Freelancer v Elance

[Shane]

Yesterday I posted a job on both sites and the difference is quite incredible.

The Freelancer proposals are super cheap, but so poor in quality that I couldn't award the job to any of them.

The Elance proposals are far more expensive, but most of them are very detailed and give me a lot of confidence.

I'd prefer to use Freelancer since they're an Australian company (and my SMSF owns some shares) but for this job there is just no comparison between the two.

Is anyone here actually using Freelancer...?

 

[helloworld]

I tried once. The quality was terrible. Couldn't complete the job so ended up just doing it myself and not paying. Have used getacoder.com since about 07. Lots of quality coders there but a bit pricier but worth it

 

[eBranding.com.au]

I used codable.io recently for a small job. Cost about $200 for the freelancer coder to do the work. I was happy with the end result.

It all comes down to how good the freelancer is (capability, trustworthiness etc), it's definitely worth being picky about who you choose.

 

[eBranding.com.au]

I used codable.io

That should have been: codeable.io

 

[StuartB]

I use Freelancer and Guru a lot - probably one new project posting per week on both.

Guru seems to be better for web design and coding.
Freelancer is much better for ongoing work. We have a couple of Freelancers that we have on hourly rates and just punch regular work to them. Awesome.

Haven't used Elance.

The end result is strongly dependent on how good your original brief is.
Also - if you are getting heaps of quotes and you find one that looks pretty good - take it. Don't wait, because you will get swamped and fall into the trap of trying to save a couple of $, but losing hours! Been there, done that.

Happy hunting.

 

[petermeadit]

Have used both. Had some success with them both for minor jobs.

Tried a big job with one of these, but it failed. Not because of the platform but because of the management issues of outsourcing a major project to an overseas firm. In hindsight, I lost too much control. I think it is harder to completely handover and complete these projects without a large investment from the project owner.

For large projects in the future I would look at building my own team of outsourcers.

 

[StuartB]

Have used both. Had some success with them both for minor jobs.

Tried a big job with one of these, but it failed. Not because of the platform but because of the management issues of outsourcing a major project to an overseas firm. In hindsight, I lost too much control. I think it is harder to completely handover and complete these projects without a large investment from the project owner.

For large projects in the future I would look at building my own team of outsourcers.

Also have a think about where the Freelancer is located. With the guys we have on an hourly rate, we tend to use them overnight (in their daytime), so that we have work returned for the start of our next business day. Clients love it, as they think you have worked all night.

But be careful with anyone saying they are in the USA - most aren't, but think that saying they are from Boston is better than Bangalore. Hint: You won't get a programmer for $4 an hour in Boston. Or if you can.....you don't want them!

 

[xwdomains]

You get what you pay for go with Elance.
I have had some good and bad experience with freelancer.
Getacoder and Elance seem to have better quality programmers and writers.

 

[Shane]

So I had the project completed via Elance and I'm super pleased with it.

I picked one of the most expensive bids, but the guy was a legend and I couldn't be happier.

As a side note, I did use Freelancer yesterday for a very small job (repairing an error on a PHP site).

From my limited experience with both, I'd say Elance is great for larger and more complex projects, whilst Freelancer is great for little ten dollar jobs.

 

[johno69]

I posted a project on Freelancer yesterday and was instantly swamped with bids from freelancers that clearly didn't read my job description.

More of a pita than anything.

 

[petermeadit]

I posted a project on Freelancer yesterday and was instantly swamped with bids from freelancers that clearly didn't read my job description.

More of a pita than anything.

Not good. I can only imagine how difficult it will be for the owners of the platform to rein the spam in. Something a lot of these platforms are experiencing now, very hard to control once the horse has bolted.

 

[findtim]

i've posted before that i place a keyword in my brief eg " please start your proposal with the word " orange " , this helps weed out the auto spammers.

i now think that freelancer etc don't really care, this auto bids are paid by the bidder so they are just taking the money, i think this hurts their business model.

when you find a good one do as stuartb says, just keep them, but my advice is keep looking as one day that person will just disappear or start upping the price to test you.

smalllllllll jobs, start using fiverr on things that don't matter and try to find some good people, minor css work, template install, i'm finding spending $5 is saving loads of time for tedious jobs like linking to facebook, adding plugins etc

bottom line, always be looking for more people, larger the team less room for disaster imo.

tim