Find the best freelancers - ODesk vs eLance vs GetaFreelancer vs RentaCoder (now vWorker)

One of the biggest challenges of a startup or growing small business is to find the right people for the right seat on the bus.   You often find yourself with a part-time need from a very qualified individual.

Can you take advantage of the Global effects of Web to help with your search?   

You bet you can! There are a number of platforms for sourcing freelancers or contract hires.  As you can see from this graphic, many of these platforms are drawing hundreds of thousands of visits each month.  That translates into a ready pool of talent for you. 

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/guru.com+elance.com+odesk.com/

Here is what we can share from personal experience. 

oDesk - This is the latest platform that we tried and we love it.  There are so many ways to search, there is such a rich group of contractors and you can find incredibly cost-effective offerings. We're going to deep dive into oDesk shortly.  

First, lets take a quick look at some other options.  

Guru - They claim to be the world's largest online freelancer marketplace, with over 1,000,000 freelancers to choose from.  We've used it before and found some great project teams... and some not so great.  For a while, we offered a service to help with freelancer screening process (We did a series of posts on how to effectively screen freelancers ).  Guru was our favorite for a while and we wrote a blog comparing Guru with elance and rentacoder.

eLance, rentacoder (now vWorker.com) and getafreelancer - We've heard of good results for these but haven't used them personally. They appear to be an especially great source for copywriters, coders and web designers. The Compete graph above shows eLance to have the most traffic of the sites that we surveyed in Compete. 

As for oDesk, we were impressed by the ability to search across so many different criteria - areas of expertise, feedback from other clients, number of tests passed, test scores compared to their peer group, experience in hours, rates and more. Take a look at the dashboard below illustrating a search for SEM professionals. We recently posted an entry on "ODesk vs Elance" and how they compare. 

With over 300 qualification tests available on oDesk, there are a wide range of hard skills you can use to sort out the freelancers you'd prefer to work with.

Properly finding a freelancer needs a significant time investment.  Beyond finding your ideal candidate based on qualifications, tests, references and rates, you need to check references.  You should also gauge responsiveness and communication.  We recommend starting with a small project and growing from there.  

Have you used any of these platforms?  If you have, please share your experience with us. Are there other freelance platforms, freelance marketplaces or freelance forums our readers should know about? 

Comments

[Ashutosh Naik]

One of the main problems with rentacoder is that it is filled with cheap programmers ready to work for very less rates, unlike odesk.

[Dana]

Your post is super! I've recently started working with oDesk, and although I'm still learning their platform, the team building and project management features are amazing! I'm just wondering - 10% isn't a bit too expensive?

[William]

@skip.... Not with oDesk and Scriptlance. You get your money way faster with either of those 2.
I do fully understand the Net 30 concept. However, that is normally applied between the "Buyer and Seller". keep in mind that in the example situation that I described above, the buyer released the funds to be distributed on the 1st of the month. When releasing the buyer has to confirm the following " I "Accept 100% of the work as complete" (per the vWorker.com Employer Agreement) and authorize vWorker.com to release payment to the worker in the amount of ?? ". So, please understand that we are talking about 2 different things here. For all practical purposes, the buyer has released the money to be distributed to the coder. vWorker is holding the money.
Additionally, the comment that Nicole made about "Odesk charges 10% for all types of projects versus 6.5-10% on Rent a Coder." is extremely misleading. oDesk charges their percentage to the buyer rather than to the coder. Additionally, if you work on a per project basis with vWorker rather than a for time basis, then vWorker charges 15%.

[Skip Shuda]

@William - thanks for your comments. I appreciate your sharing as someone who has worked with vWorker. Not being able to reach someone in person by phone can be frustrating. However, I'll also note that being paid within 30 days of work completion is an industry standard (as in Net 30).

[William]

I couldn't help but notice that Nicole from Rent A Coder (vWorker as it is now called) failed to mention a major flaw in their system. So, please allow me to do so...

Nicole says that you can call in and talk to a facilitator 7 days a week... I have to disagree. I have tried to call in numerous times and not been able to reach anyone.
Additionally, if you decide to work through vWorker (Rent A Coder's new name), don't be in a hurry to get paid. Their pay periods end on the 15th and the end of the month and then they have 7 days to get your money to you. So, lets say you finish a project on the 1st of the month. That project will go on the pay period ending the 15th. And then it very well may be the 22nd before you get paid. So, almost a month has passed since you finished the project.
Additionally, when getting paid, even though vWorker has already charged you 15% of the amount that you bid on the project, they still will charge you 2.00 more to process the money for you.
During these possible 21 days, where has your money been? My guess would be in vWorker's bank account drawing interest that you will never see.

[Blistr]

I see the Rent a coder comment in just about every guru, elance or odesk article I search. All I can say is... I use them all to find service providers and they all have their pros and cons. What I can say from my experience posting jobs on Rent a Coder (now vWorker) is their lack of user interface and user friendliness. Don't let Nicole fool you (I am sure she is a nice person) but the UI for the site suck. It may have all the benefits she cites above but how useful is it if the navigation, UI, email tool... is terrible. I only use rent a coder because one coder I need is on it. For everything else I use elance, guru or odesk. If you don't believe me, compare the UI for Rent a Coder to any of their competitors.

[JohnMHoyt]

Nicole, great reply to a good article... Thank you...

[RACNicole]

Hi, this is Nicole from Rent a Coder. I'd like to point out a few issues with using services like Elance, Freelancer (GetAFreelancer), and oDesk since those issues could influence your satisfaction and earnings.

Fees:

Workers on Elance cannot place more than 3 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee ($9.95/month for 20, $19.94/month for 40 or $39.95/month for 60). The majority of sites do not charge subscription fees.

Odesk charges 10% for all types of projects versus 6.5-10% on Rent a Coder. So we let you keep more of your money and if you bring a repeat buyer from Odesk, you're guaranteed a cheaper 9% maximum rate (and perhaps lower - see http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/dotnet/Docs/FindersFeeComissionSchedule.aspx).

Rent a Coder does not have any subscription fees or any other types of hidden fees. Our project fees are as low as 6% and we guarantee all types of unlimited work.

Escrow/Guarantee of Payment:

With pay-for-time type projects, netiher Freelancer doesn't allow you to verify your time on pay-for-time projects by punching in and out of a real-time system, and conclusively prove to the buyer that you were working. As a result they do not guarantee payment, and if the buyer does not wish to pay you, you may end up with no money.

Rent a Coder allows you to verify your time spent on a project by punching in and out of a real-time card application which records your desktop and webcam. The end result is indisputable proof that you've worked and deserve payment.

In addition, oDesk does not require escrow for pay-for-deliverables projects. But Rent a Coder protects your money with escrowing on all job types.

Arbitration:

Elance charges $66.66 or $133.33 for each arbitration, which may make it too expensive to be a legitimate option on your project. In addition, a buyer intent on abusing the system can stall the start of arbitration on Elance for 21 business days and during this period your money is not available to you. You also won't find any detailed rules on how Elance arbitrators make their decisions.

Freelancer limits arbitration to projects with milestone payments of more than $30. And its mandatory pre-arbitration processes allow an abusive buyer to stall the start of arbitration (and prevent you from accessing your money) for weeks.

oDesk's limited arbitration could prevent you from getting rightfully paid for the work you do. And they won't test your work to make sure it meets contract requirements.

At Rentacoder, we offer arbitration on all projects free of charge and we test your deliverables to make sure they meet requirements so that you can get paid. We also prevent abusive buyers from stalling the start of arbitration. As a result, 45% of our arbitrations are completed under a day. 75% under a week. We additionally publicize the detailed rules of how our arbitrators make their decisions.

There are other differences as well. I invite everyone to compare the 7 major services through this link to learn even more: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorInformation/WhyRentACoder_ForSellers.aspx

If you have any questions, please let me know. You can also call in to talk to a facilitator 7 days a week, or email us (see http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/Feedback.asp).

Nicole
www.rentacoder.com

[MrB]

Great post! We recently started using Odesk as well. What I find very useful is the project management feature. After starting the project Odesk keeps track of what your new hire worked on hour-by-hour. It even takes screen shots of his or her screen. This way you ensure every hour billed is an hour worked. (yes I am a micro manager and this feature allows me to sleep better at night)