10 Best Proofreading Services in 2026
- Melchior Antoine
- Jan 1, 2025
- 18 min read
Updated: Mar 20
How to choose the best proofreading services? This is a question essential for many. Academic and business editing services provide students and academic and business professionals with affordable and reliable means of improving and correcting their work. They can be a crucial step to ensure that you submit either academic or business documents that you can be proud of.
An editor can find and correct several errors in your writing, including punctuation, sentence flow, and spelling. Also, some editing services provide commentary on how your document could be improved.
However, there are dozens of professional sites to choose from. In this article, I look at the benefits of using various professional proofreading services, their disadvantages, and alternatives.
More importantly, I examine over twenty different proofreading services and choose the best proofreading services to work with. In addition, I closely examine the top five best editing companies in depth for your benefit. While the article mostly talks about academic editing, it also briefly touches on business editing, such as patent editing.
What factors to consider when selecting the best editing services
The factors to consider when deciding on the best copy editing services are 1. price, 2. customer satisfaction, 3. process, and 4. speed of service delivery. There are dozens of proofreading companies out here.
But students, academics, and businesses find it difficult to choose the right one. Anyone who has even thought about purchasing proofreading services would be familiar with names like Proofreadingservices(dot)com, Scribbr, Scribendi, Paper True, and so on.
As someone looking to get their documents edited or proofread, you may have several questions:
Is the service offered by these various websites and companies legit?
Are they charging me too much?
Can this proofreading service finish editing my document on time?
Will they do a good job of editing my document?
This article is my attempt to help you make the right decision. I have examined dozens of online proofreading companies to decide which would be the best option for you. See the table below for the criteria I used to make that choice.
Criteria | Description | Allocated Points |
1. Price | This refers to the price charged for proofreading services. The rate is per 1000 words and is denominated in US dollars. The best proofreading services were priced at around 30 USD per 1000 word | 30 |
2. Customer satisfaction | This refers to how happy clienst are with their proofreading. This is a five-star rating system, which relies on Trust Pilot or Google Reviews. The best proofreading services tend to have an over 4.5-star rating. | 30 |
3. Process | This refers to the process that begins with visiting the website and ends with your order finally being delivered. The best proofreading services give customers an idea of what their pricing is on the website. | 20 |
4. Speed | This refers to how quick the turnaround time is. The best proofreading or editing services have rapid turnaround times of at least 12–24 hours. | 20 |
The table above shows our criteria and point system to determine the best research paper editing services. More points were attributed to Price and customer satisfaction because in my mind these two factors would be the most important for you the customer.
In my previous appraisal of the best proofreading companies, I included employee satisfaction and resource support as benchmarks or criteria. These two benchmarks have their unique value, but here I choose to put more weight on pricing and service quality as judged by the customer.
To read our previous appraisals, please click on the following link: The top 13 proofreading services in 2024.
In my assessment, customer satisfaction is based on the Trust Pilot rating system. Trust Pilot is a website that allows customers to leave anonymous reviews for the assistance that they paid for. However, in the absence of Trust Pilot's five-star rating for an editing company, I rely on Google Reviews.
In the following sections, we describe in detail each one of the four benchmarks or criteria that are used to judge the various proofreading websites.
Get in touch for help with proofreading or editing your manuscript |
What are copy editing services?
Copy editing or editing services are companies that offer paid assistance to correct your writing. These services include both proofreading and editing. They include academic and business documents such as:
Academic essay
College essay applications
Academic essays
Manuscripts to be submitted to journals
White papers
User manuals for products
These companies do not just focus on academic editing. They also do business editing, that is, editing blogs that can rank on Google and other business-related or professional writing. However, the do not focus heavily on these services. Proofreading companies are numerous and differ significantly from each other. But they do share some common characteristics:
1. Cheap pricing. Because of the high level of competition among the various proofreading companies, proofreading and editing prices can be relatively affordable. With standard turnaround times of three to seven days, you may end up paying only 30 USD per 1000 words.
Well, this may not be exactly cheap, especially for those who live in developing countries. However, based on the value being provided, it is a reasonable price.
2. Expert proofreaders and editors. Proofreading companies employ both in-house editors and freelance ones. These freelancers are located throughout the world. To qualify to work for these companies, they have to go through challenging qualifying tests and rigorous training. This is to ensure that they are more than prepared before editing your work.
3. Speedy and convenient services. Proofreading and editing companies offer turnaround times that range between four hours and one week. They are all based online, and they offer opportunities for you to upload your document and pay around the clock.
4. Educational support. The ideal editing company does not just edit or proofread your document. They also offer a richness of resources, such as blogs and YouTube videos to help explain the questions you have relating to academic or business documents and writing styles. More than that, a proofreader with their corrections and suggestions can help make you a better writer.
1. Best service based on price
There is much subjectivity around what is an acceptable price for correcting your business or academic document. So how do you deal with that? I looked at the pricing for over 20 different companies and websites providing proofreading services to determine what would be a fair price.
The bar chart below shows the pricing for 22 different websites providing proofreading services. The price is USD per 1000 words in USD. The maximum price was 165 USD charged by Edanz — a proofreading service based in Japan.
The minimum price was 13 USD charged by London Proofreaders, a proofreading company based in London as the name suggests. The Median price was 30 USD.
However, it should be noted that the price changes based on the type of service. These companies differentiate between proofreading and editing. They also differentiate pricing based on turnaround.
For example, an order with a turnaround time of twelve hours will be more expensive than one with a turnaround time of three days.
2. Best proofreading services based on customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction refers to how happy you the client are after using a proofreading service. This happiness could be based on whether or not you were content with the quality of the editing and proofreading. Or, it could be based on whether or not the editing and proofreading achieved the intended aim, such as:
Getting a high score on the essay paper that was proofread or edited
Succesfully submitting a written patent that gets approved
Writing effective user manuals for your products
Your journal paper being successfully accepted by your target journal
Your thesis/dissertation being edited to a high-quality
Your grant proposal getting approval
To measure customer satisfaction, as mentioned earlier, I relied on either Trust Pilot or Google Review scores. These are scores out of five stars left by clients who use these services. And as far as I can tell, they are not at all affected and controlled by the proofreading service providers.
3. Best proofreading services help based on process
By process, we are talking about what happens between you, the customer finding a proofreading service, and getting your documemt properly edited. It also involves things like communication. For example:
What happens if they get your order wrong?
Do you have a fair idea of what the price is before submitting the order?
Do you have to submit the document and provide payment information even before getting an idea of the price?
How long does it take to get contacted after uploading your order?
Is your order completed on time?
Do they have a peer-editing system where two editors work on your paper?
Is it only a single editor working on your paper/document?
Ideally, this process should be smooth and frictionless. The less friction, the better. For example, it would be ideal that you get a clear idea of the pricing based on the word count alone. That is, instead of having to upload your document and provide credit card information beforehand.
Also, having the option of a free sample edit makes the process of establishing trust between you and the proofreading service easier. This is why I also count this as being part of an ideal process.
4. Best proofreading services based on speed
Speed refers to how quickly your document is returned after being accepted by your chosen proofreading service provider. Most proofreading services offer at least a 12-hour turnaround, which is pretty good. Ideally, a properly edited document would require three to seven days to complete.
This is because the document needs time to “rest.” That means the editor should be allowed space and distance from his work. This allows them to come back with a fresh pair of eyes that can see errors that may have been previously missed.
But that’s the ideal. Students, academics, and businesses are often under very tight deadlines. In other cases, they may simply misjudge the amount of time they have to complete assignments. So they have no choice but to rush. ProofreadingPal and Scribendi had the shortest turnaround speeds at three to four hours.
The best proofreading companies account for these scenarios by providing expedited services that come at a higher cost. Table 3 shows the various prices for different expedited offers for different companies. Expedited services can be as quick as four or two hours. Such prices may be over 200% more expensive than standard pricing for proofreading.
Top 10 proofreading sites
Table 2 provides a list of the top 10 research paper editing services. Here is the list in descending order:
Cambridge Proofreading
Paper True
Proofreading Pal
Scribendi
Scribbr
Editor World
Proofed
Wordvice
Editage
Enago
Cambridge Proofreading, which placed No. 2 in our last assessment, is now No. 1.
Even slight differences in customer satisfaction led to major differences in customer satisfaction scores. For example, a customer satisfaction rating of 4.9 would get a score as high as 20/20. However, a slightly lower rating of 4.4 would be scored 20.
Also, for pricing. The ideal pricing was the median rate of 30 USD per 1000 words. However, pricing below that was not necessarily given a higher score. As too low a price was deemed as underappreciating the value offered by your editor.
Rank | Proofreading Service | Standard Price in USD Per 1000 Words | Customer Rating | Country |
1 | Cambridge Proofreading | $30 | 4.9 | USA |
2 | Paper True | $32 | 4.8 | India |
3 | Proofreading Pal | $28 | 4.5 | USA |
4 | Scribendi | $37 | 4.6 | Canada |
5 | Scribbr | $42 | 4.4 | Netherlands |
6 | Editor World | $28 | 4.5 | USA |
7 | Proofed | $45 | 4.7 | South Africa |
8 | Wordvice | $48 | 4.6 | UK |
9 | Editage | $58 | 4.8 | USA |
10 | Enago | $58 | 4.2 | USA |
Top 10 proofreading services.
Our editing and proofreading prices begin as low as $0.02 per word. Get in touch to learn more! |
Comparing the best 5 proofreading services
Choosing the top three proofreading services is a subjective matter. It relies heavily on personal opinion. However, to come to a conclusion, I used the following four factors: 1. Price, 2. Customer satisfaction, 3. Speed of service, and 4. Process.
Now, Let’s take a look at the top five editing sites and see how they compare with each other. The top five proofreading companies are:
Cambridge Proofreading
Paper True
Proofreading Pal
Scribendi
Scribbr
No. 1. Cambridge Proofreading
Cambridge Proofreading earned first place as the best proofreading service in large part due to its high score for customer satisfaction. It is an editing company that was founded in the UK but is now located in the US. Its score on Trustpilot is an impressive 4.9 out of 5 stars.
Therefore, it is safe to conclude that those who use the service are happy with it. Also, at a price of only 30 USD per 1000 words, these clients may be getting a good deal for their money.
No. 2. Paper True
Paper True scored second place for best proofreading services based on its price and customer satisfaction ratings. The headquarters of the company seems to be based in India. Their average price is 27 USD per 1000 words, which is lower than the $30 median. In short, they're just more affordable compared to the competition.
Their customer rating on Trust Pilot is also notable at 4.8 out of 5 stars. This suggests that their clients are getting value for their money at a relatively cheaper price.
No. 3. ProofreadingPal
ProofreadingPal is based in the USA. They charge lower than the median price of 28 USD per 1000 words for their proofreading services. Their fastest turnaround time is two hours and their customer satisfaction rating out of five stars is 4.5.
No. 4. Scribendi
Scribendi — a company based in Canada — witnessed substantial improvement from my last assessment. This was due to the new criteria that left out employee satisfaction. Before they placed No. 7. Now, they're No. 4.
Scribendi may well be unique in its process of relying on only one editor as opposed to a peer editing system. Their editors are well-trained to handle and take full responsibility for editing clients' papers.
Any complaints on the part of the client mean that the editor pays the cost. This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the perspective. An editor who has full responsibility for editing a manuscript may feel motivated to do a good job of it. However, the extra step provided by a pair-editing system may provide an extra layer of precaution that one editor may miss.
Nonetheless, it seems to be working just fine. After all, the customer satisfaction rating is 4.6 for Scribendi. This suggests that clients are rather happy with the services they receive.
No. 5. Scribbr
Scribbr is located in the Netherlands, and the last time around, they won first place. This was due to the different criteria used, which emphasized Resource support for students and other clients. Now, they are in the fourth position. Its standard pricing is around 42 USD per 1000 words for standard turnaround time. They provide a comprehensive academic editing service.
This includes a peer editing system, which involves your work being first reviewed by a freelance editor or proofreader, followed by an in-house editor. More than that, their website remains very student-friendly and loaded with information and resources that students can use.
No. 6. Editor World
Editor World describes itself as an American editing and proofreading services company. They seem to place a heavy emphasis on their editors being American or native English speakers from the United States, the United Kingdom, or Canada. They work by providing a panel of on-demand proofreaders and editors. They are available around the clock every day of the week.
The company is based in Virginia, USA, with an office in London. With Editor World, you have the ability to choose your personal editor and communicate directly with them. The cost of proofreading a 3,000-word manuscript ranges between $78 for a 5-day turnaround and $102 for a 1-day service.
No. 7. Proofed
Proofed Proofreading and Editing is a South African firm. It assigns your document(s) to one of its expert proofreaders upon submission. The company recruits its proofreaders and editors through Knowadays. Editing a 3,000-word document at Proofed costs $105 (USD) with a 1-day turnaround.
The price rises to $315 for urgent services. Their professional editors handle PhD manuscripts, books, business documents, and more. The proofreading services offered include grammar, spelling, and punctuation corrections, enhancing word choice, ensuring consistency, providing helpful feedback, and addressing clarity issues.
No. 8. Wordvice
Wordvice appears to be a Korean-based editing service. They offer a range of services. This includes academic editing, college essay admissions editing, book editing, and business editing. Their pricing ranges from $22 per 1000 words for admission editing to $44 per 1000 words.
In addition to professional proofreading by humans, they also offer AI-powered proofreading software. This is an AI software application that allows you to edit your own work. It is similar to Grammarly. However, it has other features such as a paraphrasing tool. They have a fremium version with limited features, and their premium plan begins at $9.95 per month. To learn more about Wordvice, please check out this article: Wordvice Reviews | Including a Look at Wordvice AI.
No. 9. Editage
Editage is an editing service based in the US. They appear to be closely related to journal editing services, like their counterpart Enago. Their prices also seem to be the same at $58 per 1000 words. Their customer satisfaction rating is also relatively high at 4.8 out of five stars on Trustpilot.
This means despite the relatively high prices, people seem to be happy with the editing services they provide. They also offer support during the peer review process frp scholars who publish in academic journals.
No. 10. Enago
Enago is based in New Jersey and offers author services to the research community. It also has additional offices in Tokyo, Seoul, Istanbul, New York, Beijing, and Shanghai. Their editing services appear to be closely associated with publication in academic journals. This means they focus heavily on research paper editing services for scholars looking to get published in high-end journals.
They offer among the highest editing prices at around $58 per 1000 words. The customer rating is also relatively low at 4.2 compared to other editing services. The company also provides add-ons such as a manuscript report, re-editing support, and assistance during the peer review process for journal articles.
See how we at EminentEdit compare to the competition. Set up a Zoom call to learn about our personalized offers. |
1. Pricing and Speed. The different proofreading companies had the fastest turnaround times, which ranged between twelve and three hours. Scribendi had the largest differences between standard pricing and the lowest turnaround time. For example, its pricing for 1000 words at a four-hour turnaround was over 200% higher than its standard pricing for a one-week turnaround.
How do we at EminentEdit measure up against rivals like Scribendi and Scribbr with turnaround times as short as three and 24 hours ? EminentEdit's average delivery is one week, but for rush orders we can bring this down to three days. Here, we put a premium in making sure that quality comes before above everything else. A minimum of three working days helps us with that.
2. Customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction was generally high for all five editing companies. None of the top five proofreading sites scored below 4.3. However, Cambridge Proofreading scored the highest at 4.9, with a total of 3111 reviews on Trust Pilot — an impressive feat.
3. Process. All five of the best proofreading service providers had a process that allowed you to view the pricing before providing information, such as credit card information and email. Everything was done directly through the Internet without any need to place a call or send emails. However, EditorWorld stood out as it allowed direct communication between author and editor in its system.
AI-assisted editing
There are a handful of companies from our list that provide AI-assisted editing. By that I mean, they offer you the chance to edit your own work using their proofreading software tools. These companies include:
Wordvice
Editage
These tools are similar to Grammarly. However, they have one big difference with Grammarly. Grammarly is not a tool designed for academic editing. It is best used for business writing or blogging. On the other hand, the software provided by these three companies has been designed especially for proofreading and editing academic content.
Their software was trained on millions of words edited by professional editors working for these companies. This means we should expect the suggestions and corrections made by this software to be of a higher quality than what you would get from Grammarly.
These companies offer fremium versions of these tools with limited features. However, they normally come in the form of monthly subscriptions. For Editage, the Premium plan has three tier options: 1. Annual at $11.50 per month; 2. Quarterly at $18.30 per month; and 3. Monthly at $25 per month.
For Wordvice, the Premium Plan comes in three payment options: Annual, $9.95/month; Semi-Annual, $15.95/month, and Monthly, $19.95/month. Lastly, Scribbr has a plan that starts at $9.95 a month.
While it is a good idea to try this software to see how well you can edit your own, you should remember one thing. A tool is only as good as the person using it. If you have limited expertise in English, the results from using these tools may not be optimal.
From my experience, it can be said that these tools are best used by professional editors working for these companies. They are typically used to make the editing process smoother and faster for professional editors. However, the good thing is that these companies give you the option of professional human editors. This means you can switch to professional proofreading and editing services if ou feel too overwhelmed.
To learn more about using AI-assisted editing software, please check out this article: 6 Best Proofreading Software Tools.
Academic editing vs. business editing services?
Most of the companies listed so far mostly focus on academic editing services, and they either offer no business editing services or what they offer remains ill-defined. At EminentEdit, we are different and take pride in a team of editors who have experience editing in both academic and business contexts. Academic editing services include editing and proofreading for:
Research papers
Master's theses and dissertations
Journal papers
Grant proposals
Etc.
In short, anything related to academia. If you are a student or academic, you should think of getting academic assistance under the following circing circumstances:
You are not a native English speaker
Your time is restricted
You lack confidence in your writing abilities
You wish to make sure that your work is A-grade
On the other hand, business editing refers to documents that are related to marketing, corporate, or other similar fields, such as writing patents. This includes the following:
White papers
SEO blogs
Written patents
Sales pages
User manuals
Product catalogs
In both academic and business contexts, a professional editor's main advantage is correcting your work without bias and to the highest standards. Because an editor is a trained and experienced professional, they approach your work with a balanced perspective. Academics and students are too often too close to their work to make proper judgments on what should be changed, corrected, or left out.
In business contexts, to gain the confidence of potential clients and to meet the standards of business institutions such as patent offices, business documents should be written with impeccable grammar and careful language to avoid both ambiguity and the impression of not being sufficiently professional.
Tips on choosing the best services
Now you know the 10 best proofreading services, how do you go about choosing from the list? Here are seven tips that I recommend to make your decision.
1. Conduct self-editing first. Before seeking external assistance, you should thoroughly review your document. Use a self-editing checklist to identify and correct obvious errors. This will help improve the overall quality of your work. This initial step can reduce the workload for professional editors and can even transform your document from needing heavy editing changes to just needing lighter proofreading.
2. Determine the type of editing needed. You should understand the specific editing services your manuscript requires. Copy editing typically includes 1. developmental editing, which focuses on content and structure; 2. copy editing, which addresses grammar and style; and 3. proofreading, which corrects minor errors. Clearly defining your needs will help you choose a service that fits your objectives.
3. Check customer reviews and testimonials. Think of checking out feedback from previous clients to assess the reliability and quality of potential editing services. This can be found on Google Reviews and Trust Pilot. Positive reviews and testimonials can provide insights into the service's effectiveness and how happy customers generally are with the service.
4. Request a test edit. Before committing to a full edit, if possible, ask for a sample edit of a portion of your document. This allows you to evaluate the editor's proficiency and ensure their editing style is something that you are satisfied with. Scribbr, Scribendi, and Paper True are all examples of proofreading services that provide a test edit for your manuscript.
5. Evaluate affordability. Consider your budget when selecting an editing or proofreading service. It's important to invest in quality editing. However, you should ensure that the service's fees are reasonable and transparent. Some services offer tiered pricing based on the level of editing required.
6. Assess turnaround times. Ensure that the editing and proofreading service can meet your deadlines. Discuss and confirm the expected turnaround time before proceeding to avoid any misunderstanding or scheduling conflicts.
7. Verify expertise and specialization. If possible, you should choose an editor or proofreading services with experience in your specific academic or business field. Specialized knowledge ensures that the editor is familiar with the terminology and conventions relevant to your discipline.
By carefully considering these factors, you can select an editing and proofreading service that can enhance the quality of your manuscript and make sure that you can submit academic work that you are proud of.
How EminentEdit can help with editing your document
How does EminentEdit compare to all these other proofreading services? EminentEdit provides premium editing and proofreading services to ensure that your work meets the highest standards. We are also equally proficient in both academic and business editing.
Therefore, if you are a business professional who is wary of companies that specialize in academic editing not being able to meet your needs, EminentEdit is right for you. We can proudly claim that our experience includes both editing millions of words for dozens of academics and businesspeople.
So, we know exactly what it takes to complete high-quality projects at elite standards. The pricing for our editing and proofreading services begins as low as $0.02 per word. Check out the pricing sheet below.
Type of Editing | Description | Price Per Word ($) |
Copyediting Lite | Line-by-line editing to improve sentence structure, syntax and idiomatic English usage. It also includes thorough proofreading and commentary. | $0.03 |
Copyediting Plus | Line-by-line editing to improve sentence structure, syntax and idiomatic English usage, and reference editing and formatting | $0.04 |
Proofreading | Proofreading to correct punctuation and grammar. | $0.02 |
Get in touch for help in editing your business or academic document |
We go above and beyond in making sure we offer you the best possible editing experience. This means providing you with a final academic and business document that is corrected with the end in mind. For example, if you provide us with a written patent, we ensure that the corrections we provide are geared toward maximizing the chances of your patent being approved.
Here is a quick list of the documents we cover:
Proofreading and editing written patents
Proofreading white papers, manuals, and catalogs
Proofreading and editing for research papers, theses, and journal papers
Substantive editing to improve the quality of your writing on a sentence level
Extensive commentary and recommendations to improve your document
Proofreading to make sure your writing is grammatically correct with proper spelling and punctuation
Get in touch with one of our representatives: CONTACT US AT EMINENTEDIT.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, May 08). 10 Best Proofreading Services in 2026. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/selecting-the-best-proofreading-services-pricing-and-service |
