Verblio: A Guide for Freelance Writers

What is Verblio?

Verblio is a content mill that promises clients fast and reliable content for their websites at bargain-basement prices. That business model enlists freelance writers to work at low wages — or for nothing at all.

How it works:

If you want to write for Verblio, you need to be over the age of 18, have a valid Social Security Number and pass a grammar test. You’ll also need to listen to a “module” on plagiarism.

Finally, the site will ask you to write a sample blog post. If they deem it worthy, you will be invited to join the platform. Theoretically, your sample post can later be sold to one of Verblio’s clients.

Verblio review:

Like some of the other content mills, Verblio promises to connect writers with companies that want to publish content. However, you are not commissioned to write specific stories here. Instead, you write whatever you want. You post it. And, maybe, somebody will buy what you wrote. There are no guarantees.

That means that you could write your fingers off and earn nothing. Worse, you can lose access to your unsold work, if the site decides to boot you from the platform, which is not rare.

In a best-case scenario, it works like this: You see that Verblio represents a bunch of health care companies and you happen to love writing about health. You write a plethora of short stories and publish them on the site, with pithy headlines. Verbio’s health care clients see the stories and say, “Just what we needed!” And they buy one or two — or several. You get paid for each sale.

Puny pay

Wonderful, right? Until you realize how much you get paid. For a 300 – 400 word piece, you’ll get about $11 — roughly 3 cents a word. (Notably, the site charges clients 16 cents a word for “human generated” content, so they’re earning a lot more on each piece than the writers. But, back to you, the writer…) Pay supposedly rises with experience and multiple sales, but not by much.

According to the site’s “welcome writer’s” page, this is the pay you can expect:

In the beginning, for every 250+ word post you write that is purchased by a customer, you get paid $8. As you write more and gain points, you get access to the higher-paying opportunities at higher word counts: $19 for 600+ words, $40 for 900+ words, and $72 for 1200+ words.

No bylines

Notably, some young writers will work for content mills like Verblio in order to build up a portfolio that can be shown off to get better paid work. But you can’t do that here.

All stories are published without bylines. And writers are prohibited from claiming credit or linking to a story that’s been purchased by one of the company’s clients.

Here’s how the site puts it:

Once a Verblio customer purchases your content, they own the rights to that content. You may not link to or republish that content in any form—to do so would be plagiarism and a violation of their copyright. Customers are not required to put your name on the content when it is published, nor to acknowledge in any way that they work with Verblio. Our clients are confidential and any action that compromises that confidentiality is a violation of our Terms of Service.

Getting paid

The site pays by direct deposit once weekly on Monday.

There are far better sites to find writing jobs, including ServiceScape, Skyword, Contently and Cracked. You can also find writing jobs by posting a profile on Fiverr. There are also Facebook groups of writers that specialize in different beats, such as travel writing, parenting, etc. They’re often happy to help out aspiring writers with contacts and advice.

What their writers say: (from Indeed.com and Glassdoor)

I had been writing for Verblio for nearly 5 years when they blocked me. And I can’t get any explanation from anyone and my emails go unanswered. I’m wondering where the $117 I had invoiced went? Did Verblio just keep that money? Another issue is that the market is so scarce now one piece may have three or more entries, which means that one will be purchased and the other two will have written something for nothing. It’s a lawless hellscape there these days, and I wouldn’t write for them again if my life depended on it.

Because of some changes over the last few years, there are fewer writing opportunities. Instead of just writing and knowing that my article will likely be purchased, writers are now competing against each other more.

Wasted effort

“They offer writing jobs, then the client chooses between your work and a LOT of other work, and it’s unlikely to get the job OR payment. So much wasted research and effort for NOTHING”

“Where do I begin? I’ve been a full-time freelance writer and blogger for the past five years, during which time I’ve worked with about six different companies. Of those companies, BlogMutt is the worst. The pay is absolutely horrible. Writers earn a measly $8 for a 250+ word post, for which BlogMutt earns $17. So, while writers do most of the work, BlogMutt keeps most of the revenue.”

Paid by level

“Pay at level 1-3 is $11.50 to 17.50 for 300 to 550 word articles. When you hit level 4, you earn $23 for 600. At level 6, the pay jumps to $57 for 1,000 words. When you hit level 8, you start to get shares with the company. Now how many other sites look out for their writers like that?”

“BlogMutt uses a format that similar to 99Designs, where multiple service providers compete to win clients. This is great for clients, but no so much for writers. Clients often reject blog posts for reasons such as “I’ve chosen a different post” or “I liked another post better.” Like other writers have said, BlogMutt will suspend your account without reason. After working with them for over a year, I was shocked to discover that I could no longer log into my account. They didn’t tell me why my account was closed, nor did they return my unsold articles stored in their system (over $1,000 worth of unsold articles lost). Unless you write strictly as a hobby and not a profession, stay away.”

Updated 2/14/2025