Editor Job Pay and Advice

I'm looking to see if anyone on the forum would be able to give me a ballpark range of what a new mystery shop editor might earn. I'm sure that it varies per company and from what I understand payment would be per report. I'm trying to decide if taking on a editor job would be feasible as an already part-time shopper. Thanks!

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

More About Payment

I got $5 a shop.
I also realized that I do a better job than 95% of the shopper pool. It was depressing.

Any feedback about Wordsmithpros?

I hated editing. I was an editor for two different MSCs at two different times...I don't know why I thought it would work out better the second time, LOL. I think if someone can't drive, doesn't have transportation, or is homebound for some other reason it might work well, but if a person likes having any sort of freedom to do shops and have a life, it's not a good fit. At least it wasn't for me. SCM, I too made $5 a shop, and it was awful when I needed more info and had to contact the shoppers. Some got back with me promptly, some were a day or two later, and some not at all. If the shop doesn't go through the editor doesn't get paid...very meager pay for the work involved.

Looking at the number of narratives I write for my shops, I would hate to think that an editor would only be paid $5 to read them and correct any issues... Blech.

Hard work builds character and homework is good for your soul.

MFJ, if the majority of shoppers wrote as well as you do (or many of the shoppers who post in the forum), editing would be a breeze and worth the pay. It would be a five-minute edit (if the editor had to make any changes at all). Unfortunately, that is not the case.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

MFJ, if the majority of shoppers wrote as well as you do (or many of the shoppers who post in the forum), editing would be a breeze and worth the pay. It would be a five-minute edit (if the editor had to make any changes at all). Unfortunately, that is not the case.

True! Although a lot of shoppers on V thought that they were amazing; they were not.

I edited for a company local to me for a while. They paid a small base fee per shop $0.02/question, which was halved if the report had to be rejected. The majority of reports I got were approved and I had a reference list for how many questions per report by client. Ultimately they took longer to edit than was worth it for the pay.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2018 02:06AM by Kakita987.

I just applied to be an editor. The thing that scares me is it takes three weeks of training. And they said that the ave per edit would be $5. Hmmmm...not sure if I want to commit to that, cus its an average which means my edits being new would likely be less.

Thanks, but... I'm still not convinced that it would be worth the trouble... I make plenty of typos.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

MFJ, if the majority of shoppers wrote as well as you do (or many of the shoppers who post in the forum), editing would be a breeze and worth the pay. It would be a five-minute edit (if the editor had to make any changes at all). Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Hard work builds character and homework is good for your soul.

Typos are the LEAST of the issues and easy to fix. The problems come from incorrectly performed shops and incomplete or conflicting report details.

Editors who merely had to fix proofreading errors would be able to make a decent salary.

@MFJohnston wrote:

Thanks, but... I'm still not convinced that it would be worth the trouble... I make plenty of typos.

@Threemom wrote:

Typos are the LEAST of the issues and easy to fix. The problems come from incorrectly performed shops and incomplete or conflicting report details.

No kidding.

Example #1: "The restroom was clean and well stocked."
(This location had no restroom.)

Example #2: "I berated the waitress for putting a lemon in my iced tead. I was furious!"
(I had to remove that whole section.)

Oh, I had one shopper who used voice to text to complete their reports and didn't bother to read it carefully afterwards before submitting. Hilarious.

@indianyooper wrote:

Any feedback about Wordsmithpros?

They're awful, in my experience and opinion. I did a shop once that was edited by a Wordsmith editor, and she changed my correct usage to incorrect! She changed a plural possessive word (which it should have been) to a singular possessive (which was incorrect), she capitalized words that shouldn't have been, she asked me for information that was already in the report. I was furious after going back and forth and back and forth with her. What would have been a very profitable shop turned out to be little more than break even by the time all was said and done. I had to get the managing editor of the MSC involved.

I've heard from other people, not necessarily in the shopping field, that their experiences with this firm have been terrible, too.

By trade, I'm a professional writer and editor. I thought about becoming an editor for a company that advertises once or twice a year for editors and e-mailed them asking for more information. There's no way the pay is commensurate with the work involved. If these firms want competent editors, they're gonna have to pay for them. IMO.