*3: These sites implement pay-for-time in a manner that can be abused by the buyer. Since they do not provide definitive proof of your working to the buyer (i.e., no webcam and desktop monitoring) they cannot guarantee that you will be paid for every hour worked. An abusive buyer can decide to withhold your payment after you have worked the time, and you may not be paid. 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 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. During the first phase (dispute assistance), the buyer 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 buyer 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 buyer 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 buyer 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 buyer 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 buyer has up to 7 days to submit evidence, and 3 additional days to accept round #1 or continue. After this, the buyer 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.
 

These fees are paid by the worker and not by you. However, they may be passed on to you in the form of higher prices.
 

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.
 

Workers on Guru cannot place more than 10 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee ($29.95-$99.95/quarter for 100 bids for a person, $38.94-$129.94/quarter for 100 bids for a company). The majority of sites do not charge subscription fees.
 

Workers on Freelancer cannot place more than 15 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee to Freelancer (which also reduces their commission fee from 10% to 3%). The majority of sites do not charge subscription fees.
 

A real-time timecard system allows you punch a time clock in real-time, to verify your billable hours to the buyer. This (along with other protective feautures like proving your presence and work activity) lets you prove conclusively to a buyer that you were working. Sites with this type of system guarantee to pay you for the hours you've worked. Sites without such a system, cannot guarantee you this, and you can end up with no money for your efforts.
 

When working remotely, it's important to prove your presence on a job. By taking automatic images of your webcam, a site can prove this to the buyer and (with other protections) guarantee to pay you for the hours you've worked.
 

Liveperson does not record your webcam, but requires you to interact with the buyer via a chat session during billed hours, which indirectly allows them to prove your presence.
 

Odesk does not guarantee certain types of work. If you fail to click your mouse/keyboard at least once a minute, over a certain number of minutes in each ten minute period, then they consider it "low activity" and will not guarantee payment to you. Simply moving your mouse or the mouse scrollwheel (such as when reading) is not deemed activity. Additionally, Odesk does not publicy disclose on their website the minimum number of minutes that you must maintain your clicking, in order to be assured of payment.

When you do the following types of work, you typically do not click the mouse or keyboard:

1. Reading (electronic or physical documents)
2. Purely mental work (planning, designing, thinking)
3. All work involving writing on paper at your desk

If you perform any of the above on Odesk, you must remember to constantly stop your work to click your mouse/keyboard. The continual interruptions can act as a mental and/or physical interference, and in some cases (such as intense mental work or writing/designing on paper at your desk) make the task impractical to perform. You may also incur additional stress knowing that you must remember to do this constantly, or you may not be paid.

Other sites do not impose this limitation and guarantee all types of work.
 

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 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 a buyer 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 the buyer simple questions which explore areas that they probably haven't thought about before. It then creates a detailed specification that you can use.

As an example, let's say the buyer wants 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 you specifically codes it to do so. Cost is important to you, and they realize that they can't afford to support all of them. To solve your problem, the wizard explains the marketshare of the different browsers and they realize that they can still cover 95% of the market by only supporting 4 browser types/versions. The wizard outputs the result and not only did you avoid taking the time to explain it to the buyer, but you have automatically avoided potential miscommunication later over the scope of the project.
 

Creating a detailed project posting is the most important thing a buyer 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 the buyer simple questions which explore areas that they probably haven't thought about before. It then creates a detailed specification that you can use.

As an example, let's say the buyers wants their site to rank higher in the search engines. The wizard explains the marketshare of the different engines so that they can make the most cost effective choice, and also walks you through the different onsite optimizations and offsite work that might be helpful to them. It then shows this in the project description, and you've avoided having to invest any time and effort to explain this to the buyer.
 

If you are an expert, it can be difficult to stand out from a crowd of less qualified bidders.

Some sites allow you to prove their knowledge by becoming pre-certified by an appropriate testing agency. They also allow buyers to limit bidding exclusively to workers like you who are certified in the area(s) they are interested in
 

*21: These sites allow you to be certified in the hundreds of tests provided by ExpertRating.
 

No one wants to spend time and effort bidding and interacting with a buyer, only to watch them disappear because they were pretending to be someone else, or didn't want to invest their own time and effort into the project.

A buyer who makes the additional effort to have their phone number verified demonstrates that they are who they claim to be, and that they are willing to invest effort into the bidding process. Sites that offer this feature, call each buyer and show their verification status on their profiles.
 

No one wants to spend time and effort bidding and interacting with a buyer, only to watch them disappear because they weren't capable of paying for the project.

Site that verify credit cards address this issue by charging a small random amount (from $1-$2 for example) on the buyer's PayPal account, and asking them to confirm it. By doing this, the buyer proves they own the account.

A buyer who makes the additional effort to do this, demonstrates that they have a valid and working Pay Pal account and may be more serious than a buyer who has not.

 

ODesk does not allow buyers to pay via PayPal.