Submittable Reviews

Submittable is convenient. As a submitter, it provides efficient mechanisms for making submissions and efficient tracking of those submissions. As an editor, it provides me with notices and updates to allow me to process submissions quickly and efficiently. Submittable is practical. As a submitter, a single page allows me to keep track of active submissions to several publications. As an editor, the features for reaction and response to submitters makes my job much easier. Submittable is uncomplicated, easily used, and easy to understand. As a submitter, these qualities make submissions tracking manageable. Submittable is used widely enough to be familiar to virtually all writers and artists who submit work for publication.

Our current package allows only 5 of our team members to have access to submissions. I could wish for more relaxed limits in that regard.

I like the transparency and the ease with which we were able to implement the software into our grant management procedure. The forms are easy to build, I can create a lot of them to cover the gaps for subsequent applicant communication. We were also able to do blind review to eliminate biases and separate groups of reviewers with different sets of questions.

1) The number of seats comes expensive. As a charity, we have a pool of scientific volunteers who give back to the community by reviewing grants with us. But with the limited number of seats, we had to narrow down the pool to the bare minimum and restructure the whole review process in order to fit in our tight budgets. 2) There isn't an open API available for us to integrate into our mobile app. There is only a read-only API that we were able to connect to but it gives limited connectivity and doesn't allow us to sync the internal grant management process with external-facing community commitments.

You never lose anything because it saves it for you as a PDF. A full history of everything you have submitted and whether it is processing or whether its been accepted or declined.

Limited functionality. I can't really use it for anything personal. Only when I'm submitting work and the publisher/competition prefers this method. It would be cool if I could save workable, InDesign or Word copies for my own use. If I have to download a PDF then I have to use another software to make the text editable which is always a hassle.

This software is easy to understand, easy to deploy, and intuitive for guest users who help us to evaluate the submissions that we receive. From there, it's easy to filter, sort, review and revisit the applicants that have made submissions, and keep track of where they are at each stage of the process. There are so many functionalities that are useful and I'm certain I'm only using a small portion of all that's available! I highly recommend this software as a solution for tracking submissions!

Everything that I've experienced with submittable has been a plus.

Its ease of use makes it a joy to work with: it's a clearinghouse, a reply tool, and an organizational tool all in one.

As it has in the past two years, I'm sure it will continue to improve it's functionality in a few of its features. For example, I'd like our readers/editors to be able to receive submissions immediately instead of me having to assign everything, but remain on a blind level, and also not be able to decline the work, just leave notes as they currently can.

The software is intuitive and saves us tons of time. Customer support is always there quickly when we need something or have a question. We literally could not run our journal without it. It allows me to manage a large and complex team and hundreds of submissions at a time in pretty simple form.

Trying to view and work with the submission on the iPad is a little more clunky than I would like, but not a show stopper. I mostly use the desktop.

It's the standard and most familiar for writers, which was the initial reason I chose it. But what sold me was the truly outstanding customer support. From talking me through the set-up to dealing with submitters who get confused with all technology, with any aspect of using the software, they are prompt, polite, and efficient problem solvers. No other company I deal with in any aspect of my life has customer service this good.

No cons were added to this review

It's impossible to format submissions incorrectly because Submittable only accepts the types of docs your recipient wants. It's an easy to use template to uplad the appropriate content and then manage your submission.

The only thing that's slightly a downside is that you have to be in Submittable to get all the information about your submission, but that's not really a problem.

Easy to build custom submission pages and link them on main sites or landing pages. Assignment is also very simple, as is setting up new users.

I'd love it if there were the option to pay per added user over the minimum. We're on a grandfathered plan, which is AWESOME, and I very much appreciate the kindness offered to online literary magazines, but to get up to the 10 user plan we would more than double what we're paying.

I like that I can view all my submissions together at any time to see if the status of any of them (accepted, rejected, etc) has changed so I don't have to keep track of that myself

Some publishers require me to pay a fee to submit work to them, however I know this isn't really an issue with Submittable as the fee comes from the publisher and not Submittable itself (which for many places I've submitted has been free)

Making the decision to shift our application process to online, I was concerned that it would meet the needs of the artists and writers applying and also ease transition for a middle to senior aged office team with varying degrees of electronic saavy. Needless to say we continue to remark on an almost daily basis how we LOVE Submittable. Ease of use was foremost and the Submittable staff are always...

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Do I miss having USPS delivering stacks of applications for weeks on end around deadlines, when apps just pop up on the list in Submittable? Do I miss the file prep for each application as materials dribbled in little by little and were sometimes incomplete even after the deadline due to weather etc. when that is all tracked by the software? Do I miss handling over and over sections of the application...

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Submittable is easy to use and intuitive. With drag-and-drop options, creating an application takes minutes. Logic branching also helps when you want to gather more info based on an applicant's response. The file upload features are also very helpful. Once your application is live, you can track and label applications as they come in. This is helpful since a quick perusal of an application can determine...

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Recommendation letter request emails don't get sent out until AFTER the applicant submit their application. This is fine in most cases but you do have to offer a small grace period to recommenders. It would be great if applicants can enter a recommender and hit a button "Request Letter." The forms can also become rather long if you have a lot of questions. It could affect completion rates. Finally, just as you are able to remind reference letter writers through the portal, it would be great to be able to remind those with incomplete application about the upcoming deadline. Right now, you can request a list of incomplete applications but you only get name and email addresses. It would be good to see some of the data that the applicants have completed so far.

What we like most about Submittable is that it allows us to manage submissions more efficiently. I'm not a fan of documents and tasks "living in email." Having a robust product like Submittable saves us time in reading and replying, as well as offering a way to capture and analyze submission data. I cannot imagine handling hundreds of submissions at a time via email, especially with a large reading panel. The built-in tools, such as sorting, labels, varying permission levels, templates, etc. allow us to customize it for our needs. I should add that any time we had a question, customer service responded right away, sometimes within minutes. Even over holidays. What did we do before Submittable? Seriously! What. Did. We. Do?

There aren't any major cons with Submittable. I'd love some more robust reporting and sorting features and maybe custom permission levels, as there are a few things I'd like to do, but cannot. For example, I'd love to see team member data by specific category, not just by a duration of time. But these are more feature ideas, nothing that I'd consider negative about the existing product. If I had to say one thing, since our reading panel (the ones who use the software) has a varying level of comfort with tech tools that maybe some of the icons could be more intuitive.

I am able to manage my submissions quite easily with Submittable. It has many sorting options, and several tools to make reading a large amount of work manageable. Working collaboratively with other editors is possible and efficient because of the filtering functions (such as the use of labels, storing submissions, ordering them by date, alphabetically, etc.) and team management tools (such as the assigning of certain tasks to certain individuals, easy messaging, dissemination of work, etc.) I like the basic look/visuals of Submittable, as it is relatively intuitive to use. Furthermore, when I encountered troubles or had questions, I was given friendly and quick help over the telephone, as well as through their chatlines. Editing our site is also very easy.

I don't like that some services are offered to certain levels of subscriptions and not to others. I'd rather have a good, fair price for the use of Submittable's full functions. It's not always clear to me what I have in my subscription, even though not too hard to check, I suppose. Also, to "test" how forms will look to submitters seems a little complicated, but not too bad once going through it. I feel a little "blind" when sending out ACCEPT/DECLINE. Not sure what the solution is, however, and really does not present any real trouble for me.

It works VERY well for receiving, tracking, reviewing literary submissions. So organized. Helps our statewide editorial team stay connected for working and communicating. Tutorial and articles are helpful tools when setting this up.

"Up ad running in 15 minutes"? Not likely. Big down side, is that it is EXPENSIVE for non profits, despite the discount. Monthly plans ding you bigtime for signer and submission allotments. We use Premium plan, the next step up is a GIANT leap up in price but also benefits. But we cannot afford that. I would like to see a product for bonafide all-volunteer non-profits with small budgets. Arts organziations are struggling these days.

As an editor, it keeps the entire process of submissions very organized. The ability to archive and track all the submissions that come through here, along with all the automatic data in graph form that Submittable contributes in regards to either our regular day to day submissions or our annual competition, is everything we want it to be. Not to mention that there are numerous places which one can tuck notes about this or that author whose work is on track to be published by us. In addition, allowing the person whose work we're considering to leave notes for us about their submission should parts of it be accepted elsewhere, is a huge bonus for any editor.

No cons were added to this review

Clean interface, flexible ways to sort submissions and tag them, and all actions and communications are logged by the system. Being able to customize the messages for various interactions with submitters is helpful. As our competition expands I expect to use the team functionality more. The Gallery function is an appealing way to display photos and allow the public to vote.

My primary difficulty is that entries cannot be sorted or tagged individually; i.e., when you tag a photo, the tag applies to the entire submission, not just a single photo. Since my competition allows up to 8 photos per submission, I have to sort in other ways after downloading the entries, which is a bit time-consuming but not a deal-breaker. The login requirement for voting in the Gallery view has a dampening effect; also, there's no instruction telling viewers to click on a photo to enlarge the view. Gallery sorting tools would be a welcome function as well. Gallery View has a lot of potential and I'm curious to see how Submittable's developers change it in the future.

Easy to use, and can be used very broadly. Great customer service. Great design. Feature rich.

Managing other users and exporting info can be better.

Submittable can handle so many different document types that we never could ourselves. They listen when we have suggestions/requests. Everything can be tracked - no more lost manuscripts! They've made it possible for us to offer books at the same time someone makes a submission, a great option for us. And they can issue refunds with ease.

Searches (especially across a lot of categories) sometimes are a bit slow, but we do have a LOT of categories and a LOT of submissions for the software to sort through. We're so glad to have Submittable, a respectable and caring group that has the ability to keep up with technology challenges so we can do the work we love doing.

It is easy to use, and if anything happens that we are unsure about, the support team replies quickly and provides incredible instructions!

There is nothing that I dislike about Submittable.

Pretty much every feature is a lifesaver. The workflows, templates, ratings, comments, etc. It's all very well thought out and makes collection and responding to submissions of any kind super easy. The ability to collect payment for contests or other submissions is also invaluable.

Honestly, there's nothing I dislike about this software other than maybe the cost. It's one of the few tools that I think is pretty much perfect as it is.

Submittable offered the layout and tools needed to improve our submission process. Creating submission forms & portals is super easy and takes very little software experience to understand.

While it is easy to use and offers a great layout, the software is still in development changes and can be a bit limited to how creative a user can be. Submittable currently has a gallery view setting but only works with pictures- would love to view PPTX and PDF files as well.

The best thing I like about this software is how it serves multiple functions for our organization. I can easily create categories for submissions, receive submissions, the submissions can be commented on by the review team, and then I can correspond with the submitter all from within the same software. Each step of the process is easy to use.

Because of how many ways you can use the software, it takes a bit of time to get used to how to navigate between different parts of the program but once learned it's very user-friendly.

Ease of use on many levels. It streamlines an administrative process that could take endless hours. The software is not automated (and it shouldn't be), but there are enough templates and options to make the process of managing submissions very efficient.

The navigation menus are not intuitive. It takes too long to figure out where things are hidden. Having sub-menus would help. Also, inactive team members still show up when assigning. The editorial team of this journal changes every year and there are too many names. We don't want to delete past editors, but archiving them when they are inactive would be an improvement.

It's ease of use. Straightforward layout. Very user friendly. I like the app. Allows me to organize my submissions to literary journals and keep track of when I need to submit them before deadlines.

The navigation within the new "Following" area. I feel like there should just be a direct submit button rather than a "save" button. Right now I find myself having to go to a drop down menu up top to get to the submissions page. This is an easy fix though.