Proofread Anywhere Review

I would suggest researching all proofreading courses out there.

I paid $397 for the PA(Proofread Anywhere) course during a holiday sale (plus a few more $ for a workbook).

I think it was the day after Christmas…regular price, if I recall correctly, was $1097. What a rip-off.

The course includes practice transcripts to edit. The answer key practice transcripts to compare our work were so fraught with errors that many students were openly complaining about it on the private PA Facebook group.

There’s a midterm and a final. They give you a transcript to edit. You have to get 100% to pass.

If you don’t pass the first time, they will tell you what your error is and on what page and give you a second chance to pass it.

If you don’t pass a second time, you start over with a whole new transcript, and they charge you $50 per grading thereafter.

I once had my court reporter license in the State of WA. I attended Bryan College, where Margie Wakeman from Margie Holds Court was our English instructor. I didn’t work as a court reporter but was a legal transcriptionist for 10 years.

I know my stuff. I didn’t pass the first time. They sent it back with, I think, four errors. One of the errors they said I had was a missing comma on page 4. There was nowhere else on that page that I would put a comma.

Two other students and I took our conversation off their group and were messaging each other privately.

We actually shared our graded midterms with each other and discovered there were serious inconsistencies in their grading.

One of the women with whom I shared my midterm told me that she passed, thanks to having a copy of my midterm. By the way, this lady was an English teacher for 20 years.

The other women had also shared their graded midterms with me.

By that point, I had lost interest in the program and never submitted a second midterm. Those answer key practice transcripts were a real turn-off. That killed it for me.

A woman I met on a proofing and scoping group told me she had done research on the PA course and decided not to purchase it because she discovered the former owner “had some major issues and sold the business.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t do my homework by looking for reviews of this course or other courses before purchasing.

After, I discovered that there wasn’t a lot of tangible proof that it was a successful endeavor for people who signed up.

The reviews out there at the time, roughly 3 years ago, seemed manufactured. After a couple of weeks of elementary coursework and further research, I decided to contact them to see about getting my money back.

Of course, they have their refund policy pretty sewn up, so that was basically a waste of time. Just know you will never get your money back, no matter your reason.

If you sign up for this course, just know you bought it without any guarantees or any real proof that it will help you find real work in the industry.

It’s competitive and work history is important. This course just isn’t robust or organized enough, nor is it accredited to provide you with worthy credentials.

If you look at their “no refund policy”, that should be enough to give you pause. Real courses don’t do that. This course is only teaching you content.

I do wish I had looked into it a little bit more in-depth before I purchased it. Secondly, I wish I recognized the “red flag” of the no refund policy. That would have saved me over $1000.

Hopefully, this will give someone else a pause to really do their research and think about it – don’t be impulsive like me.

Taking the Proofread Anywhere courses was one of the best decisions I made. It started me on my journey towards making income online. The skills I learned were invaluable and transferable to many other online opportunities.

I did a lot of research when I was first looking into proofreading… Proofread Anywhere (PA) was the only one I found that showed you how to actually get clients – arguably, the most important thing when starting your own business. The other courses I found taught you how to proofread, which is obviously a basic requirement, but left out the business side.

PA doesn’t just focus on theory, but they show you many things – how to get paid, a whole section on marketing, tax, and mindset. It also teaches you how to do it to provide value and help others first.

There are 2 PA courses. I graduated from both, and began proofreading online at the start of 2019. I had always wanted to create a work lifestyle focused on location and time flexibility, and proofreading was the perfect fit!

I have worked with bloggers, copywriters, authors, and website creators, but these days the vast majority of my work is with court reporters. (I am English, I live in Australia, but all my clients are in America!)

These are my thoughts on transcript (TP) VS general proofreading (GP) briefly:

GP: Shorter learning curve (took me 1 month). Smaller investment. I found it easier and quicker to pick up a client. However, I discovered not everyone values a general proofreader the way court reporters value transcript proofreaders.

TP: Longer learning curve (took me 4 months). Bigger investment. Don’t have to deal with grammar. More consistent and regular work/longer term relationships with clients (generally speaking). Some say higher earning potential, but I’d say they’re about the same, although TP doesn’t have many low-rate proofreaders. Potential to do more down the track (scoping, etc.)

So, I recommend GP because it is much faster and less of an investment before you start making money. Also, within the GP course, you get access to the first part of the TP course for free. That is a way to see if you want to enter this proofreading niche.

In saying that, if you believe you would only want to do transcripts, then TP is definitely right for you! I only do transcripts these days, but I don’t regret going through the GP course and having some general clients.

Here’s what I love about proofreading in general:

– Minimal start-up costs
– Short learning curve
– Lots of work out there
– Can start earning and making a profit relatively quickly
– Valuable skill that isn’t going away anytime soon
– Great stepping stone and intro to making money online

I have a YouTube playlist on my channel with lots of videos on proofreading and my experience. If it’s a good fit for you, I hope to see you inside the Proofread Anywhere Facebook group soon!

“Take this course, quit your day job, and be your own boss and put your kids through college” could be a headline for this course. That is what the creator of this course would lead you to believe.

In the sales pitches for the course, Caitlin said she would consistently proofread 100 pages per hour. She would leave us to do the math. Let’s see, 45 cents per page times 100 pages is $45 per hour. Not too shabby. Who doesn’t want that kind of income? Sign me up.

The problem is that it is simply not achievable. Try half that, and it will be more accurate. Then add in marketing, invoicing and all the other things, and that pie-in-the-sky number drops really fast.

This course was truly the catalyst for the rest of my life, and I’m truly grateful.

What I love about it is that it wasn’t just about grammar rules and how to proofread. There were also several modules on the business side of things. And while I feel like they could have gone into a bit more depth, it wasn’t hard to get my business up and running by following the steps.

I’m forever thankful to Proofread Anywhere for starting me on the work-from-home journey and allowing me to pursue my passions from a young age!

I took the GPTP Ignite Plus course in 2020. I did extensive research prior to choosing this one. The thing I liked most was that it gave me the training I needed plus guidance on business setup and marketing. They’ve added even more training material since then.

It’s designed for someone who wants to build their own freelance proofreading business (which is the route I took), but you could absolutely pursue a W-2 position instead if business ownership isn’t your thing. The marketing aspects are still very much applicable.

It is designed to prepare you with everything you need to succeed; it is not a job-placement agency. You can ace the course, but if you don’t have the grit to build a business from scratch – it’s not for the faint of heart, let me tell you – you might want to rethink freelancing in general. They are very transparent about this, so the no-refund policy didn’t scare me off. I knew exactly what I was getting into.

Anyway, I loved it and have no regrets. If I did it as a stay-at-home mom with a newborn in the middle of a pandemic, it’s totally doable for anyone with the right mindset.

I thought Proofread Anywhere was a good program overall. I thought the course would be a breeze and that I could fly through it, but it challenged and refreshed me. I learned some things about how to market my new business and some tools to use along with it. Also, I liked that we had to take a test and meet a certain minimum percentage.

To be clear, I took the “Transcript Proofreading: Theory and Practice” course because Caitlin Pyle also offers another general proofreading course.

I took this course like 6 or 7 years ago – I was one of the first people to take it. I think it has gotten a lot more rigorous and in-depth since then. But even from the start, Caitlin’s training was incredible. There are tons of practice transcripts to get you comfortable proofreading court transcripts, and she also gives excellent tips on finding clients.

I was solely a transcript proofreader for two years. I didn’t make that much money (maybe $15k a year or something), but it got me into freelancing.

Transcript proofreading is a skill you cannot just learn on your own, and it’s a very niche skill to have. I find it very fun and enjoyable, especially when the court cases are interesting.

Since taking this course, I have moved on from simply proofreading to editing and writing and now have a full-blown and profitable freelance career. This course put me on this path, and I couldn’t be more grateful!

Also, the community is super supportive on Facebook 🙂