What is CopyPress?
CopyPress is a content marketing platform that focuses on strategic, results-driven content. Before signing up, businesses are asked to participate in a free call so the client success team can propose a content marketing plan. They also prioritize metrics, which is great news, but there are some caveats that may have you searching for CopyPress alternatives. Here’s our detailed overview.
Table of Contents
How CopyPress Works
CopyPress is a writing service that utilizes reporting tools to steer a business’s content marketing plan. It also offers a few design services, like infographic creation.
Getting Started
CopyPress is a closed platform, which means businesses cannot simply sign up. Instead, businesses interested in using CopyPress must schedule a free call with the team. During this call, the business will need to answer some questions about their industry and content goals. Once the CopyPress team has collected some information about the business and its requirements, they will take some time to assemble a content marketing plan.
CopyPress says it uses a combination of proprietary and third-party software to automatically identify industry trends. Unfortunately, CopyPress says that strategy calls and planning are handled by its “client success team.” They do not mention the involvement of marketing professionals in the process, which could lead to gaps in the plan they create.
Reviewing Your Plan
It’s unclear whether a business needs to pay before seeing the content marketing plan that CopyPress creates for them, but the next step is reviewing that plan. CopyPress does not offer an example of this plan, but they describe it as “completely custom” and say that it covers writer recruitment, wireframes, timelines, and deliverables. They do not say how often this plan is updated.
It’s safe to assume that CopyPress builds each plan based on how much content a business intends to order, which should be discussed during the initial call. If you’re considering CopyPress, it’s important that you share key details about how often you’d like to publish and on which platforms you’d like to publish to make sure the plan they create covers all of the content your business requires.
Content Production
CopyPress does not go into great detail about the content production process, but they do state that each client’s writers will be selected for them based on the client’s industry and volume. Since selecting writers and reviewing pitches can take a substantial amount of time, it’s great news that CopyPress doesn’t make clients do this themselves. The only other information CopyPress provides about its writers is that they have over 1,000 available.
Assuming that CopyPress works all of its available services into the content marketing plans it creates for companies (e.g., under “deliverables”), clients should expect to receive a mix of infographics, custom illustrations, and animated videos in addition to written content.Â
It’s convenient that CopyPress provides these services on one platform, but it’s unfortunate that they do not disclose pricing. Clients should evaluate what CopyPress charges for these services to make sure they do not come with a big markup.
CopyPress Pricing
CopyPress does not disclose pricing for any of its services, but they offer three account types.Â
CopyPress for Agencies
CopyPress offers a plan specific to digital marketing agencies who don’t have the capacity to create content for their business clients. These agencies often outsource some or all of their content production to freelancers, but CopyPress saves time by eliminating the hiring process. It’s unclear if agencies can bring their own content marketing plan for their clients or if they have to work with CopyPress to create one.
CopyPress for Mid-Market
The term “mid-market business” has no official definition in terms of revenue or size, but CopyPress describes it as “the sweet spot of solid revenue streams and untapped growth potential.” When a business is at a point where it’s thinking about hiring an in-house content team, CopyPress poses itself as a more reliable and flexible.Â
CopyPress for Enterprises
Although CopyPress appears to primarily target agencies and mid-market businesses, they do advertise solutions for enterprises. One thing enterprise companies will want to consider is the proprietary software that CopyPress uses, which they call Dante. It’s important for enterprise clients to ask CopyPress about production capacity, but also software uptime and security protocols.Â
Content Costs
CopyPress does not disclose pricing, so it’s unclear how much they charge for content production. Most platforms charge per word, but since CopyPress also offers services such as illustration, potential clients should ask for a complete price sheet before they make a commitment. In addition to content pricing, businesses should also inquire about any monthly or annual membership costs and potential fees associated with content planning and/or reporting.Â
Refund Policy
CopyPress does not disclose its refund policy. When signing up, a business should be clear on the terms. For instance, some platforms have a shorter refund period than the standard 30 days or require businesses to commit to a 12-month contract up-front. These details should be discussed on the initial call so you can evaluate whether or not CopyPress is a good fit for your business.Â
CopyPress Pros and Cons
We give accolades to CopyPress for emphasizing planning and metrics, but lack of transparency is a big factor that’s holding the platform back.
Advantages of Using CopyPress
- Focused on Planning: Before you can even sign up for CopyPress, you have to hop on the phone to speak with the team. That’s something we normally frown upon, but since you’ll be getting a content marketing plan out of it, we say it’s a big perk as long as that plan is truly customized to your business.
- Informative Metrics: CopyPress says it works with clients to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and track them over time. Assuming that these metrics are used to inform specific updates to a client’s content plan, this is great news for businesses who struggle with reporting tools.Â
- Eliminates Hiring: Once a content marketing plan is established for each client, CopyPress says it selects the best writers from its talent pool of over 1,000 professionals. This eliminates the hiring process, which will save businesses a lot of time.Â
Disadvantages of Using CopyPress
- Undisclosed Pricing:Â The single biggest downside of the CopyPress platform is that pricing information is nowhere to be found. This suggests that the sales team wants a chance to wow you with bells-and-whistles before they really make your jaw drop with the numbers.
- Small Software: CopyPress markets itself to enterprise clients and agencies, both of which imply large teams and high-volume production. Given that CopyPress only had about 200 clients at last count, their talent pool and proprietary software may not be able to reliably support a large company.Â
- Bundled Design Services: It’s good that CopyPress offers design services, but platforms that do this often impose a big markup at the cost of convenience. Additionally, since CopyPress creates each client’s marketing plan, they’ll likely try to work these other services in often, so businesses need to keep an eye on where their content budget is going.Â
CopyPress Reviews
Unfortunately, we could not locate any customer reviews for CopyPress, but they have over 160 reviews from employees/freelance writers on sites like Glass Door and Indeed. Here’s a look at the feedback we found.Â
Positive: Internal Management
“I’ve freelanced with CopyPress since before they were even CopyPress, so a long time. I’ve seen it all. The community and project managers are wonderful people and honestly the reason I stuck around for as long as I did,” says a freelance writer who gives the platform a 3.0 rating. “
“Management will try to help however they can, and most are pretty understanding. The hours are laid back as long as you’re available during normal business hours and you get your work done,” says an editor on the platform, giving CopyPress a 4.0 rating.Â
Negative: Writer Workload
“Managers were overloaded and paid exactly the same as anyone else despite workload (at least the lower level managers). All the copywriters and editors were treated like garbage and expected to churn out a high volume of meaningless content. They don’t even spend much time training people,” complains a former employee.
An editor explains: “They expect a lot… The quotas can be really hard to meet consistently, and you don’t have much room to fall behind before you start receiving warnings.”
CopyPress Alternatives
If you’re looking for the best CopyPress alternatives, these are the platforms we recommend based on their features and services.
ContentFly
ContentFly makes no attempt at frills or thrills. This simplistic, turnkey writing service saves businesses time by automatically assigning writers to their projects. Plus, pricing is transparent right from the start. Every cent you pay goes towards your content and pricing starts at $300/month. Read the full review ⟶
Scripted
Scripted offers a self-service plan for businesses that wish to hire their own writers from the platform’s pool of proven talent. They also allow businesses to ask for content ideas or, if you want a fully-managed solution, you can opt for Cruise Control, which starts at $999/month.  Read the full review ⟶
Jacksyn
Jacksyn is a customizable subscription service that allows you to choose the exact services your business needs. With transparent content costs and plans starting at $199/month, Jacksyn is flexible enough to fit small companies but powerful enough to support enterprise-level content production. Read the full review ⟶
Jacksyn vs. CopyPress
CopyPress is a boutique marketing firm with a big outlook and we love their commitment to providing every client with a marketing plan to guide their content spend. We also assign great value to the KPIs that CopyPress says it tracks, so long as they’re truly granular and being used to inform frequent updates to a client’s content strategy.Â
Yet, CopyPress will keep losing out on big business as long as they continue to hide pricing information behind a sales call that pushes all the bells-and-whistles. At Jacksyn, we allow anyone to evaluate the pricing of our services and even estimate their content costs based on their specific needs. Plus, we don’t make content planning obligatory, cutting out unnecessary time and fees for businesses who have a plan in place.
Interested in learning more about how Jacksyn will streamline your content production with a dedicated assistant and trained creative team? Explore our services and learn why Jacksyn is Content’s Best Friend.™
