*3: These sites implement pay-for-time in a manner that allows an abusive worker to bill you for hours not worked, because they neglect to do one ore more of the following:

1. Require the worker to validate their billed hours by punching in and out of a real-time timecard system.
2. Require the worker to demonstrate that they were at their workstation by recording their web-cam during billed hours.
3. Require the worker to demonstrate that they were working on your project by recording their computer desktop during billed hours.

You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

 

Odesk does not offer escrowing on pay-for-deliverables projects, which forces you to choose between two potentially unpleasant alternatives. Click here for more information.
 

Elance charges $66.66 or $133.33 for each arbitration, which may make it too expensive to be a legitimate option on your project. The majority of other sites offer arbitrations on all project sizes for free.
 

Freelancer limits arbitration to projects with milestone payments of more than $30. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

Scriptlance says in their contract: "We do not act as an arbitrator between parties, should a dispute arise, except in limited situations." Other sites that offer abitration do not have this limitation.
 

*5: These sites allow you to begin an arbitration immediately.
 

A worker 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. During the first phase (dispute assistance), the worker has up to 3 business days to respond, and can make this phase last up to 12 additional business days (15 business days total). After this, the arbitration phase "begins", but does actually start because the worker is given 3 business days to acknowledge the notice of arbitration, and the another 3 business days if they did not acknowledge the first notice. Only at this point is arbitration actually started. See the Elance contract for more information.
 

A worker intent on abusing the system can stall the start of arbitration on Guru for 20 business days and during this period your money is not available to you. Guru allows them up to 20 days in mandatory mediation before the site will force them into arbitration. See the Guru contract for more information.
 

A worker intent on abusing the system can stall the arbitration on Freelancer for 17+ days and during this period your money is not available to you. During this time, the site moves them through 3 stages into the final arbitration stage. Specifically: Freelancer requires you to submit to a mandatory round where the worker makes up to 3 bids to get you to reduce the price of the contract in exchange for stopping the process. In the next round, the worker has up to 7 days to submit evidence, and 3 additional days to accept round #1 or continue. After this, the workers has up to 7 days to deposit the arbitration fee. See the Freelancer.com contract for more information.
 

Scriptlance says in their contract: "We do not act as an arbitrator between parties, should a dispute arise, except in limited situations." Other sites that offer abitration do not have this limitation.
 

Requiring a status report is a good way to make sure your worker is making good progress and hasn't neglected or abandonded your project. Some sites have this feature built in, and allow you to get a refund immediately if a report is missed. This provides a powerful incentive to the worker to keep on top of your project.
 

You can require a mandatory weekly status report on all projects $150 or more.
 

The fees are calculated as a percentage of the project price.
 

Workers on Guru are charged a 2% fee for escrowing and arbitration. They are also charged 2.5% if the buyer uses Pay Pal or charged up to 4% if the buyer uses a credit card. The worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge these fees.
 

 

Elance does not offer escrowing on pay-for-time projects, which forces you to choose between two potentially unpleasant alternatives. Click here for more information.
 

*8: These sites do not require the worker to punch-in and out in real-time, which allows an abusive worker to log and bill you for time that they did not work.
 

*10: These sites do not require the worker to have a webcam and record it during billed hours, so you cannot detect when the worker bills you for time that they have left their workstation or fallen asleep.
 

Liveperson does not record the worker's webcam, but requires them to be interact with you via a chat session during billed hours, which indirectly allows you to monitor their activity.
 

The fees are calculated as a percentage of the project price.
 

Workers on Guru are charged a 2% fee for escrowing and arbitration. They are also charged 2.5% if the buyer uses Pay Pal or charged up to 4% if the buyer uses a credit card. The worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge these fees.
 

Rent A Coder hours:
Monday through Friday: 9am - 5pm.
Saturday, Sunday: 9am - 3pm
 

Elance hours:
Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm PST
Saturday, Sunday: Not available
 

Guru hours:
Monday - Friday 9am to 6pm EDT
Saturday, Sunday: Not available
 

Creating a detailed project posting is the most important thing you can do to make your project succesful. However, it's also time consuming and difficult, and requires so many details that even the most experienced buyers often forget to include all of them. Unfortunately, omissions often end up costing you unnecessary time, money, effort and/or aggravation.

A requirements wizard interviews solves this problem by asking you simple questions which explore areas that you probably haven't thought about before. It then creates a detailed specification for you that the worker can use.

As an example, let's say you want an internet site created. The wizard will explain that there are many different browsers and browser versions out there, and that websites rarely work on all of them unless the worker specifically codes it to do so. Cost is important to you, and you realize that you can't afford to support all of them. To solve your problem, the wizard explains the marketshare of the different browsers and you realize that you can still cover 95% of the market by only supporting 4 browser types/versions. This enables you to save a substantial amount of money in development and also avoid potential miscommunication with your worker later over the scope of the project.
 

Many buyers do not realize that many countries that are good to outsource to (such as India, Pakistan and Romania), do not have strong intellectual property laws. In such contries, workers can (and unfortunately do) steal source code from buyers and do not have to worry about being prosecuted for it.

To protect youself from this, it's important to choose a site that allows you to safe-guard your source code from theft.
 

Rent A Coder allows you to require all workers who bid on your project to be Chaperon enabled. Chaperon makes it virtually impossible for a coder to copy or pirate your source code by protecting it from creation and transport to storage and retrieval. Click here for more information on Chaperon.
 

Creating a detailed project posting is the most important thing you can do to make your project succesful. However, it's also time consuming and difficult, and requires so many details that even the most experienced buyers often forget to include all of htem. Unfortunately, omissions often end up costing you unnecessary time, money, effort and/or aggravation.

A requirements wizard interviews solves this problem by asking you simple questions which explore areas that you probably haven't thought about before. It then creates a detailed specification for you that the worker can use.

As an example, let's say you want a worker to make your site rank higher in the search engines. The wizard explains the marketshare of the different engines so that you can pick the ones that are most cost effective for you, and also walks you through the different onsite optimizations and offsite work that might be helpful to you.
 

When selecting from many potential workers it can be difficult to determine which truly have the specialized knowledge that your project requires.

Some sites allow the workers to prove their knowledge by becoming pre-certified by an appropriate testing agency. These sites also allow you to limit bidding on your project exclusively to workers who are certified in the area(s) you require.
 

*21: These sites allow you to require all workers who bid on your job to have been certified in one or more of the hundreds of tests created by ExpertRating.