US copywriting agencies: telling real copywriters from book publishers

The leaders matrix gives a summary view of the strongest copywriting agencies in this ranking. Each of the 4 agencies is placed on two axes and falls into one of four quadrants: Leaders, Proven, Specialists or Emerging. The size of each dot reflects the size of the agency’s team.

Horizontal axis – track record: the number of verified client reviews, on a logarithmic scale. Vertical axis – focus on copywriting: the share of the agency’s reviews that describe copywriting work. The dashed lines mark the median of the agencies shown.

On the evidence in this ranking, Desverto: its clients describe product descriptions and listing copy written after research into the target audience, for Amazon sellers. For a Shopify store or a brand site, none of the four shows the same proof, so use the checklist below with whichever agency you shortlist:

• Test on three products. Give the agency your best-seller, a mid-seller and a problem product, and compare the drafts against the current copy on a split test or a before-and-after period.
• Ask for the reader’s objections. Good product copy answers the three questions that stop a purchase: fit, quality and returns. Ask the agency to list them from your reviews and support tickets before writing.
• Separate marketplace and own-store copy. Amazon content follows the marketplace’s rules on claims, formatting and prohibited terms; your own store is free to carry a stronger voice and longer pages.
• Measure conversion rate and returns together. A persuasive description that over-promises raises sales and returns at the same time.
• Get the keyword brief in writing. Who chooses the search terms: you, the agency or a tool, and where will they appear in title, bullets and body?

Of the 97 agencies on the listing with at least 5 reviews, 13 have no US office. Among the US firms, 38 have fewer than 2 reviews that describe writing, and 42 look like something else entirely: more than a quarter of their reviews are about books, manuscripts, publishing or ghostwriting.

42 US profiles that sell books and ghostwriting

They mention copywriting often, but about memoirs, manuscripts or book promotion – a different job and a different buyer from a landing page or a product description. Several have hundreds of reviews, which is why they sit at the top of the original listing. Authors may find them useful; marketing teams should not.

US lists of copywriting agencies are mostly directories and agency-compiled rankings, and they cite the same names. We looked each up on Sortlist:

How they look on Sortlist

These have a Sortlist profile but no verified review, so we cannot score them with the same method:

• Marketsmiths (New York) – A B2B copywriting agency; no reviews on Sortlist yet.
• Velocity Partners (London) – A B2B content agency; no reviews on Sortlist yet.
• Brafton (Sydney) – A content marketing agency with US and UK teams; no reviews on Sortlist yet.
• Siege Media (Austin, TX) – Known for content-led SEO; no reviews on Sortlist yet.

We could not find a Sortlist profile for Burg Media Co, Rebar, Copyriders or Ecreative, which also appear in other rankings. Without verified reviews on Sortlist, we cannot compare them fairly with the agencies above.

1. The sample

Sortlist lists 990 copywriting providers on this page. We evaluated the 220 agencies on the first three pages of the listing, in its relevance order. 97 of them have at least 5 verified client reviews – our threshold for a rating to be meaningful. None of them pays for a sponsored placement. Of these, 4 agencies with a US office and at least 2 client reviews that describe copywriting, content writing or messaging were ranked, with 162 verified reviews between them and an average rating of 4.95; the 93 others are listed separately.

2. The score

3. Independence

• Sortlist is a marketplace, not an agency: it does not appear in its own ranking.
• Agencies cannot pay to enter the ranking or to move up. Agencies with a sponsored placement on this listing are excluded from scoring and shown separately.
• The order of the listing page, subscriptions and badges play no part in the score – only the three criteria above.

4. Limits

Reviews reflect each agency’s work across all its services, and agencies with few reviews may be excellent but are not yet scored. That is why every entry says what it is best for – and when another agency would suit you better. The ranking is updated regularly.

It writes the words that sell, explain or rank – and, in the better ones, decides what those words should say before writing them. The jobs differ enough that a good agency in one is a poor choice in another:

In this ranking, CUT THRU covers the first job, Desverto the third and Frontal the fourth. The practical test: ask for two samples in your sector and the name of the writer who produced them.

1. 1

   Brief in one page

   Reader, moment, single action, three adjectives for the voice, two examples you like and one you dislike. A longer brief usually hides a missing decision.

2. 2

   Raw material

   Hand over sales call recordings, support tickets and your five best-performing pages. This saves more revision rounds than any other step.

3. 3

   Expert access

   Book 30 minutes with the person who knows the product best. Copy written without this call is usually generic.

4. 4

   First draft with questions

   A good first draft comes with a list of claims the writer could not verify. Treat that list as part of the deliverable.

5. 5

   Two revision rounds, in writing

   Consolidate feedback from all stakeholders into one document before sending it. Conflicting comments are the main cause of delay.

6. 6

   Launch and review at 90 days

   Choose the metric in advance: conversion rate for pages, replies for outbound, rankings and leads for content.

Tip: ask the agency to write two versions of the headline of your most important page, and test them. If it cannot explain the difference in strategy between the two, it is writing words, not messages.

Of the 201 US profiles we evaluated, 179 state a minimum project budget: 124 start at €1,000, 22 lower, 0 between €1,001 and €2,999, 15 between €3,000 and €4,999 and 18 at €5,000 or more. Among the ranked agencies the starting point is €1,000 (Desverto does not state one).

Tip: ask for a price per page and a price per revision round. A low headline price often hides a strict limit on revisions.