Fundamentals
- ✓ Six units covering the craft and the business behind it
- ✓ Worked pricing examples and contract clauses explained
- ✓ One open-book online exam, sat when you are ready
- ✓ 30-day money-back guarantee
- ✓ Flexible, self-paced online learning with lifetime access
- ✓ Instant access to course materials
- ✓ Priced in USD
Course last updated: August 2026
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C.P.B.P. certificateIndependently checkable
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Every certificate carries a verification id, so an employer or a client can confirm it themselves on our verification page. What a graduate has to do to earn one is set out in our certification standards.
Here's what you'll learn in our Fundamentals course
Unit 1
Proofreading Business Foundations
- Understanding what a proofreading business sells, and who is willing to pay for it
- Mapping the four buyer types: students and academics, indie authors, businesses, and publishers
- Working out why capacity rather than demand is the ceiling on this kind of business
- Evaluating the real startup cost honestly, from a laptop and a style guide to a website
- Understanding that no license is required, and what you must prove competence with instead
Unit 2
Proofreading Standards and the Work Itself
- Distinguishing proofreading, line editing, copyediting, and developmental editing, and pricing each
- Working to a named style guide, and building a style sheet for a job that has none
- Marking up in Word Track Changes, in PDF, and on paper, and knowing which the client expects
- Writing a query rather than making a change you are not entitled to make
- Setting a personal accuracy standard, and the second-pass habit that meets it
Unit 3
Setting Up Your Business
- Registering your business and choosing a structure appropriate to where you live
- Writing terms of service that cover scope, turnaround, revisions and non-payment
- Setting up bookkeeping and invoicing that survive a year of small international jobs
- Opening a business account, and handling payment from clients in other currencies
- Understanding confidentiality and data handling when clients send unpublished manuscripts
Unit 4
Pricing Proofreading for Profit
- Measuring your own words-per-hour on real text, because every price is derived from it
- Converting between per-word, per-page and per-hour pricing without losing money
- Running a sample assessment before quoting, and quoting from the sample not the word count
- Pricing rush work, heavily-edited text, and second passes as separate things
- Handling the price objection, and recognizing the jobs to decline
Unit 5
Client Experience and Retention
- Onboarding a client properly: the brief, the sample, the style sheet, the deadline
- Communicating during a job, and what to do when the file is worse than the sample suggested
- Delivering work in a form the client can use, with a summary they can act on
- Handling a client who disputes a change, and the difference between an error and a preference
- Turning one job into a standing arrangement, and asking for the testimonial at the right moment
Unit 6
Getting Your First Clients
- Choosing one buyer type to start with rather than advertising to everyone
- Building the proof a stranger needs: samples, a test edit, and a first-client offer
- Using the platforms and directories that actually produce paid work, and the ones that do not
- Writing the direct approach to an agency, a publisher or an author, and what to attach
- Scripts and follow-up for the first twenty approaches, and how to read a non-reply
Unit 7Advanced only
Specializing and Higher-Value Clients
- Choosing a specialty, whether academic, fiction, business, technical or legal, on evidence
- Learning the conventions each specialty expects of anyone working in it
- Working within academic integrity policy, and confirming what you may change before you start
- Charging more for work that carries more risk, and declining work you cannot meet the standard on
- Building the credibility a specialty requires, from reading lists to reference works
Unit 8Advanced only
Marketing and Being Found
- Building a site whose job is to convert one visitor, not to look like a publisher
- Ranking for the search terms your buyer actually uses, which are rarely "proofreader"
- Using a portfolio and sample edits without breaching a client's confidentiality
- Getting listed where your buyer already looks, and referred by adjacent freelancers
- Running outreach continuously at a volume you can sustain alongside the work
Unit 9Advanced only
Tools, Workflow, and Throughput
- Building a repeatable job workflow from file receipt to delivery so nothing is done twice
- Using the software that raises accuracy and speed, and knowing what it cannot catch
- Building macros, wildcards and checklists for the errors you personally make
- Scheduling around your real capacity, and what happens to quality past it
- Tracking time per job so the next quote is priced from data
Unit 10Advanced only
Scaling, Steady Income, and Long-Term Growth
- Moving from job-by-job work to retainers and standing arrangements that smooth the year
- Raising rates with existing clients without losing them
- Subcontracting overflow to other proofreaders, and staying accountable for the quality
- Handling the seasonality of academic and publishing work rather than being surprised by it
- Building a business with an asset in it: a list, a niche, a reputation, rather than a job
What it costs to be wrong
Quote a job in ten minutes and know you made money on it
6 units and one exam. Unit 3 works the pricing formula through real numbers, so the first quote you write after it is one you can defend.
Enroll now ($247)
Quick and easy online exam
When you finish the training you take a short, open-book online exam with a 99% pass rate. Pass it and you earn your Proofreading Business Certification as a Certified Proofreading Business Professional (C.P.B.P.), with a personalized certificate you can share with clients.
Fundamentals summary
Who this training is for
Built for anyone ready to learn proofreading properly and take on their first paying clients. No prior experience is required.
How long it takes
Around 20 hours of core lessons plus worksheets and action steps. Most students complete the training in two to three weeks, though you can go faster or slower based on your schedule.
Investment
$247 for lifetime access.
Get started, risk free.
If you don't feel confident about how to start a proofreading business after completing our training, we'll give you your money back. Just email us within 30 days and we'll refund the full cost. Guaranteed.