Pros
The people I dealt with, e.g., in customer service, were always very friendly. You can work from home to your own schedule.
Cons
They don't pay editors enough. I was a remote editor, like the majority of their editors, and for most of the jobs you do, you come out with about $10 an hour for about 1000 words. Now, if you are new to the industry and have this notion that proofreading involves reading your favorite novels and spotting the odd errant apostrophe, you might think that's OK, given that you can work from home to your own schedule. But this is for a solid hour's intensive work on a straightforward order (most orders are ESL, which take longer and are only marginally better paid, despite what some other reviewers have said). And this might be acceptable for college students wanting to make a bit of extra spending money. The problem is that Scribendi only hires and expects the work of experienced editors with degrees and substantial professional experience in the field. For what they then pay these editors, their expectations are extremely high. For example, for the typical 1000-word, one-hour ESL editing order, you are expected to not only correct the language almost to proofreading standards (minimum 80% absolute accuracy, however they work that out—I won’t go into the problems with the Q&A system mentioned by many other reviewers) but also give substantial comments on the content, style, coherence, voice, etc of the order, not to mention summarizing these comments in your overall feedback to the client. This takes—at a minimum—an hour for the most straightforward orders. Scribendi says that you can increase your speed, some orders take less time than others, etc etc—but the fact remains their basic expectations are way too high for what they pay you. Partly, I think this is why they have a high turnaround of editors; I also suspect many editors don't do as professional a job as others. For example, you have some editors doing 300,000 words per month (=10,000 words per day, every day!). I cannot believe that every job these editors take is written by extremely literate, native-speaking clients who just want to correct the occasional typo. Even if you are a "normal" editor, imagine editing for $10 an hour for eight full hours a day (if there are enough orders), five days a week = $1600 dollars a month and a nice case of repetitive strain injury and NO pension, security, benefits or sick pay. It’s soul destroying and not what you did your Masters for. Many of the editors seem to have worked in the industry but are now part-time homemakers or ESL teachers trying to earn extra money to eat and cursing themselves for choosing a humanities degree. Yes, I know the company “does all the work” finding customers (i.e., they have a website and do a bit of SEO and online marketing), and I wouldn’t even mind the 50% cut from whatever the client pays... the problem is they charge the customer way too little in the first place for what the client actually gets (a substantial copy-editing service that essentially includes a proofreading service). I used to always read client instructions along the lines of “substantial editing required of style, content, overall coherence... please improve my academic voice, logical flow...” etc etc... and the client paid $20, of which we get $10. It's not good enough. The SFEP gives suggested pay expectations in the industry, which is about $30 per hour MINIMUM even for proofreading. These are guides, yes, but as they also point out, the fact that freelance editors are not guaranteed hours and have no pension, benefits, or security represents “…considerable savings in overhead costs for those employing the services of a freelance, over and above other savings made by not having to provide holiday pay, sick pay and family leave.” Thankfully, I was able to switch careers. My advice would be to get out of the industry if you still can. I also find it strange how bad reviews are often followed by glowing reviews. This actually prompted me to leave my own review.