Protecting your outsourcing with a NDA

Micael Nussbaumer
top rated freelancer in Odesk
July 6, 2015

 

 

Protect your freelancing work NDA

Although we have covered mostly issues related to the freelancers side of the equation regarding online work, this time we are going to go through a document that is mostly useful for the client outsourcing, the NDA (which is a Non Disclosure Agreement, sometimes referred to as confidentiality agreement (CA), confidential disclosure agreement (CDA), proprietary information agreement (PIA), or secrecy agreement (SA). We’ll see what it is and how you can write one, with a real sample included. Jump to the download section.

WHAT IT IS?

A NDA, as the name implies, is a form of legal document that binds the client and the contractor into specific terms regarding the sharing of information provided for the conclusion of a work. This information can be all sort of things, from plain information (facts, data) to compiled information (images, video, sound files) or others.

By stating exactly the extent to which the information/content shared between the two parties while pursuing a professional relationship can be used during and after the contract ends, a client can protect himself from having certain information made public (again – be it plain information or files created to complete the contract). Although less usual, this form of document can also be used by the freelancer to protect himself and to grant him rights in sharing information later on (for instance including samples of the work done in their own portfolios or profiles).

Besides this, a NDA can be either Uni-Lateral or Bi-Lateral, depending if the information to be protected is only one way (the information disclosed by the Client) or two ways (both the information that goes from the Client to the Contractor and the information the Contractor provides back to the Client). Usually a Bi-Lateral is the correct format for online work, since you’ll be receiving back new information derived from the assignment.

Imagine you only do a Uni-Lateral NDA, protecting the images you’re providing the freelancer to work with. This means he would have to guarantee not disclosing any of that information, but the finished work (since it goes from the Contractor to you) would be ok to be disclosed to public.

Online marketing tools

WHY IS IT USEFUL?

Imagine you’re a busy photographer, shooting assignments for mid-to-high level profile clients and you need total confidentiality regarding the fact that you’re outsourcing part of your work to someone else. Maybe your clients are expecting you to handle all of the work inside your firm or by yourself, or maybe your clients don’t want their names associated with outsourcing. In either case, when using online freelancing marketplaces you need to make sure that you are protected.

A Non-Disclosure agreement provides you exactly with that kind of protection. Of course, it functions mostly as a legal intimidation document, since if you’re outsourcing to India the most probable is that you will be unable to enforce the NDA, but still, in case you wish to, there are legal grounds for it because your worker as signed an explicit document agreeing to certain terms.

Other cases where a NDA is welcomed is when you’re launching something new, or when you don’t want references to the work to be available somewhere on the internet, linking your name to a freelancer or online outsourcing platform. You might also be passing sensitive information that you want to minimize to the maximum the probability of ending up online.

All these are reasonable reasons to have an NDA signed and it’s why it’s also called a Confidentiality Agreement. The scope of it can go much further.

HOW TO GET A NDA

To have a functional NDA it needs to state some basic facts about you (the client) and the contractor (the freelancer), plus the relevant wording and scope of protection for the work at hand. You need at least the following items to be explicitly stated:

• Full name of both you and the contractor/client
• Legal address
• Date
• Signatures
• Technical definition of the scope of the Non-Disclosure Agreement

Having said this, I have to tell you it’s easier said than done. For it to fully stand in court you will need accurate descriptions of the transactions and contents to be protected in the corresponding jargon. There are a few places where you can get samples for free and we’ll include here one regarding image editing.

You can tweak this one to your needs, changing the wording to reflect your personal needs, or you can hire a freelancer to write you a legal binding document, which shouldn’t be that expensive. Take into account that if you’re going to write several NDA’s it might be worth hiring someone to write one that can be tweaked in the future, this way diluting the cost of it.

Now named Upwork, previously oDesk keeps the same structure for their Job feed

SAMPLE NDA

The sample Non-Disclosure here included can be used free of charge and tweaked in any way you might want. It’s from a real freelancing job I’ve done in the past and it was provided by the client himself.

There are 4 formats provided, Pages, Pages 09, PDF, Word DocX and Word Doc 97-03.

Word DOCX Format
Word Doc 97-03 Format
PDF Format
Pages Format
Pages 09 Format

You can see by reading through this agreement that the spaces were left open for you to fill. In the case of digital media files you can just put [Digital Media] as to what it refers. You can make a more explicit reference to the material being protected. You can change the duration to which the contract applies, you can include for instance references to the usage of finished work for portfolio usage, without the mentioning of any data/names or any information that can link the work done to the client or clients.

If you’re working in a big project with very sensitive information then you might need to make sure you have a proper NDA provided by a lawyer to make sure you’re fully protected.

WHEN AN NDA IS NOT NEEDED

Sometimes people are afraid of their content going online, but in most cases you really shouldn’t worry that much. The internet is very wide and if you’re just using outsourcing services for regular tasks you don’t need to worry. There’s no problem if someone finds out you used a freelancer to prepare your product photos for etsy or amazon.

There’s very little probability that anyone can find out that you have been using a freelancer to retouch your personal images for facebook or other social media networks. But in case you’re a blog owner with a certain following it might be wise to protect yourself, you don’t want that somebody that is searching for an article they remembered on your blog ends up in a freelancers portfolio showcasing articles they written to others – that could be bad publicity since people are expecting a personal writing from you.

If you’re doing low-cost design services for others there’s probably nothing to be worried about someone stumbling upon their logo on some freelancers portfolio, but if you’re charging 500$ to 2000$ for a branding package and someone sees their branding in a freelancer profile that charges the same branding package for 100$ they might get a bit pissed of and your reputation might be affected.

If you’re outsourcing technical and repetitive tasks to a freelancer and then applying your own know-how and expertise to deliver fully polished images to your clients, then probably there’s nothing wrong in seeing that work online in somebody else’s page.

Job proposal page on http://www.elance.com

Conclusion

Use your discretion and use an NDA to protect sensitive information but not to hide unethical business practices. If the reason why you’re using an NDA is to protect your clients from bad publicity that might arise from the use of outsourcing, then I personally believe it’s fine. If you’re using it to protect your unprofessional behaviour (charging high prices and outsourcing the job to cheap labour overseas without any additional input from you to the final product) then don’t use an NDA, change the way you work.

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Freelancing Online – Writing winning proposals

Micael Nussbaumer
top rated freelancer in Odesk
May 6, 2015

 

How to write winning freelancing proposal?

In the two previous articles we went through setting up a profile in freelancing platforms and creating an online portfolio for free using WordPress.com, today we’re going to see how to apply to a job and get it.

Just as there are guidelines on how to write a formal letter writing job proposals also has some rules, that although breakable, should be taken into consideration.

I’ll use elance.com job proposal system to illustrate this as it’s one of the most complete. You can use the same ideas for other places as well and adjust them for those other places.

Job posting and proposal in Elance

Usually a “Job Advertisement” is made of the following information:

• Title of the job

Job title in Elance job feed

• Available budget
• Duration
• Date of posting
• End of posting
• Description – The actual brief for the job – Sometimes clients are looking for specific types of contractors and their briefs may be quite short, as they are intended to people who know what to do, other times the brief gives you some more information but the clients will only pass more relevant information to proposals they deem appropriate
• Relevant samples of the work to be done: examples of what is needed and reference work/links for you to get a better idea are usually included along the advertisement as well – Imagine someone wants a layout for a brochure, they may include brochures in the style they’re looking to get, or links for you to see them.

Depending on the platform you’re applying the fields you need to fill in vary, but mostly you’ll need to write:

• The proposal or “cover letter” – where you briefly explain who you are plus include all the relevant information about this particular job, why you are the best fit, how you are going to achieve and deliver the job, your availability and terms, ask any questions you might have, etcetera.
• Along with the proposal you usually can include in separate fields the duration of the job, when you’ll start, your cost/rates; samples; milestones structure you’ll use to bill the job, etcetera.

Bid/Proposal fields in Elance

I’ll provide you both a “job advertisement” and the proposal I wrote for it. I ended up getting this job and worked with this client in the following months, creating an income of more than 4.200$ from this client alone, during a period of 7 months (averaging 600$ per month).

Note that one difference between a fixed salary and freelancing is that many times you have several ongoing jobs, you’re not deriving your total income from a single client, but when combined together, the total income of several clients make up for a decent salary.

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The job description is as follows:

“I am a full time professional high-end architectural photographer looking to build an ongoing relationship with a professional architectural image editor to work on interior, exterior, detail, dusk and dawn images.

Please take a look at my before and after video to show you the kind of editing I am looking for: [hidden link]

Job Requirements…

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Then the client goes on to explain all requirements, from technical aspects, to software proficiency expected from the contractor, details, etcetera”

Elance job bid example

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Since it was a lengthy description I also wrote an extensive answer:

“Hello,

my name is Micael Nussbaumer and I’m a photographer and editor, with extensive experience regarding architectural imagery.
You can see various samples of my work at [hidden link]
I have read your detailed post and I’m definitively interested in working with you.

My rates range from 10$ per image to quite more, depending on the extent of the editing required, quality of source images, etc.
I can definitively fine-tune my editing process to meet clients expectations, although I have my own workflow, that usually goes like this:

• Raw-conversion, perspective correction, elements removal, cleaning up blown-out areas, selective layered editing for colour homogeneity, exposure adjustments, image placement (persons or whatever needs), selective dodge&burning, contrast, sharpness.

I’m very used to ACR, LR, Bridge, Photoshop. I’m an Adobe CC subscriber. I’ve used Nik in the past but I have to tell you I’m not that pro efficient using it, although I can learn of course.

You can see feedback here for this kind of work and in some other platforms and I have worked with some well known photographers throughout the time.
Your expected turn-around time is achievable and I would say that for what you’re asking, and looking at the detail work you need done, plus the clients you seem to work with, that around 25$ / img would be a reasonable price.

This price would include everything, from the elance fee, to uploads, downloads, reviews when needed (although if the brief is clear most probably you won’t have to ask for them). Of course we can also budget it accordingly to project or image, and in case a long-term collaboration is in place, prices can be adjusted according to volume of work.
I’m actually looking for longer term-collaborations right now and I’m available to do you a free test run, so feel free to share the image with me, along with the brief.

Let me know your thoughts, plus any questions,
all the best, looking forward to your reply and thanks for your time
Micael Nussbaumer

Approach to the Job:

Within 24h – Execution of one image contemplating all the edits previously mentioned (in the proposal field), sending back that image for review on look, colours, mood, sharpness, exposure, etc. If fine, proceeding to the remaining batch, if not, redoing it and once again feedback process.
In 5 days, delivery of all 25 images.
Cost: 500$ with Elance fee included

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Sample work done for a proposal I didn’t get – it also happens – but still this can be used for portfolio

After this proposal I got a reply and I did a sample picture for the client to see if I was actually capable of doing what he was asking. After that we started working and it went for some months.

I would write the proposal a bit differently if it was now but it worked.

First, I introduced myself making it clear that I specialise in the genre of photography this client was looking for. I could have said “with extensive experience preparing images for other photographers”. This could have worked as well, but specifying the genre shows that I read the brief and that I’m aware of the skills he needs.

Of course it’s not enough to write it, so I backed that statement with quite an extensive portfolio of interior and exterior architectural images I had edited. Here the client could see before/after images of my work, giving strength to my proposal and showing that indeed what I said was true – I had several work in that genre alone.

portfolios in Elance

Then I went on to give a general look of my costs, my method of working and the software I use. This shows that I also understand the technical aspects of the task and the software, so it will make any kind of technical communication easier, in case it’s needed.

I explain the estimated costs for this particular kind of work (based on the references the client mentions) along with my willingness to work in longer term projects, which in this case was a plus, since it means the client won’t need to go through another candidate selection for a new job – as I’m already interested and able to do what he needs done.

Skills & Tests taken at Elance

As I said, I would have written it differently now, but this only goes to show that even if your proposals aren’t perfect as long as you include the relevant bits they can go through.

After writing the proposal we talked a bit more, regarding how to receive and deliver the files, details about payments and schedules. I also provided a “free of charge” sample of my work in one of his images.

So how should you prepare your proposals?

I would organise a proposal as follows:

1. Introduce yourself and your skills – make it relevant to the specific job you’re applying – saying for instance “I’m a copywriter but I also work translating documents” is less relevant for a translation job than saying “I’ve been translating documents for companies, magazines and institutions for the past 5 years”. Even if you work mostly as a copywriter, make the focus of your introduction the most relevant possible to the job at hand, because why would the client go with a copywriter that “also does translations” instead of a full-time professional translator?
2. Give the client relevant examples of your work, things that show them you will be able to accomplish the task – like previous works you’ve done that are similar in their nature and scope to what is being asked – nobody likes to loose time and money, if you can show a client you already tackled similar projects and completed them successfully they will be much more inclined to hire you.
3. Tell them why you would be a great hire and why you would like to work in this project.
4. Ask the questions that need to be asked. If the brief isn’t clear enough, or if by your experience you know you need some more items to produce a realistic budget, ask for that kind of information – it not only shows that you have an understanding of the scope of the project, it shows you’re paying attention and putting in time ahead to prevent misunderstandings.
5. If possible suggest at least one way of accomplishing what is being asked. If, for instance, a client wants the creation of a website with a certain set of features, provide them with a brief plan and if you can do it in different ways depending on different requirements, show them that they have options depending on the subtleties of the final product – once again, this shows you have read, you understand and you’re capable of solving the current task.
6. Finish off by explaining your rates, how you want to be paid, what the client will receive, when you’re able to start and finish, how you can deliver the project, technicalities (for instance if you’re working on video you may say that you’ll deliver a master video file and a youtube optimised file). Make it clear about the included reviews and the value of your time.

Feedback history

Put some time into it, really, on the other end of the screen there’s someone who will probably be receiving quite a bunch of proposals, someone who values their time and money and wants the best possible solution for their problem, within their budget, or they might be working for someone else and they don’t want to tell their client “the budget isn’t enough” because they had to pay you and then someone else to finish it or they miss their deadlines because you didn’t follow through.

Don’t waste time bidding on projects you aren’t that good at. You can vary your fields of expertise but make sure you’re really up to the competition. “I think I can do it” it’s not the type of thing somebody who’s trying to launch, keep or improve their business want to hear. Another reason why you should stick with things you’re really good at is that it’s not worth receiving sub-par reviews. I recently had a very bad experience with a client and definitively that bloody low review this client left me is going to stick for a while. That’s also why it’s important to make things clear from the beginning.

When freelancing through these platforms, although tempting it might be to do it outside or not using their message system and escrow systems, don’t do that unless you have a very good reason for it or you know the client already well enough and there’s trust between both of you. This message systems is a record of the conversations – if you say something in the proposal or work room and then you amend it through e-mail or Skype if you go to dispute a work it won’t stick. Make sure you either bill the work through the work logging software the platform offers you or that you have funded milestones for the work at hand. Don’t be pushy but stand your ground. Not using any of these systems may end up with a client not paying, arguing and stress.

Another piece of advice when starting is – offer a  discount to your client. If you don’t have marvellous work and references, plus you don’t have feedback on the platforms, it might be difficult to land a job by offering fair prices.

Try smaller tasks. They might not pay enough to cover your hourly rate, but since they’re small, you should take them as “investments”. If you have the experience to do something and you can deliver a great product but you don’t have feedback, tell exactly that – “I don’t have yet any feedback here as I’ve only now started working through this platform but I’m willing to give you quite a decent discount to make up for that. Be assured that I’m highly professional and will deliver much more value than what you’re paying for and I’m doing it as an investment for my own profile here…”

Architectural image editing portfolio view on Elance

Of course this all depends on what you can offer, maybe sometimes you can start right away with your real rates if you have a proven track record, many times on the other hand, the easiest way is to loose a few bucks in the beginning.

After getting your first feedbacks don’t bid on jobs where the budget is much lower than what you can make. If the difference is small, you may bid and justify the higher price by backing it up with stellar work, but otherwise stick to those where you see that the budget fits your needs. I stopped bidding on clipping path projects because I cannot compete with outsourcing companies who charge 25c, 50c or 1$ for clipping complex objects, instead I try to compete in projects that require more know-how and where I know that my work stands-out when compared to cheaper freelancers. Clipping paths require time, I know I can offer much better work, but the clients sometimes just need an enough-to-go-by work and a difference of 2$ per image is too much for their budget to handle.

Don’t look at providing free samples as a waste of time, look at it as an investment. I’m an image editor. When I was starting many of the jobs I applied to required a “sample” image to be provided with the application for choosing purposes. Instead of doing a sloppy job I did my best on those free-of-charge samples. Why you might ask? Loosing one or two hours for work which isn’t guarantee to be paid for? The reason is that, I was looking for jobs, I didn’t have feedback yet, so that meant a bonus to my application, because it showed I could handle the job, maybe even to a higher standard than the client was expecting or others were offering. So if it made me get that job it meant it would have paid itself plus by showing it, sometimes, I was able to charge my original price for it. But even if the proposal wasn’t selected, that meant I had done a real task that was ordered by someone, and since I put enough effort in it for it to look good, it ended up being another item for my portfolio.

So it’s a win-win situation. One other thing is, it sends a message, because if you are willing to put work ahead of a payment it usually shows that when getting paid you’ll put the same kind of effort and that’s always a good indicator.

Feedback & ratings @ upwork.com

Another thing you can do, but this is just to save your time, is to create a text document where you have one or more templates for job proposals with the basic stuff you always write so that you can easily copy that and past into the proposal. If you use this method pay attention to customising and filling in the blanks before sending because, in case you forget, it will show your prospective client you are using a “template” proposal, which doesn’t come as professional – nobody likes to be treated as “just another one”. If you don’t like templates or you don’t see a use for them you can still just save the links for your portfolios and copy/paste them whenever you fill a bid.

Last but not least, keep trying. Invest time in polishing your proposals, spend time setting up a good profile and coming up with a compelling portfolio. If you’re good and willing to put in the effort I’m sure you can do it. People are always looking for competent workers who can deliver what they need.

This was a very big post so we’ll end it here. If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave us a comment!

On the next article we’ll talk about how to protect yourself and your work regarding payments and © copyright in the many available freelancing platforms.

Profile Stats @ Peopleperhour

If you haven’t read our other articles on freelancing online check them out below:

• Introduction to Freelancing Platforms
• Creating a compelling profile for freelancing online
• Using WordPress.com to set-up a free great looking portfolio

Until the next article, safe trips and good luck writing your proposals! If you use other tricks to write compelling proposals and win jobs please share them with us in the comments for others to check.

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Freelancing Online – The basics

Micael Nussbaumer
top rated freelancer in Odesk
May 6, 2015

All you need to know about freelancing online

This is our first article regarding freelancing online using different platforms. We also wrote a few other articles that you might want to check in case you’re considering to start freelancing online, or improve your presence and reach. We wrote about creating a compelling profile, setting up a pleasing portfolio for free with wordpress and also an extensive post on how to write your proposals in order to get clients.

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Benefits of freelancing

You probably have heard about it already by now, it seems sort of a buzz word nowadays and everybody is interested in doing it. The reasons for such an interest are many and understandable.

From the point of view of the freelancer you get:

1. to work remotely, from anywhere in the world with as much as an internet connection and access to a computer;
2. the freedom to choose your schedule, rates and projects;
3. possibility of working in whatever you like that is possible to be executed remotely;

From the small-business and entrepreneur side by outsourcing, on the other hand, you happen to be able to:

• cut down costs while getting access to an extremely varied pool of talent in many different areas;
• easily change contractors if they no longer suite your needs or if you find a better option;
• easily assemble teams that can tackle many technical aspects of developing a business without having to hire costly companies;

Although still a child, this movement is set to change the face of how we work.

Here at www.staygypsy.com we will develop a series of articles regarding freelancing online, where we will tackle how to set-up your profiles, give you real-life examples of how to apply and get jobs, deal with clients and expand your portfolios while increasing your revenue. They will not be the magical “get-rich-working-from-home” articles that seem to flood the internet nowadays, it all involves work, perseverance and professionalism, but what sort of a challenge would it be if it was easy?

In this first article we’ll go through how this kind of work functions and also through a few platforms you can use. We’ll focus on the platforms for freelancing alone, although in the articles regarding portfolios and worksamples we’ll dwell into the different websites and services you can use for free to put up a more professional showcase of your work.

My profile on http://www.oDesk.com

So how does this stuff work?

Basically you register into a website that works as a market place for freelancers offering a wide variety of skills and clients looking for specific tasks to be done.

Imagine you’re starting your own eBay or Amazon store, to sell clothes you make or buy. You don’t have the resources to photograph these articles according to their guidelines nor the skills to make them look really good for potential buyers. Previously you would have to hire a costly photographer or company to edit your photos, ask a friend who’s good at photography to do it for you (this is still a good option if you happen to have one),  but now you have the same options but at much more competitive rates:

• you can put an open advertisement for photographers in your area to shoot your products professionally;
• or you can take the photographs yourself and then post an advertisement hiring someone who is able to edit the photographs to eBay’s or Amazon’s standards, while improving everything that is possible (for you to have an estimate it can range from a few cents per image to a few bucks).

Custom service offering on https://www.peopleperhour.com/site/register?rfrd=321475.1

When we say “advertisement” we are talking about a “job offer”. This is basically made up from a job description, a budget, time frame for completion and samples of what you need done, along with special requests. It’s essentially a brief that tells any prospective freelancer the task you need done, how much you’re willing to pay for it and when you need it delivered.

Imagine now that these tasks can be anything, from writing a specific article, doing research, translating content, producing video, cleaning up audio, designing a brochure, making a website or developing a website functionality, coding an iOS application for your business, hiring a virtual assistant or an accountant, managing your social media channels, doing costumer research and support, interviewing someone in another country, you name it. Anything that is possible to do remotely and delivered remotely can be done. For big companies probably it’s better to have their own departments to handle these sort of things but if you are a small business or an entrepreneur all of a sudden you get access to top quality workers at much lower rates.

So how does this work for the people who sell their services?

It’s also easy, you register yourself, you fill up a profile with information and skills, links to your work, referrals and you start applying to jobs other people post there.

Job offers on http://www.oDesk.com

Why use these platforms you may ask? Hasn’t freelancing been around for a long time now?

That is true but all of a sudden you’re not limited to your geographical network, you can work for clients all over the world, through simple and quick interactions over the internet. You’re not tied to a single client either, you can have many and you can easily decide which ones you want to keep or not. It also allows you to play with different income levels and make up for the “cheap” rates by working with people in which countries the “cheap rate” is higher than your country’s “decent rate”.

One of the things that piss me off though is the fees these platforms take from you. It is true they provide for a system that allows you to exchange messages with your clients, upload files, invoice them, receive the money, transfer it to digital accounts or bank accounts and create a feedback history that rewards people who keep up good work.

On the other hand all of this would be possible without the high-fees they charge, you’ve got more than enough options when it comes to messaging and storing files and the same for receiving money and passing it to your bank accounts. There are nonetheless two aspects that without such platforms you will not be able to get, one is the feedback rating system – specially important if you are an excellent freelancer – and the payment protection.

Every platform of online work offers some sort of payment protection be it through guarantee payments on jobs billed hourly or milestone/escrow payments that assure you the money is already there and will be yours if you complete the job as discussed.

http://www.freelancer.com subscription plans and different fees

I still envision many changes in the freelancing environment. As more people move to this sort of platforms and more people hire through them, competition will start to stack up and at some point in order to attract and keep talent these platforms will have to come up with more competitive pricing systems and maybe offer “exclusivity” type of deals. We already saw it for instance in stock image agencies. Some of the biggest players offer exclusivity possibilities and this translates into higher placement in searches, better rates, higher acceptance rate for submitted files, etc.

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Most popular freelancing platform

ELANCE

elance.com This is probably the biggest contender in the freelancing market. It recently acquired oDesk (another big company) although they still operate in different websites.

In my view it’s the most professional one in terms of presentation and functionalities. It allows you to post jobs, invite specific skilled freelancers, apply to jobs, create a portfolio, have escrow payments and hourly jobs guarantee (with their work log software) and gives you some good insights into your freelancing metrics. It offers a free monthly wire transfer to your bank if in any denomination besides the US dollar. It supports Paypal and Skrill as well.

They charge around 8.75% in fees from each job value. This means that if you get a job with a total payment of 150$ you’ll eventually only receive 136$. They have a legal dispute department for payments but you can only use it in case you have funded escrow payments or are using their work log software.

Job proposal page on https://www.elance.com/?rid=2RB89

They also offer different types of subscriptions for freelancers. A free basic one and then paid subscriptions which boast more perks, like increased job application quota, higher placement in the search index; ability to see the highest, lowest and median bid for a particular job, and the possibility to add more skills and keywords to your profile.

One of the drawbacks is that with the free subscription you can only apply to jobs in one category – depending on your skill set this could be relevant – if you’re a digital marketer and content producer you’ll soon find yourself unable to apply to some jobs that are in different categories although completely within your skill set.

One of the unique features of elance.com though is its ability to verify your identity through a skype partner called Aristotle, this way you can upload your picture, plus legal identification documents and have a skype meeting where they will verify your picture with your face. Not essential but neat.

Elance has also a great deal of statistics and information about freelancing trends, you can use this page to navigate through skills or categories and understand what is growing and declining in demand, it’s a useful tool so check it out here!

oDesk (recently changed to Upwork)

oDesk.com now boasts most of elance.com functionalities but still keeps its own platform independently. As of today (6 of May 2015) it has been renamed to Upwork.com. It seems it’s exactly the same as oDesk but with a name change. Elance seems to be left to migrate into this new platform and both oDesk and Elance will in the next few months be merged.  You’ll find the same type of work protection but a different layout, work message system and different time-frames for payment reception and withdrawal. I enjoy it as well and I think it’s a great choice. The remaining features are kept, such as having your personal profile page, with picture, information, gallery and feedback.

It charges you 10% of your income and now it also offers different paid subscriptions. It allows you to apply to different categories of work. For withdrawing your money to a paypal account you’ll pay a fixed fee of 1$, no matter how much the withdrawal is.

Job proposal on ww.oDesk.com, with the fees charged shown while applying.

PeoplePerHour

peopleperhour.com is a new platform that is increasingly becoming popular. It’s based in UK so that explains its majority of UK clients although you can find many people posting and applying from other countries. Although it doesn’t look as professional as elance.com it’s definitively a trustworthy platform. Their messaging system works well and you get also a personal profile page. There are hourly jobs and fixed price jobs. It also allows you to create a type of “store front” where you can sell general services name “Hourlies”. This is also good and can drive a big amount of work. It’s a mixture of normal freelancing platforms and service package platforms such as fiverr.com

peopleperhour.com has the most curious fee structure of all websites. Up to the first 175£ (equivalent to 210€ and 280$) you make you’ll get charged 15% of that value. After that initial value you’ll only be charged 3.5%. Additionally, if you’re in Britain or US you get free direct wire transfers to your bank, but if you’re not you’ll pay fees and for Paypal you’ll be charged 1.9%.

Freelancer

Job category search on http://www.freelancer.com

freelancer.com is one of the oldest platforms and boasts the biggest user base. I personally started through them and in the beginning I used it quite often although nowadays I don’t get to see any action there. It has the same options as other platforms besides the hourly payment protection. You can get milestones funded before delivering work so to protect yourself, you can set-up a portfolio and your own profile and you get to bid in numerous projects for free. In their paid subscription you get many kinds of rewards. It also has a special ranking system that automatically places your bid in better position relatively to others based on your feedback, accomplished works in that specific category or in case you pay for it.

I think that it’s not as organised as elance.com or odesk.com but as I said I started there and some of my serious work in the beginning came through a client I met there.

Their paid subscriptions from Standard offer you reduced fees as well.

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Fees structure

Some examples so you can wrap your head around what their fees mean. In peopleperhour; imagine you billed 700$ in a month and withdrew that money to your paypal.com account. You would pay in fees 42$ (first 280$ at 15%) + 14,7$ (remaining 420$ at 3,5%) + 12,3$ (Paypal transfer fee from the remaining value), totalling 69$. Take into account that the difference between 3,5% and 15% will be reimbursed to your PPH wallet by the end of the month, it’s not immediate, but you’ll end up with 631$ in your paypal.com account.

For oDesk.com with the same value of jobs you would pay 71$ ( 10% oD fees plus 1$ for withdrawal), which earns you 629$.

In elance.com you would pay 61,25$, so you make 638,75$.

In freelancer.com you get 10% fees taken from your income, but if you happen to signup for their more expensive subscriptions, Standard for instance, you get charged only 5% although you have to pay 40€ monthly.

So in freelancer.com imagine that you have this subscription and you make the same 700$.

You’ll be making 620,5$ (5% which amounts to 35$ more the subscription 44,5$, totalling 79,5$)

On the other hand, with this same subscription if you’re making around 1.500$ per month, that would translate into 1380$, while on PPH it would amount to 1388$ (42 + 42,7 + 26,9 = 111,6$), on elance.com 1368$ (8,75%) and on oDesk.com 1350$ (10%).

Feedback history on http://www.odesk.com

So what happens is that the more professional looking companies, and from which I derive most of my income, are actually those who “punish” higher incomes. I believe they should fix this soon.

It’s about time that a platform with lower fees comes around, just helping handling escrow payments and providing feedback systems, without any of the remaining features as of today it’s quite easy to use free cloud storage and e-mail to communicate.

Besides these platforms you have other options, like guru.com, fiverr.com and new freelancing platforms that aim to a particular language/geography . These are the main ones for me and if you know any others feel free to comment and we will add them to this post!

If you have questions regarding this kind of freelancing ask us we will surely include it in the following posts!

Next time we’ll cover the basics of a good profile and how to write a job proposal with real examples that actually worked, and also how you can build a great portfolio online for free using WordPress.com, until then, safe travels.

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Useful links:

• If you want to read about Upwork and the merging of Elance with Odesk check it out here: Upwork
• You can check Elance’s annual impact repot here it tells you a bit about how online freelancing is changing the marketplace.
• Peopleperhour has a nice blog with many insights, tips and other articles that can help you, check it here.
• And Upwork (former oDesk) also has their own blog and resources page, where you can also find interesting information, click here to view it.

Now named Upwork, previously oDesk keeps the same structure for their Job feed.

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