trends and gaps so we can develop trainings accordingly!)
Craft a brief note to the writer. It doesn't need to be an essay, but do include a few sentences. Consider the compliment sandwich — start with a compliment, share constructive notes about what could be improved in future projects, and end on a nice note. A simple "Thanks for your thorough research and clean writing!" can go a long way for morale.
Get Extensions: Requesting more time
Get Extensions: Requesting more time
We know life can be hectic, and sometimes you may need a little more time on a project.
To request an extension, reach out to our support team through the Compose.ly bot.
Depending on client deadlines, we may not always be able to grant an extension request. If we can't extend your deadline, we'll let you know, and you can decide if you're able to meet the original deadline or would like to have the project reassigned.
If you request an extension after our support hours of 9 am to 5 pm PST, we will not be able to review the request until the next business day. If this causes the project to go overdue, we'll almost always remove late penalties on your account related to that project. To prevent this from happening, we ask that you always try to request extensions before 5 pm EST. In fact, the sooner the better!
If you'd like to request project reassignment or a multiple-day extension, please reach out to our team through the Compose.ly bot.
Don't Get a Strike: Late project penalties
Don't Get a Strike: Late project penalties
So you've missed a deadline — what now? Compose.ly has a strike system in place for overdue projects. Miss a deadline, get a strike. Here's how it works:
Strike 1 = warning, no suspension
Strike 2 = warning, no suspension
Strike 3 = warning, no suspension
Strike 4 = 7-day suspension
Strike 5 = 14-day suspension
Strike 6 = 30-day suspension
Strike 7 = permanent restriction
If you feel you've wrongfully received a strike, please reach out to our team through the Compose.ly Bot, and we'll review your concern during the next business day. This may happen if you are waiting on a client's answer to a question or if you requested an extension after working hours.
Strikes also expire after a year, so as long as you receive three or fewer strikes per year, you'll never receive a suspension.
When you miss a deadline, the project will be re-assigned — but not immediately. Projects are reassigned 16 hours after the deadline has lapsed. This way, if you've just run out of time but still wish to complete a project, you can continue working and maintain payment for that project. You will, however, still receive a strike.
Section 4: Tackling Client Revisions
Section 4: Tackling Client Revisions
Get it back. Get it updated. Get it in (again).
Editors can request revisions, and so can clients. The process for each is a little different — and we'll admit it's not the most intuitive. Read on to learn how to tackle a revision with ease.
Get It Back: Receiving a revision request
Get It Back: Receiving a revision request
Editor-requested revisions
Writers understand that receiving a revision request from an editor should be no cause for alarm. They happen fairly regularly, and it's just us editors looking out to try to minimize the chances a client will need to request one further down the line. When you send a revision request, you'll add comments within the platform, and it'll go right back to the writer. They'll work through addressing each point the editor raised and click Resolve on each comment to clear them out. You'll still see them in the right-hand column after they're resolved so that you can double-check that each was addressed.
If you have questions or want to hash something out with the writer, you can message them directly on the project.
Client-requested revisions
When you submit a draft of a project to a client, the project will remain open for seven days for the client to review. If the client hasn't requested a revision within five business days, the project will autocomplete, and its status will change from Draft Submitted to Complete. Occasionally, a completed project will reopen. Some of our clients are reviewing a lot of content each month, and they may need a little extra time. It's not common, but it may happen, especially if you're working on some of our larger clients' projects.
There are two ways for clients to request revisions. Some request directly through the platform, similar to editors, while others send a Google Doc with revisions.
If the client is using a Google Doc, you'll receive a revision request in the platform with only one comment, left by one of our Client Success Managers on the client's behalf. That comment will explain how to move forward, and it'll include a link to the Google Doc where you'll be able to see revision comments from the client. That'll be your new working draft instead of what's in the platform. When you're done working in the Google Doc, you'll paste your final version back to the platform and submit it back to the client.
If the client sends their requests directly through the platform, you'll see comments linking to the text, similar to when an editor requests revisions. In this case, you can revise right there in the platform before submitting.
Get It Updated: Making your changes
Get It Updated: Making your changes
If you're working in a Google Doc, writers will revise in the Doc first, but unlike editor-requested revisions within the platform, writers don't resolve the client's comments. Instead, they'll leave them for you to review and double-check, so you can understand what changes the client was looking to see.
If a client’s comment asks writers to delete the text they’ve commented on, writers should turn on "Suggesting Mode" any time they need to delete text with a comment attached to it. Sometimes they forget, so you might have to do a little sleuthing to ensure all comments were sufficiently addressed in revision. Once you've edited everything, you will then resolve the comments — it's a great way to double-check we met expectations.
Quick Tip: Know your way around Google Docs
When you’re working with Google Docs in revisions, a couple of useful functionalities to know about are “comment history” and “version history.” Use comment history if you've accidentally resolved a comment you didn't mean to and need to see what the client said. Use version history to see different drafts, including what the client changed and what you added; editors find this especially helpful so they can focus their review on new or heavily revised sections.
If you're working within the platform, the writer will click resolve on any client comments once they've addressed them. You will still be able to see them in the Archived Comments section.
Asking Questions
If you have a question on a revision, do not reply to the client's comments in the Google Doc. They won't always see them, or they might see them immediately and hop into the file again — and no one likes to write under live observation! Instead, use the Compose.ly Bot to send a question over to our support team. We'll sync up with the client and get you the answer you need.
Get It In (Again): Submitting revised drafts
Get It In (Again): Submitting revised drafts
After you've reviewed the writer's changes, considered all the client's comments, and made all the changes you need to make, you've got a new draft that's ready to be published. If you're working in a Google Doc, copy your new version from the Doc, head back over to the project in the platform, paste your finalized version over the existing copy, and then click to Submit your draft. If you're working in the platform, make sure the draft is ready to go and click Submit. And that's that!
Quick Tip: Need more revision time?
We know it can be tricky to plan for a one-day turnaround without knowing when a revision could come through. If a revision comes in while you're on vacation, have several other projects due that day, or if it's just extensive and may take a bit more time to perfect, reach out through the Compose.ly Bot and let us know you'll need a little extra time. We grant these requests as often as possible, depending on client deadlines.
Quick Tip: Double-check the title
Be sure not to accidentally paste the title into the body of the article, too, or the client will get a draft with the title at the top twice. Oof!
Section 5: Expectations, Honor Code, and Performance
Section 5: Expectations, Honor Code, and Performance
Get compliant. Get feedback. Get training.
Learn more about Compose.ly's expectations, how to meet them, and how you'll know how things are going — including where we've noticed you excel and where you can continue to grow your skills!
Get Compliant: Review our Plagiarism Policy
Get Compliant: Review our Plagiarism Policy
At Compose.ly, we pride ourselves on always delivering original work written from the ground up — not plagiarized, copied, outsourced, or replicated in any manner. Clients hire us to produce original work, readers online expect and deserve to encounter unique text within different articles on similar topics, and Google penalizes sites that publish duplicated content, hurting SEO.
Writers and editors active on Compose.ly agree to follow our Plagiarism Policy. Please take a moment to re-review.
To ensure we detect plagiarism before it reaches the client, we run every single project through an exhaustive plagiarism checker to ensure that the content is truly 100% original. We’ve enhanced our built-in plagiarism checker to flag projects with partially or entirely copy-pasted sentences and paragraphs. If writers borrow any content from another source without proper quotations and citations — even if you modify it — our platform usually catches it. Our in-house team manually reviews every project the platform flags for plagiarism.
We've built in every checkpoint we can, but our system isn't flawless. If you have reason to suspect a writer plagiarized, contact our team via the Chat Bot ASAP.
The most common types of plagiarism our editors help us catch include writers recycling text they wrote for one project within another one or using the exact same headers and structure across multiple projects they wrote.This is most common when a client commissions a series of projects all requiring similar information or structure — think "Quit Claim Deeds in [insert state here]" or "How To Hire and Pay Remote Workers in [X Country]" or "How To Log In to Your Online Banking Account for [insert name of bank or credit card]." These are often honest mistakes or gaps in understanding (thought we're doing our best to make sure all writers understand this is a no-go!), but if Google notices "duplicate content" throughout a site, the algorithm can penalize the page, which hurts SEO and undoes all our hard work!
Egregious plagiarism, like copying and pasting, or claiming information exists in a source that does not contain such information, happens more rarely but does happen, so please be on the watch.
Occasionally, clients will request that we “rewrite” or “refresh” an existing piece of their content. In these cases, submitting work that closely mirrors the original may trigger the plagiarism checker by mistake. If this happens, please reach out through the Compose.ly Bot and we can bypass the plagiarism check.
A note on outsourcing:
Editors can plagiarize too! Submitting work that isn't yours is considered plagiarism — and that includes outsourcing. As you know, Compose.ly editors go through a vigorous trial process before being admitted to our core community. You've passed a high bar to join us, and we need to maintain it by making sure outside editors aren't working through your account. Be sure not to share your account login info with anyone, and never submit work you didn't edit yourself. Any editor found to be outsourcing work will be immediately banned from the platform.
The fine print.
When you created your Compose.ly account to apply to join our community, you agreed to the following terms. Please be sure you've read them carefully and are able and willing to comply. (We're not trying to be tricky — it's just solid freelancer smarts to read the fine print on every contract!)
Get Feedback: Editor Audits
Get Feedback: Editor Audits
Each month our in-house editorial team will complete an audit of a few of your projects. They'll be looking for alignment with the guidelines and brand preferences, taking into account the changes you made within a piece, and weighing those against missed opportunities and errors (overlooked and inserted), and they'll also consider how you interacted with and rated the writer. Once they're done, we'll share the results with you in an email.
We know no one's perfect, and there's a lot more to editing than catching typos. We also know that some pieces are a lot harder than others, requiring more time or heavier lifting. If your review doesn't go as well as you'd hoped, no need to panic; we share these results to help you understand where your strengths are and where you could improve. Month over month, simply review your audits carefully, and aim for a better review next month. As writers and editors, we're always learning and improving our skills.
Get Training: Ongoing performance reviews
Get Training: Ongoing performance reviews
While a single negative audit review won't end your work with Compose.ly, our team continually tracks editor performance over time, and consistently poor work can result in your account being closed. We try to provide as much helpful feedback and guidance as possible before it comes to that, but we reserve the right to close your account based on performance concerns at any time.
One last hoop...
Thanks for reading all that! Now, let's check that you have everything you need to succeed on the Compose.ly platform. Complete the quick form below to confirm your orientation completion and fully activate your account. We'll start sending projects your way!
Got more questions? Need to talk anything through? Schedule an orientation call with our Community Manager!
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