The desk comparison is the usual one. A customer service role at $18.16 an hour produces about $18,897 a year on a 20 hour schedule, and a data entry role at the $18.17 median produces a similar figure.
On a per word model the arithmetic works differently. A rate of two cents a word on a 2,000 word document pays $40, and if the proofing takes ninety minutes that is about $27 an hour.
If it takes three hours, it is $13 an hour.
Gross earnings for a part-time proofreader| Hours a week | At $18.16 an hour | At $22 an hour | At $37.46 an hour |
|---|
| 10 hours | $182 | $220 | $375 |
| 15 hours | $272 | $330 | $562 |
| 20 hours | $363 | $440 | $749 |
| 15 hours a week over 52 weeks | $14,173 | $17,160 | $29,199 |
Which proofreading work pays the most?
Regulated and technical content pays the most, because a mistake there has a cost.
Legal and medical documents need a proofreader who can check the substance of the language as well as the grammar, and that is a specialist judgement.
Technical documentation sits close, because a technical writer earns $43.46 an hour and a technical proofreader is priced against that.
Marketing and web content sit at the bottom, because the volume is high and the tooling is good. The rate there is cents a word and the turnaround is tight.
Our guide to part time remote social media assistant covers the adjacent role where the same tooling pressure shows up.
How do you price proofreading work?
Price the pass, not the word, and the pass is where the judgement sits.
There are two prices in this market. The mechanical pass, which a tool can do, priced in cents a word. And the judgement pass, which is priced by the hour or by the document.
Two details decide which one a client is buying. Whether the document is regulated, and whether the client wants queries or silent corrections. A client that wants queries is buying judgement and should be paying the hourly rate.
The third is the revision policy. A proof that comes back for changes is unpaid work, and it is the most common reason a fixed price on a document loses money.
How do you find remote proofing work?
Three channels, and the last one is where the specialist rate appears.
Marketplaces are the entry point, with per word general content and a wide spread of quality. Agencies and publishers come next, where the work is steady and the rate is mid band.
The third is direct, with a law firm, a medical publisher or a technical documentation team, and those clients pay the top band because the accuracy requirement is real.
Our guide to part time remote search engine evaluator covers the other route where a judgement rate is the norm.
Two questions to ask. Do you want queries or silent corrections, and how many revision rounds are included in the price.
What changes about proofreading next?
Expect the mechanical pass to be priced away and the judgement pass to hold.
Three forces shape the next two years. Grammar and style tools have absorbed most of the mechanical work, which pushes the rate down on the per word general content. Regulated content keeps requiring a person, which is where the rate holds.
The third is the volume of content. The amount of text being published keeps growing, and someone has to check it, but the checking that a tool does well is the checking that is being sold cheaply.
For a candidate the conclusion is that a proofreader who only checks mechanics is competing with a tool, and a proofreader who reads for sense is competing on judgement.
Next steps
Work out your own rate per document before you accept a per word offer.
- Compare the rate with the $37.46 editors median and the $36.98 writers median
- Time one document and calculate the real hourly rate
- Ask whether the client wants queries or silent corrections
- Get the revision policy in writing, because that is where the money goes
- Check whether the content is regulated, since that sets the rate
- Target technical or legal work, where the judgement premium is real
One final thought. The pay figures here are occupation medians and published employer rates, which is the best guide available before you apply.
htm">Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation profile gives the entry requirements and the training picture for editing work, which is the quickest way to check what a client will ask for.
Fazlur Rahman
