Elance

I have been finding work on elance for 2 years now. It works well for me. I am in an expat, but I am able to make a living. Elance enables me to bounce around and still make a living on my own terms. Most of the seller gripes on this page refer to old elance pratices in '08 or before. Skill tests are now free. They offer free memberships too. If you are a seller, take the skills tests.

Hi guys! Please always make use tools like Skype and many other tools to help you on make sure the provider will give the expected results, but please, be fair with the amount to be paid for the work, I see hundred of people thinking his money has much more value than an expert work where this people usually pay less then a 100 bucks for a project. Elance has a large number of ways to make sure that you are choosing the right provider, please always check provider feedback and his qualifications.

As a buyer on elance, I have good success so far. Of course, you need to vet your providers closely. Interview them over Skype. Use the tools provided. Don't stick your head in the sand and you should be fine.

Had a conversation with BusinessUplift - he wanted me to do proposal bids for the equivalent of £12 an hour for bid proposals. Considering my usual rate is £300-£400 a day, that's pretty terrible. I actually accepted that because I thought it would be good experience, and he seemed like a nice guy. Until we discussed developing the project so I would be working on the projects themselves as well. When i suggested a percentage of the price of the project (the percentage I started with was clearly an opening offer) his comment was that this was clearly to much, but he made no comment on what percentage I would get, just saying I could work on the projects using his credits, not charging him for my time. Considering that I reacted by saying it was unreasonable as he assumed I could do 3 tailored bids in an hour (quoted from his previous email) and would therefore have to walk away, he responded by saying he didn't understand but that it was "alright by him!". I tried to clarify in c... Read more

One of the worst experience I had till date, it was simply overwhelming, seems like I have been degraded and cheated. I posted my interest in my first job post and after two days they suspended my account saying that I had violated their terms, which both of us (me and my employer do not agree as we were just going through regular elance payments, communications and all.) We tried to contact their support, which is worst of all never got a response back. thoroughly discourage using it when there are tons of options floating around.

I recently joined Elance as a Business and Finance consultant. Once there, reality hit me square in the head. 1. The people looking for professional help want it for nothing. They expect the professional---who has spent tens of thousands of dollars to get an education, and many years of their lives honing those skills--to work for $5 an hour on some project filled with flawed ambitions. 2. Most job postings are scams to get you to use up your free points, so that you will pay for the Elance service. This is obvious, when you get no response from the entity doing the posting. 3. Some of the people doing the posting claim to own successful businesses, yet, do not understand even the most basic business terms or principles. I changed my profile to indicate that I do not work cheap. That's why I am the professional, and you are the one looking for help. I guess this was too much of a reality for some, as they quit trying to get my services. If you are a professional, charge for your s... Read more

If you are a REAL design professional, stay away. Bids are often from foreign countries where $50 for hours of your time is a lot of money. If you are a true designer, you will have, at the least, a four year degree and a couple of years of experience working in the industry. You keep up with trends and software upgrades. Your time is valuable. Your expenses to maintain your freelance or small studio, are not cheap. Most of the people on Elance are looking for a great logo, but only want to pay $50 for it. They think, "Its just a drawing". They do not see the value in a design by a true professional. Well, let them accept the designs of those guys in Pakistan, who can bid $50 because thats a lot of money. Anyone who thinks that their logo is "just a drawing" will soon be on the unemployment line because their business failed three month after they bought their poorly designed logo. Young professionals: Do not devalue the worth of your education, skill building, and cost of mainta... Read more

Just an awful experience all around. Our provider significantly misled us about his qualifications and did not deliver. Elance's mandatory arbitration provider did not assist - essentially telling us that the college student (pretending to be an engineer) tried his best.

A bunch of criminals. Like millions of other scams on the net. So low that I'm guessing someone would PAY to work for you! WASTE OF TIME.

I have had mixed results with Elance. You need to be very careful about vetting your providers, especially their English capability. I would generally recommend a telephone or Skype interview with any non-English speaking prospective provider. I've had to cancel a number of contracts because of provider was incapable of understanding my specific requests. Fortunately, this is not been a problem. I would be careful about trusting the reviews at face value, especially when you see a lot of jobs that are not reviewed. I read the reviews very carefully. If I see all five stars I am immediately suspicious. The key metric that I look for is repeat work. When I find a good provider, I tend to stick with them through multiple projects. I have found this to be the best metric for determining quality on the Elance system. I have had some outstanding providers that I have worked with from Elance and some I have had to can. A mixed bag at best, but that is true in every walk of life. ... Read more

Hi have worked on a company called http://www.hypeconcepts.com/home/ it was an awaful experience, delays of weeks to get an update and communication with their team was poor to say the least, I was not impressed at all. When they were pitching for the job they were promising a lot but then when the time came to show their skills they didn't have none. Shamefull. Elance is not bad at all, the people that are bidding for jobs claiming that they can do everyhting but instead they cannot do not even 10% of what they have promised. Next time I will accurately choose the right company it was a disgrace a waste of time and money!

Wow, its amazing to see so many negative remarks - and so passionate and LONG in their description of their bad experiences. There is something to be said for a bad review, but paragraph after paragraph really seems excessive. I wonder if there was this much hype about ebay for the first few years it started to take it's foothold. It seems like there is a lot of miscommunication and blame placing; but, come on now, don't kill the messenger (or in this case, forum for which the messages can be relayed!). Like any tool, it can be used, and misused. I think and hope it will become a fantastic network that will provide and continue to establish a forum for communication and business transactions that will actually lessen the environmentally taxing, wasteful overhead spending associated with boom and bust economies that leave empty office space and mounds of debt. Embrace the convenience of technology, and make way for a global free market economy! That is, unless you're afraid of a l... Read more

Buyers must be careful with this site, I lost US$2.945 and Elance with netarb.com protected this unscrupulous provider who built me a bad application. Netarb.com ruled against me because they found me guilty by hiring this guy. How could have been done if he promised me a good job (totally different what he delivered to me) and besides he had a good average in Elance. Elance removed my bad score on this provider in order to protect him and keep his good score. This site should be investigated by the Federal Trade Commission.

I just had a really bad experience in elance. Their system is not designed to protect client at all! I hired a provider from India (yes India, be careful in hiring Indians!!!) to complete a time sensitive deadline project. After reviewing tens of bids I received, I finally hired this guy thinking he would do a good job. The guys was very responsive in getting back to me PRIOR to get the project and promised a very optimistic results. He told me to finish in 15 days, but I gave him more than 3 weeks to complete. Long story short, once he got the project and escrow money he was no where to be found. During 3 weeks period he never gave me any status update. Never reply email at all. Through skype, he always said he's on top of everything and seemed to be bothered if I asked any update. Well, my nightmare came true...1 day before the deadline he asked some stupid simple question, the question that should be asked earlier on in the beginning of the project...turned out he hasn't even sta... Read more

Bluerainbow, Your experience with elance is quite sad. Actually, I also faced the problem of people underbidding and working for peanuts :-( But the beauty is that once I was able to come out of my initial couple of months (with good deliveries in not so expensive projects), people are awarding me bigger projects. There ARE lot of bigger projects in elance. I am able to do most projects between ranging from $700 to $1200 or so. That does tell me that these job sites do have GOOD clients as well and LOTs of good clients. It is true that initial period is tough, but once you cross the initial period, you will see the fun and real money in elance :-) All the best.

Horrible!! Stay away for sure!!!! I've been an elance provider for over one year. During that period of time, I've worked my ass off just to be paid sooo little. Not to mention, some of the clients are nasty, cheap, and ungrateful to the designer. Now I'm in dispute with one client where they kept the job running without pay and of course asking for updates without paying more. When I asked for more money, she went nuts. She said that I needed to complete the project now!!! It didn't matter if I was busy...what matter is their updates take first priority. The worst thing is I never get paid!!! the project is 100% completed. After over one month, they never release the escrow and ask for more works to be done. What's the point of ESCROW? I thought I never had to deal with crazy clients that ran away after the job is completed. Well...I was wrong. Elance said they will need to contact 3rd party to resolve the issue, which will cost me $99. WHAT??!!! I mean I get paid so lit... Read more

The Elance site looks good at first glance. However, the biggest problem with Elance is the number of service providers who are seemingly willing to work for peanuts - sums as low as $50 for projects worth ten times that amount, and some who are even willing to work for free! Now, I assume the reason they bid these ridiculous amounts is to build up a 'resume' and reputation on Elance. But it is annoying to continually see your bids being undercut by others - usually 'newbies' trying to build a feedback score. In addition, there are people on the Indian sub-continent who are willing and able to work for 3 bucks an hour. This continually undermines more professional providers in Europe and the U.S. Just the other day there was a job posted in the 'Writing' section by an employer who was asking for someone to do a job for him for around a thousand dollars, while that job was clearly worth 3 or 4 times that amount. When a couple of providers pointed this out on the private message b... Read more

I paid $350 into Escrow re a project for 60 SEO Links from a provider that failed to provide reports and project outcomes within specified period. Due to unforseen personal circumstances it was over the 6 month deadline period that I was able to pursue the provider further - unfortunately they no longer exist on Elance. The project is not completed to satisfaction and a year later $350 sits in Escrow and I'm unable to return it to my paypal account. I've tried on a couple of occasions to contact Elance - but all I receive is set of instructions including forms to fill in that specify a 6 month deadline less a set number of days - over which the Escrow money appears to roll up to the Bank of Elance. As I say, project was not completed to time or satisfaction, I was over the 6 month deadline re claiming with supplier - but they no longer exist - and I seem unable to get my $350 back. Please assist. Sarah

Elance has a wide variety of projects from all functional areas, yet many downsides, speaking from experience as a provider. The bid process is fairly standard - most projects have a few bidders, and one can set up automated project alerts. Anything involving data entry is usually flooded with people from a third-world country. Once you are awarded a project, beware - they will really only pay what you bid at the start. From experience, the work involved to complete any given task is usually A LOT more than expected, so be prepared to haggle. Otherwise, unless you negotiate payment outside the site, you're screwed. In the end the project fee doesn't justify the effort. In summary, the site is a neat concept, the work is OK, but the compensation could be improved.

Oh my God. I saw all the reviews here and signed up just to write one. I'm not sure if the negative reviews were all written by one person, but it sure looks that way. I'm an experienced freelancer and have used Elance with great success. The high number of decent job posts, the lengths they go to protect freelancers from getting burned, and the solid community are all big selling points for me. My rates are high and I've never had a problem getting work on Elance. They have an Escrow system set up so freelancers never have to worry about getting paid, and each job gets a workroom so that communication, documents and files are easy to keep track of. If a dispute comes up, it's all right there, but all the buyers I've dealt with have been great. I've tried several freelancing sites, and I've got to say that Elance is head and shoulders above them. Anyone thinking about freelancing should check them out and give them a try. Don't let one disgruntled user with access to a comput... Read more

E-lance sucks. Speaking as someone who has used the site for over a year now. My account was recently terminated for suggesting to a client that we finish our business via e-mail. Customer service contacted me without warning and said that they had terminated my account for attempting to take money away from the site. Let's examine the ways E-Lance skims money off the top. 1: Provider fees: Every provider on that site pays a premium per month to use it. Lowest is $10/month. If you buy longer plans it's cheaper. 102,000 providers as of this writing.... Do the math. Granted maybe 20,000 are free accounts with VERY limited access. That's still a ton of cash considering the higher end payment plans are some ridiculous amounts of money. 2: E-lance "Escrow" fees. What a crock. "Elance deducts between 6.75% and 8.75% from the payment to cover its Service Fee and Payment Processing costs, and transfers the remaining amount directly to the service provider." $246,366,159 of servic... Read more

In general, I would caution any true professional from considering these freelance websites as viable means of earning extra income despite the economic recession. My problem is not necessarily with Elance and other freelance websites but rather the employers/buyers on the site. More often than not, you will encounter employers/buyers that will waste your time. Furthermore, they do not have realistic expectations given the budget they indicate for their projects. True enough, this happens in everyday business but not in this type of setting. When the government or professional businesses put out an RFP, more often than not, the contract is awarded to someone. In addition, when these entities select a winner, they consider experience, ability, as well as price. We spent 4 months on a few of these freelance marketplace websites. During that period more than 75% of the jobs we placed a bid on were never awarded to anyone. Of the jobs awarded, almost all went to the lowest bidder. Some of... Read more

I have never worked on elance but I did work on rent a coder. They are both similar in that they cater mostly to programmers in 3rd world countries, primarily India. It is not fair for american programmers. How are they able to compete against an equally skilled programmer who can live on 1/4th of what we need? The worst part is that many of these job boards originated within the united states and have their base there yet their primary focus is pumping us jobs into other countries. Frankly I believe something needs to be done about this but am not sure what can be done. Are there any online job boards that cater only to usa programmers?

I've been on Elance for about 10 months. So far I have earned a total of $45 on it. No joke. Basically, Elance has turned the world into a giant sweatshop. I'm an artist who moved to India to do volunteer / charity work. I was thinking that thanks to the internet, I could continue to work for American and European clients while not having to physically be in those places. I was wrong. Instead of opening up the world and breaking down barriers of distance, Elance has enabled some fairly dodgy people to hire desperate East Europeans / Africans / Pakistanis / Indians / Chinese / etc writers, coders, artists, programmers, designers etc for pay so low it really should be a human rights violation, and I wish I was merely joking or exaggerating about that human rights violation bit. How bad does it get? Consider this: A provider asked me if I could paint ten 8.5"x11" color paintings for him, in watercolor specifically. This is quite a bit of work. Even some kid fresh out of art school wo... Read more

The free membership is just a come-on. I registered, took the various required tests, spent quite a bit of time filling out a profile and resume and taking several additional skills tests. They stress that posting relevant questions in the public message board is a good way to hone & focus a bid or proposal for a job. They even stress this in the required tests. But once you are a member and ready to go, you find that you are unable to post unless you have a paid membership (minimum $9.95/month). When I sent support an email about this on 9/14/09, I got a boilerplate response that read in part: "The Elance office will be closed on Monday, September 7, 2009 in observance of the Labor Day holiday. Regular office hours will resume at 8AM PT on Septmember 8th." It looks to me like no one is minding the store. They are just there to skim off their commissions and their high credit card clearing fees. I'm removing my profile today. There are other ways to go about this process.

For people who are willing to work for little money, and be slave labor it might be a great site but if you are a professional you should stay away from this site. The clients at Elance are the worst people to work for, they expect you to underbid your peers and then they become "marketing experts" who think paying chump change allows them to become pure AS#H*LES. Sure if you are just getting started or are willing to dig your dignity out of the SH#T they shovel out then yes Elance will work for you. BUT WARNING WARNING... learn the lesson NEVER WORK FOR AN AS#H*LE. Fire them if you are putting in too much effort for too little payment.

Elance hooks up people who want something for nothing. Most of the people who have the jobs are middlemen so they want the most from their profit. It is a waste of time for any real talent to join. Most of the "clients" want you to underbid your low bid and then on top of bidding an amount that would make your mother cry. The clients are demanding so if you are looking for work at elance you best be from india and be able to underbid everyone else or writing an article for a magazine about rip-off on-line companies. Happy bidding and remember to pay your percentage of the rip-off. :)

I've noticed all of you posted negative reviews which is definitely the opposite of heart-warming. I've been a member for 9 months now. So far I had no rip-offs, stealing, fraud, and phone and email feedback neglegences by elance ... so do I still have to worry? Further, none mentioned any positive experiences. Afterall, it wasn't you or I who made this website. Not to mention they provide you with free 3 connects so come on people wake up! It almost feels like someone paid you to be that harsh. Let's be real. The website map and layout is very much so user-friendly. You get to do almost a hundred tests or so for free. Assume you're unemployed and your brain is rusty like a 1967 SS old ford truck- well they are inviting you to wipe your brain's dust for free! How? I tried so many of those free tests and they were awesome and expertrating.com would charge you lands and skies ... so what does that tell you? Setting up the financial account, tutorials, profile, and escrow was smooth. I s... Read more

I've joined Elance some five years ago. I had great hopes on this site. Unfortunately, I've never received any assignment till now. It appears that the site is more friendly towards the service users than the service providers. The biddings are so low that one shudders to think of taking up the jobs. So many jobs appear on the site, but who actually gets the job is a big question mark. The terms and conditions of the service users are so tough, they expect a Sheakespeare to write for them for peanuts. It is a great waste of time and effort to look at elance. It is better to concentrate on other sites to make money than elance. Mogili

Elance is not a good resource for people who are really trying to make money from writing. I did a project, which was partially completed, the first article was satisfactorily done, after that the client complained without giving me any chance to make any changes to anything, and got a full refund. That doesn't seem fair since I did some of the work, which he liked and I'm sure is using. I asked for them to cancel my account. What a waste of time.

Elance is a joke if you are looking to provide quality work (and get anything close to a fair wage). For buyers it's even worse. The whole site is chalk full of low-quality providers with glowing resumes and feedback. The thing is the providers make multiple accounts and "trade" projects within the accounts for that very feedback. Elance turns a blind eye so they can collect their service fees. Their escrow isn't a real escrow system, the website itself has errors all the time and if you are looking for any type of customer service or support you get a phone answering machine and an email support service that never returns emails. Elance is by far the worst freelancing site I have ever had the misfortune of working with. If you ever think of checking it out be sure and READ their 800 page terms of service statement. They are not responsible for ANYTHING. They can come back and take money you made months ago if they want (and they have citing problems and fraud)...even though... Read more

ELANCE ARE LIARS AND THIEFS! I signed up for Elance in early December. I followed their advice and took some performance tests (at $5 a pop) because they claim that when buyers do a search if you score high you will be high in the rankings for whatever skill. NOT TRUE. My test results were top 5% in several and top 10% in others. But when I went and did a search for those skills there are people will lower and non-existent test scores way above me. TOTAL waste of money. I also paid ($15 a pop) to use their service which is supposed to verify your "credentials". They say verifying them shows you have reliable references to buyers. More than 2 months later I am still waiting. 1 it said they couldn't verify, 3 they haven't even tried. They are all former employers and the one they said they couldn't verify told me they never got a letter, call, or email from anyone trying to verify past employment. Elance just took my money and did nothing. Spent a month and a half calling an... Read more

I wish I had seen all the reports on here and on all these other websites talking about the Elance escrow scam. Figure I might as well warn people with my example. I see people have posted reports on here already. My story is pretty much the same. I put a job out on Elance for workers to bid on. I awarded the job to someone I thought was a good bet. They had good feedback, had 4 of what Elance calls 'verified' credentials, and had good test scores. Well it was horrible. I notice on one test score they scored top 5% on English Spelling and also on vocabulary. Well, their bid was perfect English. After I gave them the job you could barely understand what they were saying. I put the $750 project cost into Elance Escrow because it said I would be protected. The provider was horrible. They couldn't follow the project details or even simple instructions. They drug the whole thing out for like 3 weeks before they finally just said they didn't have the expertise to do it. So it takes me... Read more

Have been back and forth on this site and am finally leaving it for good. One good experience with a research job that I received 150.00 for. Even though I worked over 40 hours on it, at least the 'employer' was decent and chose me over 50.00 bids (which is the minimum). I did it to gain experience and some credibility on the site. Bid on another 4 projects that were never awarded and not chosen for many others. Most employers clearly state they want someone in the 1-2.00 range and it makes me sick. Great site if you are an employer looking for dirt cheap labor (with questionable results) - you don't pay fees - the contractors do and you don't have to award the job (further wasting the contractor's time). This is not the place for serious contractors with experience, references, etc. expecting a fair wage.

Horrible!!! In the same league as Guru. They put the screws to the contractors and suck up to the employers, who receive services for free!!! Elance is the worst!

Total waste of time for anyone who isn't an off-shore, fly by night group trying to pass themselves off as professionals who are willing to work for peanuts.

I am fairly new to Elance and so far have no complaints with the site itself. I do have complaints with the low bidding practices and for employers who want to pay 3-4.00 per hour (or less) for high level work. I'm not sure what type of professionals will work for that level of pay but I know I won't. I find it insulting and not worth my time. I can make more money freelancing on my own. And, I think employers should be ashamed of themselves for requesting employees work for less than minimum wage.

Really mediocre. I've been using Elance for about a month and I find the charges outrageous. Elance takes huge cuts out of any projects you win, and I think most buyers are contacting the providers directly. Many sites like rent a coder just take a cut of your profits. But Elance, on top of this also strangles the number of jobs you can bid for to ten, until you pay them subscription fees. I'd advise any freelancer to go to another site with less overheads if you want jobs.

Hello every one! i wanted to hire virtual employees for web designing and SEO. Actually i am looking for whole virtual team. Because now it's become very expensive for our organization to recruit employees :( And we need reliable and quality virtual employees. We were prepared to post our requisite on freelancers site. But we have observed that it's very time as well as money consuming process. So, what next? Our team comes out with conclusion to directly contact companies who are providing virtual employee services. But the question is "RELIABILITY and Hiring charges". We have got replies from some forums and communities. So, now we have one option company www.marketraise.com. it's nice. But we want best service provider with better package. Thanks in advance Sophia

I found Elance to be a competent and the best outsourcing website to give me an exposure of 40 international freelance projects. From September 2007-December 2008, the buyers used to be very good and even used to pay without being asked for. I got almost Rs 75000/- for the first 20 projects. But after wards, when they changed their bidding structure, there are bitter experiences only. Once the project is awarded and the buyer delays/refuses to fund the escrow, he is free to give any type of alibi and all the documentation fee to the tune of 8.75% are landed on the provider. They should refund the number of bids if the buyer cancels the project or declines the offer. I have at least 50 such cases and not even a single bid was refunded. I think majority of buyers and providers out there are using elance to get connected over a petty sum and then deal directly avoid making payment to elance. I even reported their security and reputation flaws but they were thankless and even dele... Read more

I've been using Elance for close to a month. I bid on several projects and continued to develop my portfolio. Last week I won two bids, and then I won another. I made the mistake of not requesting a portion of an assignment up front and got burned by a buyer who asked me to do her resume. It was $50 but hey, $50 bucks is $50. Her name is Kathy Dodd, avoid her or request your money in thirds. The second assignment I was paid on time and had no problems. I am working on a 3rd project and have bid on a few others as well. There is work here, you just have to be good at what you do and persistent. Always request a portion of the fee up front. If the buyer isn't willing, chances are, they don't want to pay you anyway. I am trying to recover my $50!!

Completely awful. Elance was worth using years ago at its inception, before it charged outrageous subscription fees and took unreasonable cuts from any of the projects you managed to win. When they realized they were really the only site out there like it with a growing base of freelancers, they took advantage of this and began charging monthly fees. Then they began charging a project percentage in addition to the subscription, which went from unreasonable to ridiculous, given the lack of quality control in the marketplace. They additionally placed a limit on number of bids allotted. Elance tailored itself from the get go to lowballers willing to design logos and websites for under $100. Elance has favored its buyers over its providers from the get go in order to woo businesses in to post their projects, most of which went unawarded. The feedback system is unfair and unbalanced, leaving professionals wide open to feedback extortion. Elance consistently disregards legally bindin... Read more

I was a first time buyer on Elance and hired Rich Morgan at Heavysystems.com to create a database driven website for my business.  It was supposed to be just like a dating site except it was to connect seniors with self-employed caregivers with online applications,  viewable profiles, shopping cart, etc. I used Elance's "Escrow Services" believing that it offered me protection against internet fraud.  Rich sounded extrememly professional and seemed very competent. To make a long story short, he was paid $2,500 and convinced me to write up a review for him before theall the pages of the site were actually uploaded to my hosting company.  He had assured me that the code was working perfectly and that the site would be finished uploaded "any day now".  I, foolishly, believed him when he said that he was almost finished with the site, and that a review needed to be written before Elance closes the window to do so, since Elance had written me an email saying the same thing.  Well, once paym... Read more