Compose.ly vs. Scripted: Which Content Service Best Fits Your Needs?

Published: Nov 24, 2020
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When it comes to your website’s success, content is everything. It’s critical for bringing visitors to your site and getting your web pages to rank highly in search engine results. That said, content can be incredibly time-consuming to produce and edit yourself.

That's the problem that content writing services intend to fix. These services produce content according to your specifications in topic, keywords, and even writing style. Instead of writing copy on your own or hiring an in-house writer, a content writing service handles it all for you.

Not every content writing service is created equal, though. Your business's needs likely differ from others even within the same industry, so it's essential to find a content writing solution that meets your requirements. Two popular options are Compose.ly and Scripted, each of which offers a unique approach to content creation. Keep reading to find a complete breakdown of their differences below.

Compose.ly vs. Scripted: An Overview

Scripted and Compose.ly offer two fundamentally different approaches to producing and delivering your content. Scripted acts as a marketplace wherein clients can search through pitches to find a writer or accept suggestions for content. This leads to writers offering different specialties and pricing on a single platform.

Meanwhile, Compose.ly vets writers in advance and identifies their strengths so it can assign writers to your content for you. This minimizes the time you, the client, must spend looking for the perfect writer and maximizes the time dedicated to content development.

Other differences between the platforms, including their available services and plans, also exist and may significantly impact your experience outsourcing content. For a high-level overview, here’s a quick glimpse of their key differences, with more details below.

Scripted

Scripted is a content writing service that acts as a marketplace. It offers subscription access to writers that have passed the platform’s tests. You can then either look through writer profiles to find one that meets your needs, or post jobs and allow writers to bid on them.

Scripted’s pricing is broken into three service tiers:

  • Self-Serve Basic - Scripted’s lowest tier comes with a monthly fee of $199. This plan is recommended for businesses with content budgets of $100-$1,000/month.
  • Self-Serve Premium - The middle ground offered by Scripted costs $499 per month and is ideal for clients with a content budget of $1,000-$3,000/month.
  • Cruise Control - Scripted’s highest tier costs $1,299 per month, but this is paid annually (amounting to roughly $15,600). This plan is recommended for businesses with content budgets of $3,000-$10,000/month.

Self-Serve Basic acts as a simple marketplace, while Self-Serve Premium offers access to higher-tier writers, quarterly content strategy reviews, and a dedicated account representative. Finally, Cruise Control acts as a full content delivery service, helping you plan your entire content strategy. It also includes personalized writer selection based on your content needs.

Flexible

The marketplace approach makes Scripted rather flexible, as different writers in the marketplace have the freedom to price their writing. As a result, you can look through different writers' proposals, rates, and work to find professional content writers that meet your needs.

For clients that prefer to pick, screen, and vet writers themselves, Scripted makes it easy to browse writers. That said, the number of writers available may be overwhelming for those with immediate content needs.

It’s also worth noting that not all writers are active. Scrolling through the first page of Scripted’s Browse Writers page, it’s clear that only a small handful of writers have been on the platform within the last week.

Direct Control

Along with flexibility, Scripted offers direct control over the creation process. Clients dictate all of the content and guidelines that the writer receives as part of a given content contract. That includes setting the deadline, target keywords for SEO, word count, and more.

By giving you a direct line to writers, you can also accept pitches and negotiate. If you are simply looking for new content on a given theme, but don't have a specific idea, then Scripted can help develop ideas and fill out your site.

Potential for Variability

Scripted’s writers must pass a writing test before they are allowed into the platform’s marketplace. However, once a writer is in, they receive no more feedback from Scripted.

Instead, writers remain in the market unless their client feedback drops below a specific success rate. This leads to a significant amount of variability in writing quality. You may find a diamond in the rough in some cases, but conversely, you may also get disappointing results.

This variability in quality is similarly reflected in the content pricing. To clarify, each plan from Scripted charges a standard monthly fee to use the service. However, on top of that payment, you must also pay for content itself—although with the Self-Serve Basic plan, you’ll at least get $100 in monthly credit.

Using Scripted, freelance writers then submit proposals for your project, each with their own method of pricing.

This bidding strategy gives clients several options to work with—but the cheapest writer may not always be the best.

More Time Consuming

Because of the varying writer quality, Scripted takes more time to use than Compose.ly. You need to take the time to review writer proposals and vet candidates yourself. Whether you choose to receive pitches or take an active role in searching for writers, you must spend both time and effort to ensure that you're making the right choice.

Another time sink with Scripted is the amount of work that goes into developing your content strategy. Since every article or project is a one-off engagement, you are ultimately responsible for your overarching content strategy using either of Scripted’s Self-Serve plans. Developing and communicating your content ideas to writers can take time and lead to a wide range of results.

Compose.ly

Compose.ly is a content writing service that matches businesses with vetted freelance writers to execute their content strategies. The platform uses a rigorous screening process to build out its team of writing and editing professionals, bringing on freelancers with wide-ranging experience across various niches. When you submit a content request to Compose.ly, the staff assigns your project to a writer whose background and qualifications align with your needs.

Like Scripted, Compose.ly also offers three tiers of service:

  • Self-Service - Using Self-Service, clients can request a single article or content project at a time with no monthly fee.
  • Managed Service - Managed Service provides clients with access to Compose.ly’s in-house editing services as well as a dedicated client success manager that oversees a business’s content projects. Pricing for this plan begins at $999 and varies depending on the complexity of content needed.
  • Projects and Content Blocks - Finally, Projects and Content Blocks are custom quotes for large batches of content needed once rather than on an ongoing basis. These begin with a minimum of 10,000 words.

Strict Quality Control

Compose.ly doesn't require clients to sort through proposals or writer profiles. Instead, writers are vetted in advance and assigned to your projects for you. Since Compose.ly doesn't use a marketplace approach, the quality of writing is much more consistent. Each writer is held to a high standard by the company’s editors and SEO experts. Writers do not price themselves or their work; they are expected to produce excellent writing with each project.

To achieve this, Compose.ly's writers are actively working on Compose.ly projects at all times, so they continually receive valuable feedback and reviews. This feedback is given directly to the writers instead of simply affecting a generic success score or rating. The result is a team of writers that produce quality content without the need for constant intervention from clients.

Simply put, all of Compose.ly's writers are held to the same standard, so no matter what tier a client uses, the writers will always provide the same quality of work.

Time-Saving Process

Since Compose.ly assigns writers to jobs, there's no need to spend time poring over writer proposals or sorting through different bids. Instead, the client can send in their preferences and requirements and relax, knowing that the project will be completed according to a high standard.

Even with Compose.ly’s Self-Service tier, writer selection is done by the platform, meaning one less step for the client when outsourcing their content creation needs.

In-House Editors

For Compose.ly’s premium content plans—that is, its Managed Service and Content Block clients—all projects are reviewed by an in-house editor before delivery.

Editors review the writers’ content for grammar/punctuation errors, writing mechanics, best SEO practices, and adherence to any style guides or requests provided by the client. Editors and writers may revise the content before you ever see it.

Consequently, your content is ready for publishing (or close) once it’s delivered. There is no need to spend time poring over content for errors unless you choose to do so.

Flexible Plans

Compose.ly’s content tiers are also more flexible. While Scripted requires a monthly subscription fee even for its basic service, Compose.ly’s Self-Service is free to use; you need only pay for the content you order. This is ideal for smaller businesses with ad hoc content needs—they can order a blog post or article whenever necessary without an ongoing fee for using the platform.

Struggling to determine which Compose.ly plan is best for you? The Pricing page offers a helpful table breaking down the key differences between each plan.

Compose.ly's programs also provide more variety, with its Content Block service requiring no subscription even for a large amount of content. Whether a client needs a single article, an entire website, or ongoing content writing services, there's no one way to use Compose.ly's services. Clients can change plans with ease, so it's easy to find the plan that fits them the best.

<div class="tip">Want to learn more about Compose.ly's work? Our content writing services cover a wide range of products, including blog posts, white papers, press releases, and more.</div>

Final Thoughts

There's no one content writing service that will meet every need. Users that prefer to work directly with a writer and remain deeply involved in the content creation process, including writer vetting, may prefer Scripted. On the other hand, businesses that want guaranteed quality while saving time will likely favor Compose.ly's streamlined service.

Before committing to any specific solution, it’s important to understand what you need and want out of a content writing service. Your content is at the heart of your online business, after all. It's worth spending extra time on research before choosing a cost-effective content writing service that fulfills your needs.

This article was written by Compose.ly writer Gabrielle Hass.

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