Phrasemaker is an independent digital news publication founded by Branden Zavaleta in 2024, and led with Grace Black,Tarun Sayal, & Branden Lizardi. In little over a year, we’ve grown to over a quarter million monthly views. You might say our success is via the classic methods; SEO, quality reporting, timely coverage, and effective promotion. We’ve done all that, but that’s not our secret. Our secret is that, uniquely, we’re all paid directly via ad revenue.
Interested in Phrasemaker? Here’s the pitch:
We work on a system like no other outlet. There are no set rates, not for anything. Pay is entirely based on the performance of your articles. If you can garner one million views for your exposé, breaking news, or even listicle? You won’t be paid twenty five bucks like you would at a content mill. You’ll get 80% of the ad revenue.
Now if you’ve only worked for rates, you won’t know what that means. Why? There’s a reason that other company’s aren’t transparent with the numbers: A viral hit with a million views can make thousands.
Phrasemaker gives you chance to enjoy the fruits of a viral success unlike anywhere else, and we want that for you. Your success is our success, and together we support each other to find those viral stories.
We are not a content mill, we’re transparent with our writers, support them and share the goal of create engaging written work.
Experience Requirements
Where you start depends on what you know.
If you’re a content writer, you’ll begin on our bounty board. This is a curated list of topics prepared by our editorial team using research and search data. Editors take a 10% share on these pieces for the research and optimisation work, but many of our top performing articles start here, so it’s a great place to start.
If you are a journalist or editor with higher publication experience, you get more freedom. You can pitch what you know works or you contribute to the bounty board and receive 10% when another writer takes the topic (plus a 5% bonus if you put out consistently strong bounties).
How Does Pay Work Exactly?
The biggest thing to note with our revenue share model is that we’re dependant on our ad provider.
Ad providers pay 65 days after the end of each revenue month. That means your pay is heavily delayed. After three months the pay is monthly, but until then you’ll be waiting for the ad revenue to come in.
For example: If you publish in January, payment arrives in early April. It’s a big ask, but our team of 50+ agree that it’s worth the wait.
For example, at a content mill, they expect an average of 4,000 views per article. At a 17USD RPM, that’s 68 dollars of revenue for the article, but content mills don’t pay half of that. Sometimes it’s even more than that, here’s some recent numbers:
What’s even better is when an article goes viral. When someone gets lucky and hits that sweet spot of being the first and the best on a big story or search, everyone gets to celebrate that victory with a share of the revenue. After all, it takes a team to score a goal, not a player.
Our Overflow Share System Works Like This
The first 200USD goes to the writer. They get a big score for kicking the goal. After that, the writer and everyone else on the active team gets a share of the earnings. Practically, this means that most months are topped off with a 20-50USD bonus (and they’ll only grow!).
Here’s what it means to be considered an active team member:
- You’re writing at least five articles a month.
- You’re making at least 50USD total a month.
We keep the numbers small enough for anyone to do it, just not so small that you can sit on the sidelines while we play.
Fees
- There is a 10 percent site fee on all revenue to cover overhead (servers, subscriptions, admin, strategy, SEO, etc.).
- The editor of each team gets a 10 percent share from the work they prepare for the bounty board.
- You can only invoice the first 30 days of revenue per article.
- Payments are done via Wise. If your country doesn’t support Wise, you can still be paid via bank transfer, but the fees are higher (~3USD per transfer).
Training and Benefits
We provide onboarding and guidance, but you will do best if you already understand SEO and how to attract readers.
Writers also receive all the benefits of being press; Access to review products, game codes, early screenings and local premiere invitations. If you’re a seasoned journalist or freelancer, you’re welcome to pitch brands and PR under the Phrasemaker name too.
If that sounds like a fit, email us with a short introduction, your experience and links to your best published work.
