What Do You Think of Freelance Job Bidding Sites?
One option for finding freelance work these days are job bidding sites. In our Monster List of Freelancing Job Sites we listed 18 such sites, some of the more well known being sites like eLance, Get-a-Freelancer and Rent-a-Coder.
These sites work by allowing job posters to post up their job and details of the job and freelancers bid for the job. They vary in that some of them actually bid (like at an auction) whereas others are closer to the a regular job board (like we have on FreelanceSwitch).
I must confess I have never used job bidding sites and I know there are arguments both ways about whether they undermine freelancing prices or generate more work and leads. So I thought I’d put it to you, the community.
Do You Use Freelance Job Bidding Sites?
Use the poll above to vote on how you use job bidding sites. It uses Javascript, so if you’re reading this post in an RSS reader you might need to visit the site to cast your vote.
What do you think of them?
And what do you think of such sites? Are they good for finding work? Do they encourage clients to pay less? Was it a good experience or bad? Would you use them in the future?
Leave a Comment
Personally, I think they’re crap. Coming from the perspective of a software developer, most of the people posting to these bidding websites are hack-job programmers that just barely know enough to get by, so I can’t compete with their low-ball rates. Additionally, the best sales are *always* sales made in person. Trolling web sites like these have never provided me with high-quality work, and isn’t worth the time.
“the best sales are *always* sales made in person”: guess u r still living in 1950s? If you haven’t used something, dont comment on it.
The point here is whether the person who wanted to get the work done, got what he intended. You can’t generalize everybody on the site as being of less quality than your in-person skills.
I use rentacoder regularly. Besides freelance gigs I’ve gotten via connections (previous clients, friends of previous clients, etc), I haven’t seen any real good alternatives. Since 64% (as of now) voted “Never,” I’m curious how others are getting their freelance work?
I’ve never bid on a job although I do occasionally watch such sites. Usually if a project remotely interests me there is mass underbidding or there is some catch to doing the project. I get the impression that a lot of these sites attract the kind of client that expects both low prices or basically wants to push you around as a designer. I honestly don’t think anyone serious enough to spend the money on projects would go to these sites.
What you guys are doing on the job board here is great, btw!
I’ve watched get-a-freelancer a little bit, i think I bid once. I find it annoying though, the rates that jobs go for seem unbelieveably low.
I have used guru but I don’t really like it, it doesn’t seem to really work well because most of the times their isn’t enough client-freelancer communication to be able to give a proper bid on a job. Plus it seems like most of the people on the sites are looking for super cheap not quality.
Btw, I just realised the poll thing is a bit demented … sorry will fix that
Damn CSS issues!
I never use bidding sites. When I first started freelancing, I visited a few of these sites, as well as some others that allow you to submit your articles and then connect your work with paying clients. Every time I examined the pay scale for these types of services, I realized that I would be looking at making about $5 to $10 per hour, plus the administrative handling (registration, account management, etc.). I imagine the quality of the work found on these sites is relatively low because I can’t imagine a decent writer providing a truly professional skill level at those rates.
As an aside, I’ve had some work offers that were downright insulting, such as an offer to rewrite twenty 500 word articles for $100, and they have to pass through some software that checks to see if a written piece is a duplicate. I believe the clients who have sent such inquiries think they can get work at these rates as a result of those bidding sites.
-Melissa Donovan
Writing FORWARD
Bidding sites are not worth my time. I’d rather to gain qualified leads than be outbid by somebody who can somehow afford to do a project for next to nothing…
I’m having problems with the width of the radio buttons in the poll.
It seems to be an CSS problem width: 300px;
I’m using Firefox version 2.0.0.10 under Ubuntu Linux
By the way Freelance Switch it’s a great site, congratulations!
I’ve never found them useful. The clients posting ads usually don’t know what they want so they don’t understand what it will take to get it done (in terms of skills, timeline, technology). That reflects in their ad, which usually comes with a ridiculously low payment rate as well.
One amusing thing that I once saw was an ad for someone to build a site like FlashDen for $1500. This is amusing because I project managed FlashDen and we’ve worked on it for 1 1/2 years now with a developer full time!
But having said that, I guess you could just ignore silly ads like that, I don’t know…
I personally would never use a bidding site. These sites tend to be rife with unskilled under-bidders who drag down the overall rates and create unrealistic expectations in clients as to what to expect to pay for quality work.
I prefer to get leads via word of mouth, networking, etc. where the client and I already have some familiarity (i.e. they’ve seen some of my work, or we have a mutual colleague) and are in a better position to develop rapport, trust and respect. Bidding sites seem to encourage poor communication and haggling for price alone over other important factors.
I only use them when I need to find sub-contractors to do work for me, never to get work myself. The people I have worked with have all been overseas, in Thailand, China or India. They can afford to work for the incredibly low rates for American and UK employers, because it’s still plenty of money to them. That’s how the economy works.
However, the timeframes they quote often lead to poor quality work being done by multiple workers in order to meet the deadline.
I see the postings for “site clones” with outrageously low costs, and impossible deadlines, and I wonder how they turn out in the end.
I’ve actually noticed that if I was living in a country with a low cost of living, most of those bidding sites would be ideal. All a person needs is English language skills and internet access (and the ability to complete certain projects, one hopes). But in some place like Cambodia, where it’s possible to live on two dollars a day, those jobs are perfectly plum.
Unfortunately, I live in the U.S. and need a bit more cash to get by.
Freelancing sites were my entry to the freelancing business
I am based in Egypt… where clients never pay more than 500 LE ( less than $100 ) for a full powerfull website.. Design,Coding … everything.
With sites like Getafreelancer I built a good reputition and work keeps coming to me. I dont have to bid anymore on any project cause I already have a list of project managers and clients who keep sending me projects all the time. Now I am getting more money than I used to get when I worked on the local market. I dont have to worry cause they just keep coming!
Bidding sites may not be suitable for a lot of people … but they help alot other
Thank you
I have never bid on a job, though I used to hang out at these sites a lot when I first became aware of them. I don’t see how anyone can make a decent living from jobs on these sites. I have long suspected most of the work is being done by people who have full-time jobs and are moonlighting on the side. I think such sites are actually detrimental to the rest of us because they do drive pricing down.
The poll should be all fixed up now! Boy it’s been a while since I’ve used a Poll on the site evidently, the skin was all out of whack
There’s an interesting write up by a guy named Eli Bendersky about his experience with RentaCoder Here and also Here.
He seems to say it’s good as a skill-sharpener which is an interesting perspective
I agree with the comments made about low prices, low quality projects and results, etc… However, there are also many skilful people working through these sites.
The rates are low for two main reasons: low quality and exchange rates. If you try to compete in those sites at US rates, Australian or UK rates, it will be almost impossible to get a gig (at least at the beginning). Good professionals from around the world bid for projects.
For example, let’s say that you charge USD 70 an hour for the development of an application. You will compete with professionals from Argentina (my home country) that charge AR 70 (USD 21) an hour. It doesn’t mean that the quality of their work is low, the exchange rate favours them.
You also have trillions of students and unqualified people bidding in those sites. So, if you are looking for somebody to help you out with your work, look carefully the background of the bidders, ask for portfolios, CVs, etc. You have to follow the same steps that you would follow in a normal tender.
These sites answer the demand of people that for several reasons can’t start out through normal networking. That was my case.
I worked too many years in “corporate” Argentina as a programmer. I developed mostly backend applications. Because of it I don’t have a portfolio of applications to show in my website or in job interviews. Then, these kinds of sites help me to increase my credibility as freelancer and establish contacts.
Of course I had very bad experiences as well.
I think freelance job bidding sites are more suitable for programmers. Once you developed one application you can tweak it for a new client with a similar project. Therefore the second, third, fourth… time you do practically nothing and really earn money.
For designers is more difficult to reuse work. “Reusability” is a key word in the Software Engineering world.
I have given it a go but never won an actual bid. There is always someone willing to bid one step lower.
Nathan is right on too. I share his sentiments that people who are looking for freelancers on bidding sites are looking for low cost freelancers whom they can push around.
Pablo hit on something important.
If you only work on intranet or otherwise non-public sites you won’t have a very good portfolio. I spent several years doing a lot of internal applications and had a harder time selling my services when I went out on my own.
Probably the best way to get good work is to have a public blog about your field, and even better, to build and release a web app.
Those job bidding sites and the big job boards are junk. Instead, try job boards by bloggers and developers like 37signals, AuthenticBoredom, Joel on Software, and Freelance Switch.
As Pablo said, these sites can be good for students. When I was still studying, I got a couple of jobs through a freelance site. I probably underbid it, but I didn’t realize I was doing that. To me, it was a way that I could get some work under my belt so that I could go on to get some reputable jobs.
Ultimately, though, the website was unorganized and we had problems with payment being forwarded to me. Fortunately, the guy who hired me was cool about it and ended up paying me directly for future work.
I’ve done enough work through Guru.com that I’m in their top 100 ranked gurus for Web design and marketing which, in turn, makes it easier for new clients to award me projects. I have heard many, many times from others about how much trouble they’ve had trying to break in, though. While these gigs are definitely not among the most lucrative ones that I do, my Guru work lets me find and work on exactly the kinds of projects that I want — in my case, I look for either quick turnaround projects that I can complete within hours or days, or for projects that use the skills I especially love (e.g., Photoshopping or designing a WordPress theme). So even a $50 project is worthwhile when I know I can do the work in 15 minutes. I did one of these at lunchtime today: $50 for setting up a mySQL database and installing WordPress.
I enjoy using Guru to find a variety of clients who never would have crossed my path otherwise. Some of these clients have led to monthly, ongoing retainer work. I wouldn’t rely on this as my sole source of finding new clients, but it can be a very versatile option.
When I first started freelancing and was desperate for work, I signed up on a couple of these sites. I was amazed at some of these bids that people were submitting. No work ever came from these futile attempts even when I was low-balling myself to try to get the job. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the people that get the jobs seem to be overseas and can work for considerably less. I simply can’t compete with that kind of rate and found much better success elsewhere.
Fortunately, there are people in the U.S. that prefer to keep work in the states and work with someone who has English as their first language. I’ve even seen posts stating “don’t reply if you are overseas” so customers can be quite adamant about this requirement. I’ve also heard bad stories from some of my clients when they tried going for the bargain coder, but in the end, it appears you get what you pay for.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are great coders in every country, but there are a few — and I don’t need to name names — that definitely have a bad reputation.
Personally I think they suck. When I first started freelancing I used these sites because that’s what I found trying to Google search freelance jobs. I would always get outbid by someone that was willing to work for cheap. Some people were willing to bid $100 for a job that is clearly worth at least $1500. I thought that clients would realized that it would be a mistake hiring someone that’s willing to work for pennies but it didn’t matter the low price would still win the bids.
I think professional designers should run from any bidding site as quickly as possible. The vast majority of potential clients on such sites are “bottom feeders” looking to see just how cheaply a project can be produced and such individuals really don’t care if they are taking advantage of a naive designer in the process.
The only thing worse than a potential client who does not value the efforts of a professional graphic designer, is a designer who doesn’t appreciate the value of their own time and work.
I love visiting bidding websites but I dont bid- Im a freelancer to but I have my own clients- coz Im not sure if the bidding website are good.
This is nice article Collis
Thanks
Personally, for software development, I’ve found bidding sites to be an ineffective source of projects/income. I’ve used Elance, Guru (formerly ITMoonlighter), and Rent-A-Coder (RAC).
Elance is a nice website which is fairly easy to use. Unfortunately, there are far too many overseas (non-US) shops which enter low-ball bids. I’ve never won a project there.
On Guru however, I have received several project invitations (over the years); mostly from parties in my local area. Lately, I’ve noticed that the quantity and quality of available projects to bid on has been in decline.
RAC, in my opinion, is the worst site of the three I’ve had experience with. The UI and UX are horrible! Not to mention the awful project choices. Most projects are low priced and there are too many student/school assignment projects. I don’t know why they even allow those sort of projects in the first place.
Overall, I feel project bidding sites are mostly useless. I wish there was a good site to use though. I like the idea of being able to select projects from a central location.
I’m gratified to read that others share my disdain for these sites. I actually made the mistake a couple years ago of paying to be a gold bidder or whatever at Guru. It was truly the worst investment I’ve ever made in my business — I didn’t get any work and I know it’s because I priced myself out. I sometimes feel insulted that we designers have to justify the expense of our work. If you want a logo, $100 is ridiculous. I think those sites encourage bad design and simple, easy solutions. Rather than, say, focusing on designing a logo to be the springboard for building a brand identity, the project becomes about tossing off a few generic logos.
As I’ve mentioned many times in the FSw forums: freelance bidding sites are ok for mature economy clients looking to rent emerging economy techies. But they usually lack any help for managing the project and the biggest reason these international projects fail is because the client hasn’t got a clue about how to manage a multi-timezone/multi-language/multi-cultural project.
If you are a mature economy techie, you’re better off focusing your efforts on landing local clients who are willing to pay you local rates. Pay-per-click ads, online directories, and business/social networking should be tools you use to grow your business, not race-to-the-bottom-dollar bidding sites.
Sites like those mentioned above are just horrible. I have tried scriptlance, rent a coder, yada yada. I have been both the developer and employer and always seem to get screwed on those sites. Honestly the only good site I found that can even be the slightest reliable is Guru.com I have used that site for a few years, only once did i have an issue with a client not paying me. I have never had an issue finding competent people to do work either.
Sorry if it sounds like a plug but i really have nothing to do with them other than be a user
Yes definitely FreelanceMan youre right having different languages and cultures can cause more projects failures… yeah it is ok but we are not sure of a guarantee..
Thanks
Like most people it seems, I always found that the “clients” want too much for too little. e.g. I want a large bookstore with good reviewing capabilities like Amazon.Com for
Yeah they are asking you more work but less pay… you should dropped it…have you read the article of collis I think?
I’ve registered on some of these sites, but I haven’t found a situation where I liked the project enough to consider bidding. Usually, by the time I get around to it the project already has 10 bids on it and half of them are less than $500 for something that seems quite a bit larger to me. So usually I’m just scared away by the whole thing.
I also get the feeling that people there are looking for cheap labor but I don’t have any real proof of this. I wish I knew some freelance programmers that had successfully used those services. It would give me more confidence to try harder. Also, for some of the sites it appears that the more lucrative projects are only accessible to people who use the paid versions of the site. It is sort of a catch-22, because I’m not prepared to pay for a a site when I’m not convinced it will help me find good work.
We specialize in CMS’s and especially Joomla, so every once in awhile we bid on Joomlancers.com. We don’t compete based on price though. Sometimes people post their projects there just because they don’t know where else to go, but it aren’t necessarily looking for the lowest bidder. We usually go for those if we see that they are really looking for professional work and have the budget for that.
I really do hate that it doesn’t allow for more information though. They don’t allow you to post contact information there and it makes the initial communication stage very difficult. Posting a quick bid without the opportunity to do a full proposal and communicate first is pretty backwards.
However, I agree with many of the commenters above. Bidding sites are generally a waste of time unless you need to use them to get your foot in the door.
I’ve just signed up with Guru as a trial. I’ve got regular clients but want to branch out a little and so thought that a network such as this might be the key.
However, after two dozen bids I’m not getting anywhere – except, perhaps, slightly better at selling my services – even though no one appears to be listening!
Right now Im wondering whether I should slash my prices or find a new career
Yep, just echoing everyone else. I’ve bid on dozens. Once I took a summer off and figured that would be all I did. I think it was Rent-A-Coder at the time.
I’ve even bid as low as FREE just to get started and get a ranking. But it seems to be one of those chicken and egg things, kinda like credit. You don’t have a rating, so no one picks you…no one picks you so you don’t have a rating.
That plus the rates are terrible.
I’m still trying to figure out how to look for freelance work…any ideas?
I think people are better off flipping through a phonebook actually.
@Baz L,
Jump over to the FSw forums and look around and you’ll get LOTS of great ideas on how to jump-start your freelance business. You’ll also find them in the FSw blog.
Flipping thru the phone book is one tactic, but not a very efficient one unless you live in a really small town. There are definitely better ways to get customers to find you.
I think sometimes it depends on the category you’re bidding in. In writing, I tend to not bid nearly as much because the rates are pitiful. If I happen to see something that sounds interesting, I’ll throw my hat in the ring, and I have landed gigs on Guru when I know I wasn’t the cheapest. But I think, by and large, the gig-offerers are price-shoppers, not quality-hunters.
Where I find the rates to be in line is for things where it can’t be outsourced to a cheaper country….namely in the marketing or business consulting roles. I’ve landed multiple project management and online strategy roles on there for competitive pay, but it tends to be mostly U.S. people that are willing to pay for the experience I have.
I definitely could never live solely off of what I see on there. I’m sure people do, but I think they’re the exception.
I’ve bid and won jobs on an industry-specific job board (proz.com, for translators). I’ve been doing light-duty in-house work in the field for a few years, but it’s never been my bread-and-butter role, so it’s been a good way to break in. The pay rates have been 20-40% lower than what often gets quoted typical base rates by people who have been doing this work for a while, but it’s still a decent payscale if you’re good and efficient. In translation, the globalization possibility is a huge plus, and I have gotten a few outsourcing jobs working in the opposite direction–overseas clients who want a US/UK native speaker.
On the other hand, I’ve never seen an editing/writing job (which is my bread-and-butter role) on a general board like eLance that was worth bidding on.
I’ve used rentacoder a couple of times. It’s useful until you find a good customer over there (maybe 1 in 7). When you find some good customers you keep them and stop using the site. If you need more customers then you find them through reputation and your actual customers, you dont go back to RAC.
I have never used a Freelance Job site, personally i do think they can de-value services, with the lowest bidder usually winning the project bid (this does not apply to all job sites as there are some good ones out there but in general).
I think it is much more worthwhile concentrating on marketing yourself and your services through networking (both online and offline), the benefits are longer-lasting and generate more income and clients!
It is true that usually these sites devalue the work, but it might be a good way to start building a portfolio, if you cannot get clients near you, and you do not want to work for free.
It might as well be a good source of work to people living (like me) in countries where it is hard to get good rates, and sometimes the price is quite better than what you can get here. It might be low for some of you, but well paid for them
I used to watch these sites when i was starting in freelancing, but i do not do that anymore, since now my rates are usually high for those jobs
I’ll add to this even though everyone has the same opinion. I would rather not waste my time on trying to outbid unqualified/low paid bids.
In my opinion, bidding sites can be a total waste of time. I believe that a lot of time (and effort) is spent marketing yourself to clients that will simply award the job to the lowest bidder.
Also, it seems that most of the clients want fast, cheap, and high-quality work. It seems that if you want it ‘yesterday’ … it won’t be cheap. Or if you want it cheap, the quality could be diminished. I’d actually rather volunteer my services to an organization that appreciates it and agrees to a reasonable timeline. Also, spending two full weeks on a low paying project reduces your ability to network with clients that are willing to pay your rate/a fair market rate.
In my opinion, some of the bidding sites devalue the service. I don’t believe that using a bidding site is an effective marketing plan for getting clients, but it could provide some short-term benefits if you’re just starting out and need to build a portfolio quickly.
Ranked 38 on rentacoder.com (bobocel)
Short: my opinion is that students SHOULD USE these kind of websites (it will teach them how to communicate with the clients and interact with different people all over the world – no matter language or culture). This is really helpful and one shouldn’t consider only the money (although for a student is really important to have an income which doesn’t mean working 9-5) – cause I see most of you bring this on the table. I speak from the perspective of one of the most succesful rentacoder freelancers.
I think companies or adults that freelance (completed studied long time ago), should already be off these websites. The reason is simple – there will always be people bidding less – students, and this won’t help them in any way. ( by now you should already have a network of clients and colegues to generate work )
I’m almost done with my studies and slowly don’t even bid on projects on rentacoder (although I can use my resume to get work and have other people do it, which helps them and keeps my resume on top as well).
———-
My experience: since I did around 400 projects while being a student (on and off rentacoder) I really accumulated soo much experience and clients I don’t need to bid for any jobs. In fact, I only do when I have let’s say a 500$ video player to build ( in which case I adapt one of the many players I built in time – how different can these be? ) or something that’s already done and it means couple of hours of work. (simply because I start on something that was already functional and tested a lot of times before)
I do believe $3000+ per month is something for a student anywhere in the world, so I strongly advice students to give these websites a try.
This is a great discussion! As a writer, I’ve steered clear of bidding sites. I’ve signed up for a few just to poke around, but when I see writers willing to work for ridiculously low rates, I’ve bailed. If someone is ready to outsource their writing to the very lowest bidder, it’s not work I want to do.
i personally dont like them because the jobs are like this:
need php,mysql,xhtml website
budget:500$?
w-t-f?
I am a flip-flopper on this issue. I do strongly believe they undermine the price and quality I expect to earn and give when I look for work, however that doesn’t stop me from looking.
I use Get-a-Freelancer. Initially, I was woefully underpaid, for the most part, but you can be smart. Because I operate in a niche where there are very few providers, my experience commands respect and I can charge acceptable rates, sometimes up to 3 times the advertised budget.
I use Get-a-Freelancer to land small jobs from people that I know have a need for my other services. It works well for me: I get in the door with a client by working on the first step of their project, then gain their trust and take on the whole project. I’m able to charge fees according to my own fee schedule. I used this strategy to succesfully triple my income.
I now have a roster of long term clients, and am happy with how things are going.
I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for these sites. Sure, it was hard going at first, but they are a good way for newbies to build their portfolio. I now have a good business that allows me to operate entirely from home, around looking after my 18 month old son, and it isn’t too strenuous on my pregnant body. Plus, I haven’t paid a single cent for advertising.
I guess these aren’t the go for everyone, but online freelance marketplaces suit me.
Hi All,
It looks like a lot of people here are wary of bidding sites. Well i am a freelancer and i bid for projects through elance and there is a new marketplace called ninemotion.com. My experience with both these sites have been good so far. I have won projects on both. Although i believe that a lot depends on the clarity of the Buyer or the job poster. If the buyer does not give vague descriptions of the project like ,UNE here said “need php,mysql,xhtml website” then it is that much easier for us to submit proposal and bid for the projects. That is exactly what i like in http://www.ninemotion.com ,that the buyer needs to give accurate project description or even upload a document that helps in getting a clear understanding of the buyers needs and also the fact that it is free to register helps.
So i am all for bidding sites.So far so good.
Regards,
Monique
I do use RAC (Rent a Coder) regularly. I think that most of the negative comments above can be true, especially being underpaid. However it is a great entry point for any new freelancer. Two of my best customers are people I originally met on RAC. After working with me on RAC they came back, outside of RAC and gave me more work to finish, at normal prices.
In many cases this will probably not happen, but for anyone new to the business it is definately worth checking out. It can give you a very decent starting capital and good contacts.
One thing I noticed above is that most people assume a buyer will always pick the lowest bidder. That is definately not the case. When I first started on RAC I noticed that people never seemed to accept my bids, even if I placed them way under their budget. Nowadays when doing a job on RAC I almost always leave a high bid and I actually get more jobs than before. The rating system allows buyers to see the budget of the projects you worked on before (unless you disable it). This way people can see that you are worth their money.
Nowdays RAC became a lot better than what it used to be – many buyers now dislike the “standard canned responses of a team of 50 Indians” and actually seem to choose more by personality and overall appearance of your bid, even if you charge more than the Indian power team.
Thats just my experiences, overall I am very happy with the money and contacts I made in 2 years of RAC.
I never knew about these sites before. But I’ve been flipping through some of the illustration jobs. It scares me to no end. These people are paying pennies for illustrations. Most of the time they want full rights or Work for hire. Do the people bidding even know what this means? I guess not since they are bidding 100 dollars.. or less…
Hello everyone,
I think the main concern many freelancers face in these bidding sites is that rates are too low and that clients are unrealistic about how much time it takes to get something done. I think this is definitely a problem in the marketplace. In some cases, it’s just difficult for people to estimate how long a project is going to take, so they low-ball it. In other cases, they’re not thinking about quality.
One place you may want to check out is oDesk (http://www.odesk.com). Disclosure, I work there, so I may be a bit biased
But read on: oDesk is different because it offers guaranteed hourly payment for freelance work. The hourly payment system has been very successful for longer-term projects and many freelancers have established great professional relationships on the site. We do offer the Fixed Price option (which we really recommend only for smaller projects), in case you’re comfortable working that way, but you have the option.
Take a look and check out the jobs posted on the site (and the rates. Some freelancers are making $30-$50 an hour, depending on their skills and experience).
- Michelle, oDesk
http://www.odesk.com
The only ones I’ve ever really looked at have been Guru and Rentacoder. I think I’ve probably only ever applied for half a dozen jobs for both of them but funnily enough, it was a job on Rentacoder which I gave the seller for free which turned into on-going work!
rent a coder? more like rent a slave!
Well – I’ve used bidding sites quite frequently in the past – it was my first contact with webdesign business. I use those site till today. There are some (minority, it’s true) clients that seek professional work – no matter what are the costs. I’ve found a lot of great clients by such sites – you just need to be extremely careful when choosing the clients – cause it’s true that there are hundreds of people that seek “I need a clone of myspace budget $100″. Cheers
Our company (we’re software developers) uses eLance a whole lot, and it’s true, there are a lot of ridiculous/insulting project bids on there. However, some people on there are actually serious about getting quality work. There are two ways we’ve found an American or other Western provider can get a bid. Both ways require a bidder who’s serious and not just a “tire-kicker” (i.e. just posting a speculative bid with the goal of getting the lowest possible quote. Can’t do much about them, you just have to get good at sniffing out who they are and avoid bidding on them).
1. You bid, the guy chooses the $1/hour lowball, gets burned badly, then comes back to you because now he knows how much quality work goes for. This has happened several times and we’ve got some pretty decent work out of it.
2. You bid slightly below your normal rate or bid on a rarer job where there are no takers (we have a wide enough range of experience to accommodate some of the more exotic requests that the Third World won’t touch). The client decides to try you out, discovers that you’re high-quality, and never goes with anyone else. Most clients on these freelancing sites who are serious about getting work done just want someone who can take care of them; they’re willing to pay a higher price if the developer cares about their business and expects a long-term relationship with them. If you show them that you’re such a company, they’ll just give you their next bid request rather than hunting for another provider who may or may not be any good. We got many of our smaller clients this way.
There’s a lot of clients who have been repeatedly hurt on freelance sites by scam-artists and incompetents whose only goal is to finish the project with the minimal amount of work and then run away. But they keep going back to those same sites and trying other providers for their projects because they don’t know where else to go. Find them, get them out of the freelancer hunting business with your initial project, and you’ll have them for life.
I tried GetAFreelancer recently and was greatly alarmed at the low pay in connection with a lot of the jobs. When calculated, many website owners seemed to think that it was okay to offer just pennies to perform work that, done properly, would take hours for a professional writer to perform, even if they are very efficient and fast.
Apparently, it is necesary to also pay to use the website to find work. I still haven’t really figured out what my $25 is being used against, but it seemed like I had to pay it to be involved. The site keeps track of number of bids, and you seem to run out of bids. So it kind of counts against you, in that you are charged for making a bid, but may not get the work. And, with all the lower paid writers that seem to accept such low pay, it isn’t really a good place for a decent writer to get good work that pays well enough to be worthwhile.
Much of the time, the bids are hidden, so you don’t even know what you’re bidding against, unlike a site like eBay, where most of the time it is disclosed where you stand. I found this a bit alarming, and much more to the advantage of the client. Being held in the dark like that doesn’t give much incentive to bid on a project, so I did not bid on any of those for that reason. Besides, I felt that it showed a sort of bad faith in non-disclosure by the client.
I also noticed that some of the clients’ projects nearly screamed that they would be “checking the work with software” – and that any work that didn’t pass muster, would be rejected. I did not at the time, understand about most of this software or how it exactly works.
I decided to search through and see if I could find any assignments that would be worthwhile. After finding a job that required 7 articles to be written, from around 350-500 word length, for $250, I decided to bid for it and was accepted.
I submitted my first piece and it was very well received. The requestor continued to encourage all of the content I submitted. I did general web research to gather data, and then wrote pieces based upon a trip I’d taken to the region that involved the topic, in addition to some magazines and books I had read that gave me some background materlal.
After about a week went by, I had spent a substantial amount of time writing the content and produced the last article. It was at that time, that the client decided to inform me that the articles could not be used, because a software program had found “duplicate” material. I was flabbergasted. The topic was one that would be all over the Internet; there is nothing knew about the topic. So the fact that some words would appear elsewhere is simply unavoidable. I then found, that the client had actually posted one of the pieces, word for word, on another website (independent of the one it was intended for), with the client’s byline!
When I confronted the client about it, she insisted that she had done that before running the software on it. She claimed that she had not intended to run the software, however, decided to do it because during her research, she found duplicate content.
I had never agreed that she could take my work and put her name to it on another site. The agreement was that I was providing content for her website, not someone else’s. She kept insisting that she had to right to use the content that I had provided in any way she saw fit, and that Internet work was not the same as publishing.
Of course, I indicated that she should have been upfront about how she planned to use the content and that she should have indicated that there was a problem with the content well before the 7th and final piece was submitted. I also requested that she at least pay 1/2 of the agreed upon rate, since she had failed to disclose her intentions and that there was a problem early on, so that I could cease doing the work.
She agreed to pay for the article that she used, and then took it off of that website, but refused to pay for the other 6 articles that I had provided. I intend to check periodically, to see if she uses any of that content, but other than that, I have abandoned the situation as a hard lesson learned.
The site is not easy to navigate, and does not seem to keep track of assignments. I am very web-savvy, so was most disappointed in this.
I decided not to protest through GetAFreelancer — I just don’t want to waste any more of my time. Not knowing the ins and outs of all of the software that is being used to determine original content, how the formulas are used, etc., I decided it was not in my best interests to argue about it.
I am reluctant to pass judgment on GetAFreelancer over one experience, however, my general opinion is that the work offered is extremely low pay, and that any really good writer should not subject themselves to that level of pay. It’s just insulting. Also, the site is not easy to navigate, does not seem to keep assignments listed — and because of all of those reasons, I will not be using that website again to find work.
GetAFreelancer definitately appears to encourage clients to pay less, which is really bad for good writers. It was a bad experience for me overall, and I will not ever use it in the future.
As a freelance web-designer I have registered at a few of these sites. It seems that clients are not looking for freelancers that can do the best work. They are all looking for bargain basement designers.
I recently wrote a post on my blog called “ON BEHALF OF ALL FREELANCERS ON CRAIGSLIST!”
(didn’t want to add a link on your site as not to spam your blog) I like this blog pretty cool
Please freelancers, stay away from these sites if you want to make a real living as a freelancer.
Try this instead: The time you would spend hunting through job listings WORTH applying to, spend that time hunting down 10 contacts a day (a simple web search is all it takes), crafting a short email to them with a link to your online portfolio (whether it be writing, designing, etc.) and watch the results. Do this for a month and I practically guarantee that you will start landing clients — at rates you set.
I’ve been a freelance writer since 1993 and used a job site exactly once — way back in the 90s. I got so frustrated crafting the proposal and trying to follow their guidelines that I never did it again.
When I started SEO writing about a year ago, I sent out 12 emails — and in less than an hour, I got my first bite. Within 24 hours, I had landed my first client and within a month, I made over $4,000. I have never, ever spent any money on marketing — and I have never used a bid-for-work job site to find clients. I now have writers working for me I’m so busy.
The lesson: when you hunt for clients, you set the rate — and a host of other parameters. You become the desired, the wanted, the professional — not some desperate freelancer willing to work for peanuts.
Just my (experienced) take,
Yuwanda
Honestly, this is where I get all my clients. I have been using elance.com for 2 1/2 months and already I have gotten six projects — it just takes a little time and patience — a good profile, and lots of diligence. Just bid on the good projects — you don’t have to bid on those that pay only 5 bucks an hour. I have been visible too to other potential clients because of elance. It is well worth my time and I would recommend it to everybody. (disclaimer: this is a true testimonial and not a sponsored one). Their system is very clear and easy to use, they have escrow which secures your payment, drafts of contracts, message boards to communicate, etc. etc. I am a total Elance fan as you can tell.
Hi, I can understand the programmers point of view to many of these posts, but you have to understand the point of view from the consumer. Many people are trying to make money online today to supplement their income and you have to understand a lot of people don’t have the funds for extravagant programmers when they are just starting out with an online business.
They may not have the funds of extravagant programmers, but they certainly want an extravagant amount of work done! I fail to see how programmers who work on half-year projects for under $100 can even afford their Internet connections– especially in countries where electricity is considered to be a luxury for the rich!
I personally don’t care for Elance because I don’t like to have to pay to bid on jobs. I’m out to make money, not spend it. That’s actually one of the reasons I like oDesk, and use them as a regular source for my freelance work. I love the fact that they guarentee payment, and there are no costs for the provider to sign up and bid on jobs. Plus, they offer interesting trends and industry statistics to help guage payrates and how much work is out there. I’d recommend it to anyone who is looking for freelance work.
I actually first started freelancing with Guru and I would say that there is a period where you learn how to get the “system” to work for you. Some useful facts to know about these job sites are that most freelancers do not know how to write a good bid plus employers are actually weary of underqualified freelancers. Generally, employers will pay more if they know they are getting a reliable freelancer, too.
Learning to write good, personalized bids plus continuing to bid on new projects eventually lands you those clients that are ideal for you.
Though I’ve found other clients and other gigs elsewhere, Elance.com is my bread and butter. I don’t underbid and while I’ve lost a few bids to price, the most cited reason why I’d lose a bid is that the buyer prefers another style. I can tell the waste of time price trollers from serious clients who want quality work and I focus on those. I work hard to deliver the best personalized proposal that I can and have made good money on each and every project.
I have read some of the comments that say face to face is the best, but I actually express myself a lot better through the written word. I feel awkward and uncomfortable trying to “sell myself” in person unless there’s an existing relationship. I can do it–I was in sales for 5 years and I know how–I just don’t like it very much, and would rather spend my time working on writing than working on marketing. I intend to try to get some more local clients through some trade shows and expos, but until then? I’m enjoying my work.
I think these sites are an indication of the growing impact of digital tools and communication on information jobs. Modern transportation coupled with the growing industrialization of other nations permitted the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and we’ve all seen the results. Now the internet is permitting the same thing to happen to information-based jobs. The growing power of desktop computing and software is permitting less skilled users to ‘do it themselves’ (or at least convincing them that they can), and providing instant access to a competitive marketplace of those who can do it for them. Worse, it allows people to easily reproduce the work of others without so much as a thank you. The result is a glut of information specialists churning out books, music, art and software of dubious quality at rock-bottom prices…or less.
The gatekeepers are gone. The gates have come crashing down, and the mob rules.
I’ve thought long and hard about the issue, and I’m inclined to return to working in physical media, doing jobs that cannot be easily replicated by machines: airbrushing jackets, painting murals, producing original art, etc. For my computer based work, I intend to continue, but on a reduced scale, for word-of-mouth clients. But it’s tempting to give up digital work altogether. I’m a little sick of Adobe monopolizing all the tools of my trade, the endless hardware/software upgrade two-step, and slaving away developing projects and skills that are as ephemeral as sandcastles. Perhaps I’m just getting old.
I’ll survive, hand to mouth, as I always have. What concerns me is the next inevitable technological commoditization: that of labor itself. Robots keep getting better. How long before they are inexpensive enough to make the purchase of a 24-hour worker with a three-year-warranty preferable to hiring a constantly complaining union worker? Not long, I imagine. Then we will have at last finally achieved the utopian leisure society science fiction authors have written about for decades. Sadly, the only places this new leisure class will be able to afford to live will be in the discarded shipping boxes of their stainless steel replacements.
yeah, these are the sites which help to grow your online business. we have been using to bid on Elance or oDesk for a long time to lead our web business . .
It is enlightening to read the posts.
I’m a freelance web developer from India and I have worked on a few projects in rentacoder.com. I’m a petrochemical engineer who shifted to software more out of interest. I had depression for more than 14 years since passing college which made me jobless all those years. While I have an above average intelligence, I find it difficult to work in a regular job because of depression. Freelancing from home was an ideal option for me because I could take rest on the bed next to my computer, not be forced to interact with difficult people face-to-face and work at the pace I can cope up with.
My first attempt was a half-hearted one a year back. I just bid without any sense of direction. I didn’t get any job. But since a couple of months back, I have become serious and disciplined. I read the directions that rentacoder.com gave and followed it. I have bid on some 15 projects out of which I got in 4. The things I believe that contributed to winning the bid and getting the work accepted was my low bidding amount, my educational qualifications, the ExpertRating tests I cleared there, the positive feedback that I got for projects completed, the prior research I did and submitted for the bid, the politeness and business-like approach that I followed. A couple of my projects got canceled with a client because he was vague in his requirements and I was scared of not being capable enough to complete it (and risk getting a negative feedback).
In a 2 day deadline project, when I couldn’t download the necessary files from the client for a day and also had one of my mood-swings, the project went into arbitration and I got a poor feedback. But when I contacted rentacoder.com and complained about their fault, they promptly removed the negative feedback. I believe rentacoder.com has a good system and that if one goes along with the system, then one can benefit greatly.
For me, using rentacoder.com is more from a point of necessity since I have a disability. I have come to believe that one can convert a disability to a strength if one can be flexible. Those complaining about Indians working for cheap may instead practice the frugal living that many of us adopt.
I have a habit of under-bidding and after reading Carmen Rane Hudson, it struck me that I should instead let ‘style’ be the deciding factor in the project-acceptance.
Hello All!
I wanted to post a comment as well. I have been reading all the comments and can agree with almost everyone to some extent.
I have been a professional virtual business owner for just over 11 years and out of those 11 years, I have successfully used bidding sites to gain ALL of my business.
I mainly use Guru, but have used a few other sites. My entire business clientele is based on these sites.
I agree that it is hard to get good work at good rates and this is because others from other countries can afford to work for a couple of dollars per hour and here in the US, that is just unreasonable!
There are a lot of projects posted that are “scams” and you don’t always pick that up until after you have placed a bid or have been in contact with the employer. In most cases, I can pick a scam up from anyone!
The good thing about Guru, is they give you your bid back for projects that turn out to be “scams” so you don’t loose that bid, however it should be detected prior to being posted.
The reason I am commenting, is because I have a developer who is in the process of building me a Freelance Bidding site to go along with my current business and websites.
My goal is to provide services that these other sites do NOT provide. For example:
The fee’s for freelancers is too high with most of these sites! Freelancers should be charged a low flat fee to get bids and that’s it, there should be no fee’s taken out of our pay!
My site will be US based Freelancers only. Not because I have anything against anyone else, but because there is not site out there right now that provides these services to our country. I think that its great that we can work with all countries, but I also think there needs to some level of fairness when it comes to us and we should NOT have to compete with these low rates that wouldn’t buy us a gallon of milk for our family.
The next thing I want my site to do, is to have a very thorough monitoring system. I feel that if you are paying for bids, regardless if you get them back or not when a project is a scam, you should not have to put time into placing a bid on a project that is not legitimate. It is not only the fact that we placed a bid, but it is the time we put in to placing a qualified and personalized quote for nothing. I know as a freelance business owner, myself, I do not have a lot of time in a day and when I am on these sites, I am trying to get work to feed my family and pay bills, I am not on there for fun or because I have nothing else to do. Taking the time to read their job ad, develop a customized bid and connect with these employers, takes a lot of time out of my day and to find some of them to be scams, is unreasonable.
My site will be a bit more productive when it comes to checking these projects before placing them live for freelancers. There will be no money taken out of my freelancers, just a small flat monthly fee! I am still working with my developer to determine all the ins and outs and what I can do to make my site more effective and beneficial for everyone, but this is a rough idea of what I am trying to do.
Can anyone offer me their feedback on this and would you reconsider using a freelance bidding site if it was set up a bit more effective than what is out there now?
Another note: One other thing I am putting in place, will be communication between freelancers and employers as well as job descriptions! I think it is vital that if an employer is going to post a project, then ALL details need to be available. Part of my goal with my site will be to properly and effectively review every job post to ensure it has the right information and descriptions for freelancers to actually place a proper bid. I will develop my site so that integration will actually, not allow the employer to post the project without all the proper information being in the job description. I may even go as far as saying that the amount they are requesting is too low or not reasonable for the amount of work. Since we will have all US freelancers, this should be effective and understandable.
Tell me what you guys think about my thoughts and let me know if a site like this might make you change your mind to freelance bidding sites. Anything you can suggest or comment on would greatly be appreciated as this site is based around freelancers just like myself and most of you and I cannot create that perfect site without your input!
If you have any questions or want to know more about what I do, etc!
I love to connect with everyone!
When it comes to bidding sites, we’ve found that we should have started earlier than later because we get passed over for a lot of projects since we don’t have have enough Reviews for potential clients to refer to. It’s all about trust when it comes to bidding sites. Trust that we’ll deliver on on the product and trust that the client has all the details to pass along to the developers to build the product right from the start. Obviously bidding sites aren’t going away any time soon, so we keep pushing forward and hope for the best.