When you’re looking for the best essay writing service to fit your needs—fast—filtering through a sea of search results can seem intimidating.

This guide will help you learn how to find the best essay writing service with reliable support that provides high-quality, original essays to fit your needs.

But first, let’s clarify:

What Can an Essay Writing Service Help You With?

An essay writing service can be a great tool whether you’re a student or a working professional. Here are just a few of the things a writing service can help you do:

• Get past writer’s block. Example essays can be fantastic guides whether you’re struggling to find those first words to fill a blank page, or you’re on paragraph fifty-four.
• Save time. The writing process entails multiple steps that can be time-consuming, like researching, outlining, writing, revising and editing. Many writing services can help you through one or more of these steps.
• Understand your topic. If knowing where to start seems daunting and your essay subject still seems murky as mud, purchasing an example paper is a great way to ignite ideas.
• Complete an application. Most college applications (and even some job applications) require an essay. Purchasing and example essay can provide you with a top-quality guide to follow, so that you’re more confident in the essay you submit.

In order to choose the best essay writing service that with help you accomplish what you want, it’s important to first understand what you plan to use the service for.

Define What You Need Your Essay For, and What You Need the Essay Writing Service to Do for You

As we talked about above, an essay writing service can help with more than just writing. Many of the best writing services will also be able to help with things like editing, researching and creating an outline. Here are some things to consider and help you define what you plan to use the essay for and what you need the writing service to do for you:

• What kind of essay do you need and what’s it for? Is it an application essay, an argumentative essay, a research essay, or something else?
• Do you want assistance writing the essay, or do you just need help conducting research and making an outline?
• Do you simply need help editing an essay you’ve already written?
• Would you like to be able to communicate with a skilled writer who can make suggestions about how to improve your writing, or do you just need an example document provided quickly?

Once you clearly know exactly what you need help with, and the type of essay you want to purchase, use the checklist questions below to help you find the service to fit your needs.

Use These 5 Questions to Choose the Best Essay Writing Service for You

Keep in mind, the kind of assistance you plan to purchase from a writing service will determine which of these questions are most relevant to you. In general, these are great prompts to use to evaluate whether or not a writing site will match what you’re looking for.

1. Is it just a paper writing service?

Does the essay writing service you’re considering hiring just write papers? Or, do they provide editing as well? Some services will even help you conduct research and make sure your citation format and style are correct.

Make sure you understand what services are offered. If you only need a fast, simple document, and you don’t need to collaborate with your writer through the process, a “just-writing” service may be ok. But, if you’re needing help finding appropriate sources, creating a concept outline or want feedback, make sure the service you’re considering offers more in-depth assistance.

2. Does the essay writing service hire qualified writers?

You can find numerous essay writing services on the web, but not all of these services hire qualified writers. Read about or call a specific site to find out how they qualify and hire their writers. For instance, do their writers speak and write fluent English (or another language that you’re wanting your essay written in)? Does the service hire writers who are well-versed and knowledgeable about your topic?

3. What will you use your essay for?

Are you looking for an example essay to use as a guide for a class assignment? Or will your essay help you in your college application process? What topic will your essay be about?

Different tones and styles are often used in different types of essays. For instance, a college application essay might be slightly more conversational (but still polished) than a graduate-level research essay. You can buy admissions essay samples from Ultius for more guidance on college application essays.

Essays on different topics might require different citations styles.

Make sure the essay writing service you’re considering has writers who are skilled in writing the specific type of essay you need, in the format you’d like. If you’re not sure what the service can provide, look for examples. Most of the best services will have examples of writing you can view.

4. Will you need to communicate with your writer?

Not all essay writing services allow clients to communicate with writers. However, many writing services will have a platform (such as chat or email) through which you can post messages, upload documents and communicate directly with your writer. Some fantastic services even give you the option to mark writers as favorites or request a preferred writer, if you’re a returning client.

If you want to collaborate through the writing process and ask questions, make sure the service has an interface that makes communicating with your writer convenient.

5. Does the essay writing service provide edited, original writing?

Believe it or not, some writing services actually re-sell content (instead of providing clients with original writing). This happens most commonly among essays and essay topics that are frequently requested. But—as you likely know, plagiarism presents a huge problem—that none of us want to be involved with in our educational or professional careers.

The best essay writing services will not resell content. In fact, top-quality writing sites will actually run every essay you order through a plagiarism checker before sending it to you. That way, you can be assured your writer wrote it from scratch, and that he or she didn’t accidentally, unknowingly write content that was too similar to someone else’s.

Sometimes—but not always—price can be an indicator of how original you can expect your essay content to be. Free essay writing services are more likely to re-sell content, which is why free, and even super inexpensive options are not always the best (tempting as it may be).

If you’re on a tight budget, sometimes you can find specials and deals even with top quality essay services. Sign up for their mailing lists and you may still be able to stay in your budget and receive a top-quality example essay.

Also, be sure the writing service you hire thoroughly edits and proof-reads the documents they provide. After all, if you’re investing in a quality essay, you want to make sure it’s polished and proofread. This saves you the time and hassle of corrections when time is already precious.

Extra Key Tips

If you’ve considered all the questions above and you’re still scratching your head, unsure of how to narrow your list down to the best services, here are a few more tips to aid the decision-making process:

• Look for testimonials and examples. A top-notch essay writing service will showcase client testimonials and will have a page where you can view sample essays. This can help give you an idea of whether or not the writing service you’re considering matches the quality and style of writing you’re looking for. Also, check places like Quora or Reddit for third-party, unbiased customer reviews. This will give you a more thorough idea of whether or not clients are happy with the service.
• Know if they can provide it by your deadline. Some writing services have more limited turnaround times when it comes to orders, while others, such as the writing and editing services from Ultius, will allow you to place an urgency order for a slightly higher fee.
• Check for a customer service phone number. If there’s no phone number, and the only way you can reach a writer is through email, this is probably a red flag to think twice. In other words, if you’re investing in a quality essay, it’s important to make sure support is easy to access—just in case there are any issues with things like payments, turnaround time, quality, or if you just have general questions. In our tech-driven age, being able to talk to a “real human” can still make a huge difference. The best services, like Ultius, will provide personalized support. The company’s messaging platform makes it easy for clients to call, instant message or email the client success department 24/7.
• Ask about their revision and refund policy. Hopefully, your example essay will be stellar, and you won’t need a revision. But, even if you hire the best essay writing service company you can find, sometimes changes are still needed. Make sure that you can easily request a revision—and even better, for free! (Most writing services that charge a higher fee initially will include revisions for free). Likewise, if the revision still fails to meet your expectations, or if you decide you just don’t need the essay anymore, you’ll want to be clear on the refund policy. Be sure you understand the order terms. Some services will require revision requests to be made in a specified time frame, while others will offer a refund under certain conditions. Be sure you understand what your options are before ordering.

Final Takeaways

If you’re a busy student, or a working professional (or maybe both), you probably know what it feels like to have your schedule packed to max capacity. The days get busy and you might not have time to scour every website, or to spend time on the phone with support departments.

So, here’s a quick recap of the most important questions to ask, and what key tips to consider, when choosing the best essay writing service for you:

• Know if the writing service can match your needs. Do they only provide essays? Or can they help you conduct research, cite correctly, create an outline, or proof-read your document?
• Can you communicate with qualified writers? How are writers qualified? Are they experienced in your topic and fluent in English? Can you message your writer directly?
• Will you receive proof-read, original writing? Does the service you’re considering check for plagiarism? Do they thoroughly edit and proofread drafts before sending them to you?
• Understand refund and revision policies. For those “just in case” scenarios, review the service’s revision and refund policies. That way, you’ll feel confident when you place your order.
• Look at reviews and examples. In addition to looking on the site itself for example essays and client testimonials, look at forums and third-party sites for unbiased reviews.

There’s a lot to consider when choosing the best writing service for you. But these simple considerations provide a great start. If you use them for a guide as you look at an essay writing service site, you’ll be on the right track to choosing wisely!