Buyer Beware: Elance, Rent-a-coder, Freelancer, and Other Freelancing Sites Are Terrible
Don't Miss This Review by Our CTO, Brian Bentow, and My Conlcusions at the End
If you are even thinking about using Elance, Rent-a-Coder, Freelancer.com or any other online freelancing site, get ready for some Brain Damage! These sites are terrible for both the clients and the freelancers and here are just some reasons why:For Clients:
- What if I don't know exactly what I want? Too bad! These sites want a piece of the transaction so they control your freedom to work directly with the client to help define the project to meet your business goals!
- Who is actually doing the development? Because you cannot work with the freelancers directly, you may THINK you are working with a qualified freelancer but they just hand the project and a programing book off to a high school student!
- These prices are too good to be true! They are! The freelancers are forced into a competitive bidding process so early in the project that is so heavily weighted against them that they are forced to underbid poorly defined projects. In fact, these projects are typically a miserable experience for the freelancers and you are likely to get crap back!
- Why can't I find top-notch professionals? On these sites, the freelances are incented to do quick and dirty jobs to meet hard deadlines. Scope can and should change as you learn more about the project. It is nearly impossible to do Agile or intelligent development in this way!
- What is up with these project descriptions!? Very few clients can spec the projects properly because they are NOT experts. That is why they are on the site in the first place!
- What are you even bidding on!? Freelancers are expected to Bid on projects that are so loosely defined that they are taking on enormous risk, stress, and risking their integrity by bidding on these projects.
- Why can't I just contact the client or freelancer and work with them!? These sites are so afraid that you will get around them and that they won't make their ridiculous margins that they don't let you contact the client directly and work with them on your own terms.
- What is up with these expert guarantees!? Rent-a-Coder has projects that require the freelancer to put up 10% or more of the total project payment in case you are LATE. As if the poorly defined projects and bidding process weren't risky and stressful enough, they want to stick to the freelancer again!
- Why are they so expensive!? Elance and Rent-a-Coder are bloated software that try to do way too much and charge way too much. Because of their fear of losing their enormous margins, they get in the way of communication and progress. They charge 10+% of the revenue for adding little or no value other than a simple bulletin board with search capabilities (a prettier craigslist).
- Are these projects even profitable?! - online bidding drives the prices down and pushes the prices so low that few qualified freelancers can actually afford to do them.
- Although there is a better solution on it's way by early next year (subscribe here to be notified), we strongly recommend that we all just avoid these sites and let them die; they are spammy misrepresented garbage messing up the marketplace.
- Like other for- profit lead generation machines in the Auto, Real estate, Finance and many industries, these sites are parasites: they add no value to anything: they are noise and they clutter the market they pretend to serve.
- When you choose to hire out work from freelancers (a very smart and recommended thing to do), you should start by evaluating and choosing an expert vendor on the highest level first, then, in the process of hiring that project manager, seek advice before specking-out anything. For instance: we offer a free consultation to anybody, anytime: for anybody planning any kind of marketing program of any kind, from the first logo to the website to the video to the market research, to viral advertising, technology, hosting, radio and TV Advertising, agency services: as do most qualified professionals.
- Choose the most qualified, highest level vendor possible, and spec and project manage with them, so that the planning process includes the benefit of their advice as part of the contract: you should have the final word, but you should solicit their advice and input every step of the way to achieve the best result!
- Always check credentials and references before buying anything from anybody anywhere, search for negative press on the Internet, ask for credible references, and recent proof of performance: this technology changes constantly, and only the best of the best can perform here consistently!
Published by Israel Rothman
I am an internationally recognized expert:: a social media marketing consultant and professional blogger http://socialmediasystems.com, http://uplog.org View profile
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- What is up with these project descriptions!? Very few clients can spec the projects properly because
- What are you even bidding on!? Freelancers are expected to Bid on projects that are so loosely defi
- Why can't I just contact the client or freelancer and work with them!? These sites are so afraid tha
If you are even thinking about using Elance, Rent-a-Coder, Freelancer.com or any other online freelancing site, get ready for some Brain Damage! These sites are terrible for both the clients and the freelancers and here are just some reasons why:
4 Comments
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I couldn't agree more, and Rod, I had the same thing happen to me too. I'm currently looking for others who've had their first amendment rights squashed by Elance for potential legal action. Contact me at ekathyk @ yahoo dot com if you (or anyone else) would like to share your story with me.
Very good article. I had headaches with elance too. Then, when I wrote a blog entry critizing them, they deleted my account. Anyway, you made some very good point here. Thanks!
I found elance to be a pain my butt, too. While I am sure some people gleaned some more positive results--and some profits--overall I had a headache with their process (the hoops I had to jump through) and some things they would not allow me to exemplify for my work skills (one was a link to my portfolio).
Having such a limited number of bids--which I recall--was ridiculous. That's like having two cards for a whole night of poker. You have to pay to obtain more bids. Indeed, I would be lost in the huge arena of bidding going on, and surely take forever to get noticed.
I found my work to outshine many folks who somehow made profit with them, but it was a matter of which sperm got to the egg first.