Elance released information yesterday about changes to its membership plans. Complaints from the writers, translators and administrative assistants currently working through Elance are filling up the Water Cooler forum.
The fee hikes leave this group of service providers at a serious disadvantage. Writing is already low paying for the skill set and effort involved. Earning income as a writer on Elance just became more costly while other categories of services (graphic design, programming, etc) saw their expenses slashed. Sound fair?
Elance also now offers a “gold seal of approval” with their Premier plan. Essentially, writers now have to pay $20 a month to have their services stamped “quality” by Elance. Many writers are insulted by this cost. They already have years of experience, a five-star rating and a 100% client satisfaction track record.
Who is Elance to charge them for an extra pat on the head, they ask.
Some possible effects of the changes include:
- Higher provider rates that drive buyers elsewhere
- Fewer skilled providers to fill buyer demand
- More job opportunities due to a lack of service providers
- Individual freelancers unable to continue to provide services at a competitive rate
- Fewer buyers due to the elite impression of the Elance site
- Projects that are more demanding because of the elite impression
- Other project auction sites filling up with service providers
- Low-rate freelancers increasing their income
Of course, that list isn’t exhaustive.
It’s clear that Elance is trying to cut the fluff of low-quality service providers to offer buyers with a better service and freelancers with a better work environment. The fee hikes may accomplish that – to some point.
Consider, though, what writers now face to work through Elance:
- Membership fees jumping from $349 (Select) to $719 (Large business, Premier)
- Higher fees to bid on projects (between $0.50 to $1.50 per bid – previously free)
- A potential ratio of 1 project awarded for every 7 to 10 bids (average)
- An 8.75% commission on all awarded projects
Hefty expenses to earn a living, no?
Elance’s changes might just drive away many of their top-quality providers, leaving only the riff-raff. Smart move? I don’t think so.
Yikes! It sounds like they are going to have a lot of angry writers on their hands. I wonder how many of their providers will stay on and if that will effect the type of bids that buyers receive. The other problem I see is that providers will hike up their prices to cover the extra expense, leaving buyers paying more than they should. People will be leaving on both ends.
That’s a shame. I’ve heard really good things about Elance in the past, and know a few writers who use it exclusively.
If you’re a freelancer looking for a great place to make money, you should take a look at oDesk (http://www.odesk.com). There are no membership fees and no fees to apply for jobs. Take a look at some of the jobs available for writers: http://www.odesk.com/console/jobs/?search_button.x=1&action=Jobs&reset=1&search=Advanced&filter%5BJobCategory%5D=Writing
~Michelle
oDesk
Yes, their fees just went to the sky and I see that many of their freelancers decided to leave (now or when their subscriptions end). And I really understand them. I am thinking of leaving myself also. That’s too bad, I really liked elance.
A lot of people are saying they’ll leave, but the reality is for each one of us that leaves, there’s another freelancer who it going to be taken in by Elance’s placebo solutions. Some won’t read beyond the pretty words and assurances to see that in effect, nothing is changing at all. It’s nice to think that everyone will get angry enough to leave and make a dent where it will hurt Elance the most – right in the pocketbook – but it will take everyone in the freelancing community to do it and stick to their guns.
Um, bro… I never said we were leaving Elance… never said we were staying either…
I never said that either. Just making a general observation of the community as a whole. I know what *we’re* doing
Oooh. I get it.
*goes back to minding his own business*
Hi there, yes I’m in the same situation, I don’t know what to think, have you tried ifreelance.com?
regards!
Arturo
I’ve tried iFreelance, yes. It tends to be a nice place, with respectable buyers and no one trying to take advantage of writers. However, writing gigs seem to be few and far between. There isn’t much activity going on at the site, and since iFreelance is pretty open about handing out other contact information, a good deal of business happens off-site.
I personally find it better than Guru (you don’t want to hear what I think of that place), but it isn’t as highly promoted or cared for as Elance is. Regardless of Elance’s fees and their way of doing business, I still think they’re the best auction site for writers out there.
Craigslist also offers plenty of opportunity, but scanning through thousands of ads and sites a day to find all the possible gigs is a little ridiculous.
@ Scott – that is a great comment, and I appreciate you taking the time to put this down for freelancers to think over.
Personally, I think Elance is a very good place for writers to gain business. Is it the only place? Of course not. Is it the most expensive? Oh hell yes. Is it worth the cost?
Hm. To be honest, it could be, yes. I’m not saying it is or isn’t, but it has potential to be a worthwhile expense. Compared to all other sites out there where writers and buyers connect, Elance holds the prize.
I think you’ve also made some strong points that freelancers need to remember: Assume that everyone has equal skills – what sets you apart from your competition? What makes you desirable as a provider? Why should the buyer choose you over all others?
If you’re not getting business – on one site or another, it doesn’t matter which one – don’t blame the site; take a look at what you’re doing and see where you can improve to land more jobs.
James,
Thanks for your comments. Would you recommend another place where I should post my projects? I don’t like to post the same project to multiple locations as I don’t think it’s fair to bidders. But, if there’s a place that beats eLance, I’ll post my next project there. I have one coming up – it’s a spanish language translation of 150 letters…
thanks,
Scott.
@ Scott – Gah, put me on the spot, why don’t you!
I’m loathe to recommend another site. I think ELance is the best to date and offers the best quality of writers.
I have heard that projectbidz.com offers good translation services, though. I haven’t tried them myself, but a few writers on our team do some French/English work there and are pleased.
If I knew spanish, I’d offer you a quote on the job. However, you might even find a writer right here by posting that request.
Anyone skilled in Spanish AND writing?
Hm. I wonder if we should have a job board?
I understand completely your sentiment. It’s like someone is stealing from your rice bowl. The same bowl that you use to feed your children.
However, I have to say that use eLance a TON as a buyer. And as a buyer, I totally love what it has to offer from my perspective. So, in a general sense, I think it really adds a lot of value to the transaction and I appreciate it. A few of my thoughts as to why I love eLance:
1. I have never had a project failure. People hustle and get the job done. It’s not about the money (although that’s important, for sure) but more important is the reputation. People really want to do a quality job. In past jobs I have hired outside contractors and I have to say that’s not as common as you might think. Worst of all is all the delays and difficulty in getting feedback turnaround. Working with people on eLance has been much easier than without it.
2. When I need something done, sometimes it is funky and requires an oddball skill (at least to me!) I have hired out Spanish language translation, web site copy writing, web site design, logo design, programming, shell scripting, technical writing, marketing, SEO – basically it’s a lot of stuff. All I do is describe in detail what I need and then wait for responses. I have completed perhaps 25 projects that way, and only once did I have to cancel a project because I could not find someone to do what I needed. The ability to find the right person is important.
Put it another way, if you didn’t have eLance to find me (the customer) you would be paying google perhaps $1 a click for advertising. The ability to connect the buyer and the seller is not to be underestimated.
3. Then there’s the transaction platform. eLance allows me to handle payment, invoicing, communication, delivery of deliverables and even mediation (which, thankfully I have never needed). It’s really quite nice. We also use our own bug tracking system for the programming projects, but aside from that it is really quite a nice package.
As a buyer, I am always looking for better ways to find vendors to do work for me. So, I would have no problem switching to something better. Although, honestly, I am not so sure I would have ‘cheaper’ as a higher priority as, while price is important, just as important is finding the right vendor and getting the job done with a minimum of fuss.
As a buyer I would suggest this – make sure that your buyer knows what costs you pay to use eLance. Educate your buyer as to the value that they are getting. I see no reason to pay extra for a logo – I certainly accept all bidders, regardless of their logos and other bells and whistles. I am looking for results and your feedback will speak for itself. I also really don’t care about preferred providor or escow payments etc. All of these upscale things really mean nothing to me. Your reputation will speak for itself.
I will say one more thing – I have worked with some vendors for over 3 years now. I met them on eLance and we do projects outside and inside of eLance. So, it’s not just the initial cost of a project that you should be thinking of. What is it worth to gain a long-term customer? If you really don’t like eLance, what’s to stop you from picking up new customers via eLance and then working with them directly on future work? eLance has a lot of incentive not to gouge sellers.
Hello,
I’m in top 100 on Elance (connects.elance.com / http://www.dcrsolutions.biz ) and have something to say in all this:
1. Elance got expensive because they were earning bad reputation from templated bidders (that can be found on Guru.com – just make a coder account and bid on one project, they encourage such techniques)
2. Elance is not a cheap market, if you’re looking for something done cheap ( and understand the risks ) you could go to http://www.rentacoder.com , they’re the best price over the net if you really know what you’re looking for;
3. Elance reputation, like all other freelance/online/outsource markets has gone down, check that on Alexa, if you know the answer, I’d be curios to know it as well.
4. Elance is the main engine for many websites you’re visiting each day – opensource days seem to be gone.
5. This industry has reached a level where the number of users isn’t your main advantage and they invested (very well) in making their service professional and offer sustainable work opportunities – I haven’t heared anyone dying hungy on from freelancing; and I also believe online base services will take over sooner or later.
As a conclusion, if you’re looking for litle extra money in my view Elance is not the best business; if you’re looking to grow yourself as a business and invest yourself into this, then that’s a great opportunity in my view. (don’t tell me Indians are the most successfull over there bcause you should imagine they are a 100people company doing 100k/year)
Good luck!
I am a full time writer who uses elance exclusively. I am thinking of marketing my services elsewhere in addition to elance. I recently bid on a project and the buyer wanted to speak with me over the phone to explain the project in more details. We both had an understanding that if I was chosen, the project would take place within the elance portal. For some reason, elance investigated and saw that I had provided my phone number to the buyer and immediately suspended my account for policy violation. Who can argue with them? However, I am a paying provider so before suspending the account, shouldn’t they have contacted me first? This is what happens when you rely solely on one source. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. So for those who are writers here, I would suggest creating a blog or website with your writing services, find out what your niche is and go on the search engine and search for companies that would use your service and email a letter to them to see if you can get work. If you are serious about making writing your full time career, you have to market yourself. I see writers doing that also on elance. That is just my two cents. By the way, I do write quality articles, ebooks, reports, blog posts and web content if any buyers are interested.