I've only used the free art shops on Wattpad. Some of them have been pretty nice and done good work, others... eh. I know adding money into the equation does change things. I prefer shops with a more straight forward approach, like fill out the said form and you'll hear back in X time frame.
My negative experiences have been more linked to when the artist makes you jump through a dozen hoops before they'll even touch your request. I understand artists are trying to gain visibility to their work but the hoops are ridiculous. I was working with one editor in their "editing shop" and I had to brag about how grateful I was to have "username" edit my stuff and a bunch of other steps before they'd look at my work. Their comments were usually really negative and I hated working with them.
You don't have to subscribe to all of Walmart's social media platforms, like 15 posts, etc before you can go inside buy your candy bar.
