Elance has got to be the largest online marketplace for freelancers and “buyers,” with service providers earning over $200 million to date.
When I started freelancing, I signed up for Elance and tried to find clients there, too. But I was a big Elance failure. I won zero bids. I made zero dollars.
So I soon gave up Elance and looked for clients in other places. I never looked back, and now I don’t have to.
But 93,000 services providers on Elance can’t all be wrong. Check out these providers I found and their Elance earnings in the last six months (names were changed but earnings weren’t):
Lisa, Copywriter: $23,674
Lorrie, Article Writer: $11,619
Christa, Graphic Designer: $9,575
Claire, Web Designer: $11,515
Becky, Virtual Assistant: $10,008
Not bad, I say! So there are people making money on Elance. Are you one of them? Please post a comment below and let us know – do you Elance? Why or why not?
photo credit: rochelle, et. al.
PS: If you’d like to learn how to get good projects through Elance, check out “How to Make Money on Elance,” an interview of Trish Lambert, Elance premier provider who has earned six figures on Elance alone.
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I signed up for Elance but haven’t bid on anything. It’s on my “someday” list, though! I’ve heard some negative things, so it’s good to know that some people are doing well at it.
I am an Elance member and have gotten a couple of jobs on the site, but for the most part I find it to be a waste of time. You have to spend a ton of time searching for jobs and preparing bids, and then in most cases the jobs go to the low bidders. Either that or the job is cancelled and never goes to anyone.
It seems like most (not all) of the people looking to hire writers on Elance are looking for cheap labor, not high quality work. For that reason, I have chosen to focus my marketing efforts elsewhere.
Traci Feit Love´s last blog ..Overcome Your Freelancing Fears
Well @Cindy & @Traci this means that successful Elancers know something we don’t!
My situation is pretty much the same as Cindy’s. I signed up for Elance, but never bid on anything and it resides on my super huge list of freelance bidding war websites. With the looks of those earnings, however, I may have to give it a deeper look.
Holly´s last blog ..Jon & Kate Together on the 4th of July
I have had some success with elance. I made about 600 dollars in 3 months, which unfortunately wasn’t enough to justify quitting my job, but the extra spending money was nice. I think that if I could justify quitting my job, elance would be a great place to start. It’s definately built confindence, for someone that is trying to make a transition to full time freelancing.
Hi Lexi,
I signed on a few months back, and even applied on couple of projects. I had to bid higher, since the budget was ridiculously low…I found many designers are bidding lower just to get the job. I didn’t like the idea of competing to get a contract and then loose money.
Maybe it’s just me, but I found the whole idea too “Walmart” thinking…Always lower price..:) And to me, quality beats price anytime. Don’t get me wrong, I would shop at Walmart for tissues, but I wouldn’t get buy electronics there. (Many people do and it’s fine) There are many reasons I charge what I charge, and if a client is not ready to pay for the quality, then I’d be happy to refer them to such sites or even another fellow freelancer.
I’m sure many people who are starting out, the idea of JUST getting some kind of work at ANY price would be fine.
See you on Twitter..:)
I signed up when I first started Freelancing. What a waste of time. I’ve found that the bids go to the lowest bidders, or to large companies that can bid pretty low and churn out crap in a day. Most of all this is outsourced.
Because I can’t live off $200 a month, I’ve been much more successful finding my own clients. I use Elance now when I am not quite sure what charge a client for something that is new to me. I look at the bids and take a generally higher average, and charge that.
I have once before signed up for Elance and I too was a big ole Elance failure. I didn’t make any money and I generally found that the bids that people wanted were way under what I was willing to do the job for. I make the kind of money you’re speaking of and I do so without Elance.
Lexie, I am an Elance User, not provider, and most of the time have been happy with it. I stopped using it for a while, but just put out a job recently and was very happy with it.
It’s true that there are a lot of people who look for cheap labor there: I actually got $5 articles there a few years ago. This time, I paid $10/article and got great quality.
Here is the thing: you probably need to start out with rates lower that your normal until you get some kind of reputation. I always look for the writer’s reputation, how many jobs they did, were they on time, etc? I would never hire a new provider for anything significant.
In time after you get a few jobs under your belt and some raving reviews, you can get good paying jobs. I hired someone in the past (twice actually) to write 100 articles for me.
Hope it helped hearing an experience form “the other side”.
@Holly Yes, those earnings made me take a second look at Elance too. They’re not even the highest earners on Elance.
@Karin Looks like you had a good start on Elance already – at least much better than mine! Have you thought about what you could do now to improve your early earnings?
@Reza @Emilie @Alyssa That’s what I thought about Elance, too, which is why I just dropped out of it. But I’m sure I didn’t give it a fair chance.
@Adriana Thank you for giving us the point of view of somebody who hires freelancers on Elance. You proof that not everybody on Elance is looking only for the lowest bidder, but that freelancers should prove why they’re worth more than their competitors. Thanks for your input!
I would love to work as a full time freelancer, just don’t know where to start getting my own clients. I’ve been looking at your website and I follow you on twitter, and you’ve been very helpful! I hope to learn more from you in the future.
I also have a 15 month old son and the desire to stay home with him is almost unbearable! you give me hope that you can stay home and make money too. Thanks!
I’m a published author in the academic field. I stayed signed up for elance for a couple of years (HUGE waste of money). The people that wanted to contract my services wanted to pay ridiculously low prices for a huge job (and I don’t think I charge that much). I just canceled a couple of months ago…never to go back.
WritRams´s last blog ..Do you Q? (Alternate Title: Don’t Mess with Monkies)
@WritRams Sorry to hear about your Elance experience. At least I didn’t spend a single dime on it. I did lose a few minutes of my time. But I wonder why others have been successful – and I mean to find out!
@Karin Thank you for your comment! You’re the reason I created this blog. I started freelancing to do something that was my own and maybe make a little money on the side. I’ve been blown away by how much my freelancing biz has grown. If it will make the difference between a Mom working outside the home and staying home, then I will share whatever I know about how to become a successful freelancer. Please drop by often!
All I hear from people I consider decent freelancers is that the people on Elance are willing to work for next to nothing. I like working with freelance designers and they have a slight advantage on Elance in that if they have very strong portfolios you can ask for a higher hourly rate. You may not get as much money that way but you’ll get better clients.
Thanks for your advice, Chris. I think it’s a misconception among freelancers that Elance is for bottom feeders only. You’re right. It’s a matter of “proving” your value and standing out from your competition.
I’ve never tried them. Got too busy, too fast, and now I always have more work than hours to do it.
Besides, from what I could see, the rates clients seem to expect to pay are too low to for a person to live on.
There are other sites, like guru.com, where the rates seem somewhat more reasonable. Guru.com has a ratings system, and lists all the 5-star copywriters on the front page (which is great for them, but not to new copywriters, I guess!)
Marya Miller´s last blog ..If Gilderoy Lockhart Was An Internet Marketer
Same here, Marya! But I do believe Elance is still a good option, especially for freelancers who are still starting out and don’t have a network of leads yet.
Your observation about Guru.com is interesting. Thanks for pointing it out!
I signed up for Elance, got my first job in a couple of weeks and within three months had more than $40,000 in contracts to ghost ebooks. Then I got sick. Lost the contracts because I couldn’t write. But yes. It IS possible to find good jobs on Elance. I have several steady clients that I still work for, and who pay me well. Once the time limit on them moves past the time Elance sets for keeping jobs on elance I move off site with them and don’t have to pay the 8% elance snags out of every job (for doing nothing really). I’ve also gotten referrals from Elance clients for other job markets. So I have to say, Elance has helped me pay my bills.
Don’t bid on the low paying jobs. Bid only on companies with a history of awarding jobs, on companies or people who don’t say things like, “This is an easy job for someone who knows what they’re doing.” Those people are LOSERS. LOSERS. LOSERS.
Other tip? Look for the folks making BIG money and look at their client list. Who’s paying the big bucks? Find out WHO pays well and then search on their buyer name to find the jobs they are posting.
Don’t “spray and pray,” bidding on everything, hoping someone picks you. FOCUS. Pick a job you’d like doing and sell yourself. Imagine YOU were reading your bid. Would YOU hire you? Be a real person, send a personal bid with samples, etc. Talk to the buyer as you would a good friend you were convincing you could do something for. It takes some work at first, but once you get the hang of it…it works!
Yes, there are buyers who want 100 articles TODAY and want to pay 10 cents to a whole dollar per 500 word article. Ignore them. Learn to read between the lines and find the good buyers. Give them great work, then overdeliver. Elance is a great place to start. But like everything else, it’s work, it’s marketing and it’s studying the system and learning to play it.
Becky Blanton´s last blog ..Staying Hungry and The Dance We Dance
How many Twitter followers is needed to get lots of traffic and business to your site?
I don’t Elance but certainly am loving it. Keenly watching its growth too!
Pothi´s last blog ..Get Hired Easily in Elance
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I am planning to post a weekly newsletter for senior citizens in the Boston area. I am senior citizen, and don’t have the resources to bring on a writer for any extended period of time, but was hoping someone could direct me to a good place to find a temporary and reliable labor source? Any help you can provide is really appreciated…
Hi, have you tried Elance, oDesk and the other freelancing job sites?
I am signed up for elance but have only been signed up for a couple of months. The projects that I have bid on have gone to freelancers bidding ridiculously low. I won’t count it out completely seeing that there are people who have been successful there, but for the amount of time that I have spent there to be outbid by someone willing to work for pennies, I feel like my time can be better spent elsewhere making money that I can live off of.
Thanks for sharing, Aja. That does sound frustrating. Trish Lambert advises that we should pick the projects we bid on. Look at the project description itself and try to scope out the one who posted it. This way, we can eliminate those who are obviously looking for bottom feeders rather than quality.
Hope this helps!
I am the owner of one of the recruiting agency and now i am looking for some good highly professional place that is dedicated in placement of professionals, that can help me to grow my business of recruiting. I am also having many professional candidates who are looking for professional jobs and I also look for professional companies that require professional candidates from different areas right from restaurant jobs to highly trained engineers job and also management jobs. Can anyone know about anything special?
Hi Dormmeace, I’m not sure I understand what you’re looking for, but have you checked out the freelancing job boards?
Where is a good source for finding attorney jobs?