Elance experience
79Spin Zone
As most writers and freelancers who are working from home or just looking for some added income, many search for a site that you can earn on. Elance has a great marketing program and brings in freelancers around the world. This is a personal experience that seems to be repeated by many others.
Finding Elance right here on HubPages I decided to give them a try. I made my profile, paid my dues and started bidding. Watching their videos and going through the "Elance Academy" I did everything that I was supposed to do. Proper bids, taking the tests and getting ranked, granted I found jobs right away and was very pleased. Even when I left; I had 100 percent approvals and ranked in the top of client retrieval and getting jobs. Looking back over the past year, joining this site was the worst decision of my writing career.
My first major problem was with a client from overseas, after being Director of Freelancers, managing editor, writing and designing sites I lost 100's of hours and did not get paid. Worst then that, I have had to report this person to authorities dealing with problems that cannot be discussed here. The big "T" word has been used, along with several other charges. Elance's response was nothing, other than they closed her account and let me and the over 80 other providers for the individual deal with the problems.
The other clients that I received quickly became nightmares as well. To a classically educated person "spinning" articles and websites is still plagarism. That is what you do with almost all of the individuals that hire. Take an article others have written and spin it (change the words around, usually at least in 20 different variations to keep copyscape away), they even have software for this. Now Elance will let you file disputes, then cancel the job. Once again you walk away without a cent.
One thing you must do if you are using Elance, do not give your employers your personal information or let them ask you to send work off of Elance. Elance will not cover you even if you have proof that you sent them work, even when it is sent on their site. An employer can take your work, say you did not send and file a grievance. You will not get paid, and your ratings will go down. Not all the employers do this, and most simply want to avoid the charges that Elance puts on them as well. But take no chances.
Now the cost of Elance comes into play. At first a simple $10 dollars gives you 25 connects and makes you a provider. You can get a free membership, but cannot bid on certain jobs. The connects are important, since that's what you use for each bid. You also use extra connects to sponsor your bid, but that is a waste that many quickly find out. The problem with this is that a majority of the people that put up work rarely hire, or even come back to check. Then you lose your connects, and money. The scam is to get you to pay for more connects, or to upgrade your profile. Say you are a writer and can build websites, or administrative assistant. (V.A.-virtual assistant). If you sign up as a writer, that's $10 min., to add a skill another $5 every month. If also have to pay for added testing to increase your profile ranking. Throw in your internet connection, you are averaging $65 per month before you even get a job.
After you receive your jobs and if you get paid, Elance charges 4-9% of what you get. Do a hundred dollar job, you pay Elance $9. This is on top of what you spend monthly. You will also pay to transfer the money to your account, credit card or Paypal. If you are dumb enough to fall in and get an Elance debit card, the cost goes up even more. Personal experience here, I was dumb enough. The money is transferred to a site called Payoneer. After the transfer you have to pay another $4.50 to add the money to your card. Plus the $10 a month fee to keep the card account active.
I canceled my account with Elance and have cut my losses. For some it is a good experience and the company itself is not to blame for its members. Elance does what it can to protect, but for me it is just not worth it. Beware that you will be competing against companies in India and other countries that hire spinners and programmers with hundreds under their employ. They will under bid you, along with individuals around the States and other regions. Do not delete the bid, because there is a strong chance that if you are good, you will get the job later.
If you are a writer looking to get your work out, Elance is also not the place to go. You will be ghost writing and have to sell your work. Rarely did I receive credit on sites or in the articles that I wrote. I suggest joining Writers Digest and WritersMarket.com. These are the top professional sites and will give you sites and addresses to publish and sell your work. Writers Market and Writers Digest have given me wonderful help along with getting published in well respected magazines. The contests are very hard but the payout is much better. Helium.com is another good site to get started in and offers contests, and a marketplace to get work. Much like HubPages you can review, publish and earn off articles. I cannot fail to add HubPages again for getting your work out, along with meeting great people and reading their work.
Good luck with your adventure and have fun.
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Ande,
Thanks for the great post, I've been curious about Elance, but haven't taken the plunge yet. One of the main reasons is because I've been using oDesk. I've had a such a positive experience, that I haven't had the time or desire to seek out an alternative.
For the sake of full disclosure, I am a freelance writer, and one of my clients is Odesk's blog -- although I am not an oDesk employee.
I've worked with several buyers on oDesk, and the been paid by all of them. oDesk has some extra protections in place to guarantee payment for work. When I read that you had been unpaid for over 100 hours, I was appalled, and I can't say that I would be able to write so calmly about that kind of lack of respect.
Hourly work on oDesk is guaranteed to be paid, up to a certain amount. Buyers indicate that you are guaranteed payment of X hours per week, and you simply log those hours in a work diary using oDesk's Team application, which is a time tracker that takes screen shots, and lets you make notes about the tasks that you are performing. While I was initially apprehensive about the invasion of privacy, I've found that it actually helps keep me on task and tracks my productivity in a meaningful way. As a creative person, I'm easily distracted and the structure of clocking in and out, helps keep me focused. More importantly, it guarantees the payment for my hours worked.
Fixed price jobs are not guaranteed. They are paid solely at the discretion of the buyer. However, there are ratings to indicate a buyers reputation. I only work with reputable buyers if the project is fixed price.
In addition, there are no monthly fees, oDesk takes a flat 10% cut of income earned on their system. All jobs are available to all members. However, there is a weekly quota based upon your feedback score, and "skills tests", with minimal effort my quota was bumped to 20/week within my first day using oDesk, and so far I haven't ever used all 20 in a single week. If you have a US bank account, direct deposit is free, that's the only withdrawal method I've used on oDesk.
-Alex
Thanks for the information Alex. I may jump over there and check them out. Enjoy the week, and have fun.
Hi Ande - I started out on oDesk and Alex is pretty much spot on. It is not perfect and there are some idiots on there, but I found it to be the best of the freelance sites. I don't like the hourly logger (my personal preference), but I understand that fixed price work is not guaranteed - the risk is mine.
Like anything, you do need to take some measures to protect yourself, but no different than working privately. The site has a lot of article mills, but there are some good assignments there, once you have built up a good feedback rating.
I did write a few hubs about it, if you are interested :)
Thanks Sufi., I am planning on checking it out tonight after I get some work done. I'll also check your hubs. Thanks for coming by, and have fun.
Hours are guaranteed by oDesk whether you work one hour or a hundred in a week. I have NO idea where this misnomer that they only guarantee payment to a certain amount comes in. If you work, you abide by the terms of service, you get paid. Period!
I signed into oDesk and have been enjoying it so far. Thanks Doreen for the read and have fun.
I have been considering signing up for Elance. Glad I read your hub. Thanks for being candid.
Thanks surf traveler. It can be o.k., but you have to be really careful and play a tricky game. Best thing is to check.
I've been on Elance for a year and a half and have not found my experience to match yours, Ande. Although there are some unscrupulous buyers there, you can easily avoid them by taking clients who have a good history on Elance. Since both buyers and providers can leave eachother feedback, you can get a sense of how buyers treat their writers.
I have not tried Odesk though everything that has been said about it seems to equally apply to Elance. They have a time tracker and history as well.
All the costs don't match my experience either. In the beginning they only offer you three connects with a free membership, but once you have established yourself, they offer you 10 connects for free. I have been there 18 months and only paid the membership fee for 2 of those. Unless you are spamming bids, I have not really found that I needed more than about 7 per month. I have only run out of them once.
Also when clients invite you to bid on their jobs, you don't have to use any connects. They did not charge me any fees for transferring money into my account (was it maybe on your bank's side that the charges were created?) and the Payoneer fee of $4.50 is only for an "immediate load." If you let load normally, the Payoneer (not Elance) website charges you $1.50. By the way, Payoneer also has Odesk Direct Load cards which I bet are the same in terms of charges.
Finally, although every site I have come across has unscrupulous clients, I have never had a problem with payment from a client there. For large jobs you can set up milestones so that the client pays you as you go along. (I would never work 100 hours for a client without receiving payments alont the way.)
Ande's experience just doesn't sound typical to me. But I will definitely check out Writers Market and WritersDigest, Ande. Thanks for the tips.
thanks for the headsup i'm going to stick to my blog.
Talia from Payoneer here. I'd like to just add a quick note about the monthly fee on Payoneer. It has never been $10 - at most it's $3, with an option to reduce it to $1 depending on your activity and depending on the partner you work with. We would be more than happy to give you all of this information, so feel free to contact our support team http://www.payoneer.com/contactUs.aspx and will get back to you quickly.
I've had a very different experience with Elance and after visiting many of the 'online job marketplaces' in my opinion it's the best. I work in the Design and Multimedia category, so things might be very different, but just like in the real world there are bad providers and there are bad providers. The whole key to any of these sites is setting up clearly defined terms prior to starting work and making sure that escrow is funded for each and every job. You say that you rarely received credit for articles you wrote, but did you specify that as a term of your proposal? If not then why would you expect it?
I wouldn't describe Elance's membership and connects process as a 'scam' either. A connect is just that, a means to connect with the client and offer your services. If the client cancels the job or chooses somebody else then you lose that connect. It's exactly the same in the real world, if you take a potential client for lunch, send them a resume or spend time creating a proposal then there's no comeback if you don't get the project. They all cost money. The great thing about Elance is that you don't really need to have professional resumes printed, a fancy website or advertising costs... all you need is the $0.50 it costs for a connect. Sure they charge you between £0 and $30 a month for membership, but when that includes a means to market yourself and free advertising then I'd say that's a pretty good deal!
I've only been on there six months, but by ensuring I only work on escrow projects and that I have a decent agreement in place I've already got nearly $4000 in work compared to my $150 outlay for membership and connects. Not too bad I'd say!
informative Hub
I so share your take on Elance, among the pros though, still looks good on the back of my business card ;)... thanks for the forum tip on oDesk guys!
I've been a member on Elance for about six months and I've had a very different experience to you although I must say that things might have changed as I see it has been a while since you wrote your hub.
I have noticed though that like most sites of this nature you are relying on the people who employ you to be decent people. A lot of the jobs that are assigned on Elance are either to the cheap Indian companies or to people with outstanding feedback. It only takes one employer to mark you down unfairly at the beginning of your Elance career for you to struggle to get jobs in the future.
I'm doing okay on there though and will probably continue. When you compare it to sites such as www.freelancer.com which are completely over-run with middle-men and non native writers, it is a great place to be.
5 of my clients from Elance turns out to be long term business relationship even one client from Australia flew to Bali and talk business with me. Elance like any other has 2 sides. The good for me is not about the fees but about getting a new client turning into long term business. The bad is Elance fee PayPal fee and local bank fee. The final output is....great! I can never do business if it was not for Elance or any other similar website out there. In business, in any business, you have to take small loses but make big wins. but if you start having big loses but small wins then get out.
Great information, Ande!
Great hub with a lot of helpful information. I had been thinking about signing up for Elance and now I'm glad I didn't. Thanks for for sharing your experience with Elance.
You're blaming Elance for requiring that you have an internet connection to use their website?... Really?
I just signed up for a provider account with Elance and have been working hard on building a solid profile page. I think much has changed in terms of Elance's fees, policies, etc. since you originally posted this article. But my guess is that, as some of the other people who have already commented here have noted, a provider needs to be smart about sizing up clients and avoiding the unscrupulous ones. Both client types are bound to exist in any online freelancing marketplace, unfortunately.
I have yet to start bidding on jobs, but one particular frustration I've experienced so far has been that a lot of the skill tests I've taken have been really, REALLY poorly designed. Plus, as someone who is quite experienced and therefore confident in the subject areas that some of these tests test, I find it weird when I complete the tests, feeling like I nailed them, then see that my test rankings always end up way lower than they seem like they should be. I'm starting to suspect that something's not right about the website's scoring system. Elance has offered me no satisfactory feedback about this so far, however, which is annoying. The only reason this is even an issue for me is that a provider's potential to get hired (and make money) could potentially be negatively affected by this. If you scored a 99% on a skill test but are still dropped down into the "top 20%" percentile rather than something higher, the client is never going to be able to get an accurate gauge of how adept you are at that particular skill -- and if this is the make-or-break factor for a truly nit-picky client, chances are he or she may even go with a provider whose profile displays higher test percentage rankings. It's just one of those bothersome discrepancies that I guess I, personally, will just have to get over and deal with, but I just thought I'd share in case this info helps someone else. Thanks for the article. It had some great info in it.
This is not great article because I am personally use elance & within month I earned number of dollars. As an IT professional we use only our skills there is no investment of raw material. If someone fraud you & not paying after the project completion it’s not elance fault it’s the faculty of that people. Even elance provide escrow system. There is no chance to fraud. Think in broad way, we learn lots of new things & new technology through Elance. Remember one thing one factory of awarding job is your luck. Don’t feel looser because struggle is the best policy of life. If you have any question regarding elance feel free to contact me. I will help you how you can win a job in elance.
Regards,
Danish
Maybe you can check out staff.com, it works for me. Works like odesk and elance.
Have you checked out www.Staff.com this is another site for work from home job it is similar to oDesk and Elance but for full time work only.They have lots of opportunity for freelance workers.
eovery 2 years ago
Thanks for the warning.
Keep on hubbing!