Hire expert freelancers for whatever job you need doing on Freelancer.com.
Freelancer.com is a crowdsourcing marketplace for freelancers. Business people post jobs that are bid on by members. It’s one of the oldest freelancing marketplace websites still in operation, having opened for business in 2009. It was founded and is headquartered in Sydney, with offices around the world in the US, Canada, London, Argentina, Indonesia and The Philippines.
Hiring a freelancer
Customers can post projects free of charge. You can either invite freelancers to submit bids or browse relevant freelancers and make an offer. After posting the project, the customer can chat with potential hirees in real-time, compare submitted proposals and award the project to the best candidate. Once the hire is made, the customers can use a desktop or mobile application to track work, monitor hours and communicate with the freelancer.
Payments and messaging are done with 128-bit SSL encryption to keep your information safe. There is also 24/7 customer service available to customers.
Becoming a freelancer
Like many traditional freelancing sites, Freelancer encourages you to create and complete a freelancer profile, then browse jobs that match your skills. You can browse jobs based on your skills, your location or any number of other factors. Each job listed will display the budget, the delivery date and the number of people who have already applied. There are six levels of memberships for freelancers:
- Free
- Intro
- Basic
- Plus
- Professional
- Premier
The membership levels differ by the number of bids per month, skills listed and a host of extra bells and whistles.
Additional features
In its first decade of existence, Freelancer.com has added a robust amount of extra features to cater to the specific needs of its clients and freelancers.
- Contests: Instead of traditional monetary compensation, clients can create a contest with a prize for the work required. The prize is then awarded to the freelance with the best entry.
- Recruiter: When clients post a job, they can select the Recruiter upgrade and connect to a Recruiter who will contact top freelancers and walk the client through the steps to make the hire.
- Community Experts: Both clients and freelancers can ask questions that are taken and answered by expert freelancers. Most have three levels of achievement.
- Skills Tests: Freelancer Skill Tests allow freelancers to give tangible proof to clients that they possess the skills they claim to have.
- Freelancer Service: This service allows a client to set up a project with a fixed price that the freelancer agrees to and begins work on immediately.
Fees and pricing
For employers:
- It’s free to sign up for Freelancer and post a job online, but once you actually hire someone, things change.
- If you have a fixed-fee project, a charge of 3% or $3.00, whichever is more, is charged when you hire a freelancer for the job. If you end up paying more, the additional amount will be added to the fee.
- If you hire a freelancer by the hour, you are charged 3% of each hour’s rate. For example, if you hire a copy editor at $20/hour for 5 hours, you would be charged $0.60/hour x 5 hours = $3.00.
- Project posts can be upgraded in a number of ways as seen below:
| Additional Feature | Description | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Featured | Attracts more quality bids | $44.00 |
| Urgent | Freelancers asked to bid on a project starting in <24 hours | $14.30 |
| Private | Hide project details | $28.60 |
| Full-Time | Fee is paid if project value exceeds $4,700 | $294.80 |
| Recruiter | Employ a recruiter for better candidates | $42.90 |
| Non-Disclosure Agreement | Freelancers must sign one | $44.00 |
| IP Agreement | Give over IP rights | $44.00 |
| Sealed | Freelancers can’t see each other’s bids | $14.30 |
| Priority | No review for job posting | $5.00 |
| Extend | Extend bidding period 7 days | $9.90 |
| Delete | Delete all parts of a project | $5.00 |
Prices last checked August 2017
Fees for freelancers
- It’s free to bid on a project.
- A sponsored bid moves yours to the top of the list of bids and costs 2% of your bid amount with a minimum cost of US$4 and a maximum cost of US$50.
- It costs $1 to highlight a bid so it will stand out to prospective employers.
Membership plans for freelancers
Membership with Freelancer earns individuals extra bids per month, and skills on their profiles. It also includes them in other perks in the program.
| Intro | Basic | Plus | Professional | Premier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bids/month | 15 | 50 | 100 | 300 | 1,500 |
| No. of skills | 30 | 50 | 80 | 100 | 400 |
| Bonuses | Custom Cover Photo | 5 Employer Followings | Free Project Extensions | Free Sealed Projects | Free NDA Projects |
| Price/month | $0.99 | $4.95 | $9.95 | $39.95 | $79.95 |
| Price/year | Not available | $53.40 | $107.40 | $395.40 | $791.40 |
Prices last checked August 2017
Pros and cons of Freelancer.com
Freelancer.com has grown steadily over the past decade and tries to be at the cutting edge in the online freelance marketplace niche. It has many, many features for both freelancers and clients, but the oversaturated market tends to drive prices down below levels of sustainability for many freelancers.
Pros:
- Lots of powerful controls for clients seeking a freelancer.
- Frequent free trials for freelancers to try out the site for a month.
Cons:
- Must verify membership with photo ID and utility bills or bank statements to receive payment. Many freelancers are fearful of disclosing this much information online.
- Best membership plans are costly. Paying $791.40 a year just to just apply for jobs is a tough pill to swallow.
