Vocal Reviews 

I’ve been on Vocal for a year now and, at first, I was very excited about the challenges. I love writing short stories and having a prompt (for a contest) is motivating to me. Now, I don’t mean to be pompous but, after every contest winner is announced, I am shocked. As a long time writer in the craft, I can confidently say that the “winners” wouldn’t even get a B in composition class.

The most recent “winner” had misspelled words in their story. The second place “winner” had an entire paragraph without any punctuation. Not a single period. How on Earth can that be the winner? No hook, no pacing, mostly telling and not showing, and overall too boring to finish reading. It seems they choose their winners at random. I submitted my recent story/entree to several critique FaceBook Groups (who are often very forthcoming with their negative feedback) and only received high praise for my work. I ran the piece by beta readers and an editor. I am confident it was a solid piece.

Now, I would feel differently if the winner’s story was actually well-written and intriguing. I’d be disappointed but say, “okay, that’s fair. It’s really good and deserves the win!!”

The fact that the winners are often (if not always) amateur writers (and many reviewers on here agree) makes me lose faith in the platform.

Another notable strange thing about Vocal is that there is no messaging or public “reads” displayed. So, we have no way of verifying if the winners are real people or even to complain about the poor writing.

I don’t think Vocal is a scam in the sense that they will steal your money, but something is off. How can a writing platform not know how to choose well-written contest winners?

I wrote a review when I first started and I am adding to that now. Vocal is a basic blog, it is how the writer utilizes it. You can gain followers and market your work easily on Vocal, which is their structure. It's not an advertising website or an employee - it is a professional b l o g for freelancers. They are marketing and encouraging beginners is why you see the choices they have for winners. All that being said, they have a serious problem with paying out. I got paid the first time without any trouble and when I changed the banking info it is now impossible to get my money - their issue is with Stripe. Stripe is awful to deal with! I think Vocal grew too big, too fast and while they are spending time developing their corporate culture they do not have front-line customer service that knows how to deal with issues, like payments, that should be easily resolved.

Very poor website.
I can never, ever login as it believes my passwords to always be wrong. I email Vocal asking for help and they either never reply or are very rude and impatient in their messages.
Very unfortunate, but yes, I've paid to be treated like dirt. Even my requests on how to complain are ignored.

Their challenges are the only reason I joined and sorry to say winners of these are extremely amateur. Difficult to trust a "writing platform" when their judges clearly have no idea what good writing is. Aside from this, making money on this site is extremely difficult. Don't waste your time.

Clearly those who are leaving negative reviews did not read through all of the FAQs, nor are they familiar with how freelance works. Vocal is exactly what they claim to be. I've only been a member for two months, and have only posted 13 stories/poems thus far, but I've already made nearly $40. You need to network and promote your work or you won't get anywhere. If you'd taken the time to read through their how to guides you'd be aware that they do not offer advertising. If you google the title and name of any of your stories they'll pop up at the top of Google. Which is more than I can say for many other platforms. While I fully understand the disappointment of not winning their challenges, you need to realize that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of other entries into each challenge. For the record the recent winners most definitely are real people. They interact with the rest of us vocal creators who take the time to network on social media. Swallow your sour grapes and try again, or at least recognize that Vocal isn't a scam. It was just a matter of you not putting in the effort to make a go of things. Something tells me those of you claiming Vocal is a scam would say the same of Medium where self promotion is also a necessity.

They restrict the perceived theme of your writing and will not alow publishing if the writing isn't consistent with their limited views. Not a platform to expand your writing creativity.

As a writer and author or two published books, it is very discouraging to have your stories and poems put on the shelf, never reaching TOP STORIES - no comments, no feedback aside from the number of views and stats. How can the public find your poetry and stories if they are not displayed out front? Comments from the public and feedback would be great as it seems that I am writing in vain - little noticed. Very few of the stories that are displayed as top stories would impel me to read them. Just not interested in the articles that I could read anywhere in the newspaper or on line. Looking for unusual stories and personal experiences as opposed to magazine articles so this is what I write. I signed up for Vocal but not going forward by committing my credit card for payments to something I am not encouraged by.

I'm a professional writer who saw a Vocal contest advertised, and saw others promoting Vocal. So I signed up - I got the membership, too. Most of their contests that award money are "membership only." So the membership is $9.99 USD/mo ($10) so if they have 10,000 members that equals $100K -x 12 mos, $1.2 million revenue. The contests are like $5,000 prizes (at most). The site doesn't seem to have ads, it gets money only from subscribers. You will not have any type of promotion or delivery to readers. You get mini pennies per "view" so earn like 6 cents and have 10 "views." You have no way to interact with others and can only include a header image. The interface is very clunky and basic. I'm writing to say clearly "NO DO NOT DO." You can do your own blog for free or minimal expense; you can use services like Medium that actually will pay if you get any type of traction ... just really tired of this type of online business that exploits people. "NO" Vocal is not a money maker and "NO" it will not introduce your work to any readers. There is no way any of the "writing" on the site is getting enough views via pennies to amount to $6K earnings a month. Thumbs down. It is a moneymaker for the owners. The parent company is now called "Creatd," formerly Jerrick Media. It's publically traded on NASDAQ and had an IPO in 2020 for $7.7 million USD - that is a small IPO. The stock opened at $4.50 and is now trading at about $2. In addition to being an actual pro writer who is now dismayed that other pros are promoting Vocal - I'm a business consultant. This is a ripoff and exploitation of aspiring writers and investors a definite 1-star.

These reviews for the most part demonstrate poor writing skills. Many of the poorly written reviews are quite negative; accusations of nefarious intentions among an elite club of judges abound. This leads me to the conclusion that most people who think they can win some money by signing up for this kind of service have not studied the odds of the lottery, nor have they grasped the nature of internet capitalism.

I do not have an account with vocal, but I feel after reading the reviews and plotting myself on a graph of some kind that my chances are higher than average. The only problem is I like pizza more than gambling.

Auto charge your credit card to post YOUR OWN WORK and then you must self promote and get pennies for each read post. What a joke. Waste of time and your money

Terrible, the judges are extremely biased and reward what they like, not what’s good or marketable. I entered a contest, not expecting to win, but perhaps expecting to learn something. When I read the 5K winning submission, I was shocked! It was horrible, no horrible is a massive understatement. They clearly have an agenda or a political bent and do not judge fairly. Don’t waste your time or money.

I'd put zero stars if I could. This site IS a scam, ignore any and all positive reviews, they're meant to gaslight you and it's extremely likely they've been written by the site's administration team.I joined Vocal+ for several months entered several challenges and didn't win a single one. That isn't my main issue, my main issue is upon deciding to drop Vocal forever and move on I cancelled my Vocal+ subscription and tried to delete my credit card information. THEY WOULDN'T LET ME DELETE IT!!!!! The website said "You cannot delete your payment information because you have an active subscription" Bull-Spit! That's a massive red flag! No I did NOT have an active subscription, I just cancelled it! And the cancellation didn't fully take effect for over 23 days. Meaning the scam artists that run this farce of a website just wanted to steal money from me one last time. But I outsmarted them and changed my payment information to a prepaid card that had no money in the account. This site is not for REAL writers,it's a online country club for snobbish, sycophantic, rip-off artists with no appreciation for true literary talent. If you see a Vocal ad just keep scrolling, don't waste your time or money, because they sure will waste YOURS!

I signed up for Vocal+ about six months ago to enter a poem in one of their competitions. After signing up, I started getting charged $9.99 a month to continue my membership. I didn’t agree to this, but decided to continue paying to keep entering the competition prompts they posted monthly. I haven’t won anything, but I did eventually get one of my stories featured as a “Top Story”.
The odds are not in your favor with this site. I earned $5 after publishing my fifth story on Vocal+, then $10 after publishing my tenth. I earned $20 for publishing my top story. Being a Vocal+ member for six months has cost me $60, and my Vocal wallet still only has just over $32 in it. The extra $2 is accumulated from the cents I earn from readers who view my stories I post. They say you can make up to $6k a month as a member, but you don’t profit at all.
On top of that, Stripe, the cash withdrawing app Vocal+ is connected to, is a scam. It’s the only app Vocal offers to withdraw the money out of your Vocal wallet. I have tried to download it multiple times and each time I’ve tried to, I just get a bunch of questions asking me personal questions (what is my SSN, what is the passcode to my iPhone, my license number, etc) and tons of pop up ads. There’s no option to use a safer connection like PayPal or Venmo.
I entered two last contests this month and I’m waiting for the results, but after this I’m going to finally delete my account.

I wanted to use it so I signed up but before I started writing they posted updated guidelines which I was fine with but they also want my ID. Photo ID!!!
No thank you. When I asked who they are that I should trust them with this information their answer was to not address my question but tell me what they were doing and how I should go about it. Sorry that does not cut it. I do not have to prove myself to you but the other way around. So I will not proceed and will close my account.
Thank you for offering me a place to share what I experienced with Vocal.
Cheers.

Signed up with introductory offer which after a month, rolled over to $9.99 per month. Needed to cancel for $$ reasons. There was no Cancel Subscription button anywhere. Contacted Vocal.media; Sunny keeps saying there’s no account associated w my email, yet they keep billing my CC! (Vocal’s phone num is an investment company.) Had to go thru CC company to stop payments.

It’s not just me, hundreds of people are starting to believe that Vocal is a scam. So many “winners” have only written one story and they just aren’t well written, especially first place winners. In fact no one in any of the Vocal Facebook groups have ever known any of the first place winners unless it was sponsored by another company. It’s becoming very clear that fake accounts are being made by vocal and that $5,000 winning prize money is just going back into vocal or its “employees”. Beware that this platform may very well be a scam. If Vocal Media kept giving 1st place winnings to known people in the community, there would be no suspicion. People should report to the BBB.

Awful awful awful. The positive ratings on this are clearly from vocal staff.
I don't know a single person who has anything good to say about it after using it.
Stay well clear

I love Vocal. I have an avenue that encouraged me to write when I thought I was no writer at all. I have found the platform improving, while I am not yet a vocal+ member, I am still able to earn money off the few articles I have written.

I have had a wonderful opportunity to share my writing on Vocal and continue to do so. I have also read some amazing stories from other authors. The Challenges are fun, if you win or not it is always fun to take part. I recommend Vocal to everyone who loves to write or would love to write for fun.

A lot of the reviews here smack of sour grapes.
Could Vocal be better? Of course, no hosting site is perfect, and there's always room for improvement. (Personally, I'd love the ability to leave gushing comments on other stories...)
On the flip side, Vocal is at least willing to listen to its users, having recently sent out a survey, swiftly followed by introducing the ability to subscribe to writers. More improvements to follow.

Vocal's big draw is undoubtably its Challenges, and the Winning Prize Money. Mostly limited to Vocal+ paid members, whose subscriptions pay for prize money, Challenges run on a monthly or fortnightly basis, with three winners and several thousand disappointed writers who didn't make the cut.
Vocal's other draw is that you are paid per read, other members can leave tips, and there are a number of bonuses that will earn money on top of that. Being selected as a Top Story, featuring on Vocal's social media, and assorted milestone bonuses are how most Vocal writers make a lot of their money.

The biggest drawback is that, outside of being a Top Story or winning a challenge or writing something good enough to have another member rave about you on Facebook, it's honestly up to you to generate your own traffic. Vocal doesn't do paid promotions or ads; you have to promote yourself and your work.
Welcome to Indie life.

A lot of people join Vocal with big dreams, then let disappointment get the better of them when they find themselves struggling. I entered for the Challenges, fantasised about winning, then moped when that didn't happen.
Then I picked myself up and kept writing. Maybe I'll win one day, maybe I won't. If all I ever manage is the ability to take my partner out for dinner once a month, that's still better than I expected.

Vocal never claimed that it would do the work for me, and I never expected it to.