About the Proofreading Institute

Why we exist

Proofreading is one of the easiest businesses to start and one of the hardest to start well. There is no license to apply for and almost nothing to buy, so anyone who is good with words can begin charging tomorrow. The same openness means nothing vouches for you. A client choosing between proofreaders cannot check a register, so they judge on a test edit, a sample and how you handle the first conversation.

Most people who try this work find the reading is the easy part. The difficulties are everything around it: knowing where proofreading stops and copyediting begins, quoting a price that survives a messier file than expected, getting paid by a client in another country, and finding the first few people willing to trust a stranger with an unpublished manuscript. Free advice online tends to cover those things in scattered pieces. We built one structured course that takes them in order.

What the work actually demands

Proofreading is the final check on a document, usually after it has been written and edited, and before it is printed or published. It means finding the errors that remain, making the text consistent against an agreed style, and raising a query rather than rewriting when something is outside that scope. Clients pay for accuracy and reliability, not for opinions about their prose.

The places new proofreaders usually go wrong are predictable. They agree to "proofread" a text that actually needs a heavier edit, and lose money on it. They price from a word count without reading a sample. They skip the style sheet, and cannot explain their changes later. They try to market to everyone at once, and reach nobody. The course is organized around avoiding exactly these mistakes.

What the course teaches, and how

The course has 10 written units. The first 6 cover the core: what a proofreading business sells and to whom, the standards of the work itself, setting up the business, pricing from your own measured speed, looking after clients, and getting your first ones. The Advanced units add specializing, marketing, workflow and tools, and building steadier income over the year.

Each unit is a substantial read with worked examples, followed by a practice quiz and written assignments that ask you to apply the unit to your own plans. The course ends with an open-book online exam: multiple-choice questions scored automatically, and 4 written answers read and marked by a person. You need 70 out of 100 to pass.

What the credential is, and what it is not

If you pass, you receive the Certified Proofreading Business Professional (C.P.B.P.) certificate, which anyone can check on our verification page. It is a training certificate. It shows that you completed this course and passed its exam. It is not a government license, which proofreading does not have, not a degree, not membership of a professional association such as ACES or the CIEP, and not accredited by an outside body. Our certification standards set this out in full.

Who it is for, and who it is not for

The course suits people who already read carefully and write well and want to turn that into paid work: career changers, parents working from home, retirees, and people with a background in a field such as law, healthcare or academia who could proofread in it. It also suits working proofreaders who have the skill but not yet the business side.

It is not a grammar course from first principles, and it is not a copyediting or developmental editing program. If you want to restructure and rewrite other people's work, a broader editing program will serve you better. If you are unsure, our guide to proofreading and copyediting is a good place to start, and the course quiz will suggest which tier fits.

Getting in touch

If you have a question about the course, the exam or your account, use our contact page. Many common questions are already answered in the FAQ.

What makes us different