Freelance marketplaces - Overview
During last couple of months I’ve used various freelance marketplaces and thought to share my experiences. What does it cost, what’s the ROI, how hard it is? There is no simple answer unfortunately but instead I will give you a broader picture from my experience.
First lets list the marketplaces I’ve used. Bear in mind that there a number of similar websites providing the same service but I’ve chosen these cause I think they are most popular ones and that serious companies use them to outsource their work, except DesignQuote, I listed them because of different approach.
Not in particular order:
You have 2 business models widely spread, one is charging a freelancer monthly fee and the other is charging project posting fee. There are of course variations of these 2 business models and some companies are trying to “rip off” both company/person who Is submitting the work and company/person who is requesting the work.
DesignQuote however has totally different model which is becoming very popular now days, lead generation or pay-per-lead.
Pricing
As you can see from pricing table Sitepoint is free for project seekers so you could say that ROI is 100% cause there are no whatsoever expenses for freelancer so bear that in mind when you see next table.
Personal experience ratings (from 1-10)
Pros and Cons
Conclusion
Seems like Sitepoint is winner, but is it? It’s true that I’ve made most of my connections through there but on the other hand only one was high paying project (so far).
Guru is very close to Sitepoint if you check the overall score table, but it’s damn hard to compete in terms of prices with thousands of companies from India, Ukraine, China, etc. Also it’s very hard to get noticed on such (bidding) marketplaces among top rated and ranked freelancers and companies who made their way up long time ago and now they collect up all the cream.
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October 22nd, 2007 at 3:00 am