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Best Freelance Marketplace Sites
One of the most valuable tools a freelancer can find these days is a good freelance marketplace site. Many successful freelances that were able to quit their daytime jobs to work as full time freelances have build their client portfolio from such sites. A few years ago there were not so many, but now you can find an ever increasing list of such sites that are trying to make their name into the business.
Even if we are freelancers we are very busy persons (probably even more than regular employees that have their job secured, and not work on the project), and in such a huge amount of resources a newone can waste a lot of time (on searching, bidding, following up, etc.) and became very frustrated if he will not use the appropriate sites. This is the reason for this post to list the best freelance marketplace sites from my experiences and also to show how you can spot in notime a small site that will most certainly just make you loose time.
How do you know if a freelancer marketplace site will be good for you or not?
These are just general tips, and you can tweak them based on the profile of your job and the particularities of it and also based on your individual needs (like for ex. I would not like to work on a hourly rate, but I would like to find outgoing monthly paid projects, etc.)
Rule 1: NO ADS on the marked place site. If you see such a site that is full with ads (normally google ads) then it means that this is a small business. What are they trying to do? Are they trying to get their money from ads (don’t get me wrong many peoples have done great business based on ads, but here we are looking for a stable company that most certainly will intermediate the payments - and will hold the payments you get on projects, etc.). Personally if I see a freelance marketplace site with ads all over the place, I have finished my visit immediately.
Rule 2: Projects: see how many projects are available. Would you be interested in bidding on them? See the projects related to your own field (some sites might be good for one type of job - let’s say programmers, but not appropriate for others). On the projects look what is the average bid if that is pubic, or the award price for closed ones.
Rule 3: Providers: see what other peoples like you were able to accomplish. How many projects were they able to complete? How much money did they made on the site? This will also show the competition you will be facing and also the prices that the marketplace is normally awarding projects.
Rule 4: commissions? withdrawals methods? See if you can get the money you will be making to your own local account. What are the commissions you will pay?
Best Freelance Marketplace Sites
To help new freelancers (and maybe others also), I have compiled a list of best freelance marketplace sites. The list is sorted based on my own impressions. Feel free to comment on it if you think I have left something important out.
1. eLance
http://www.elance.com/
- paid monthly/yearly subscriptions to make bids.
- commission for each project/payment (6.75% to 8.75%, with a minimum fee of $10 per project)
- one free wire transfer per month
2. Guru
http://www.guru.com/
- free account (limited to 10 bids/month) with higher commissions than normal one
- paid monthly/yearly subscriptions with 100bids/mo
- many projects posted, but few get awarded
3. RentACoder
http://www.rentacoder.com/
- mostly for programmers
- projects rated at smaller prices than elance/guru
4. GetAFreelancer
http://www.getafreelancer.com/
5. ScriptLance
http://www.scriptlance.com/
6. oDesk
http://www.odesk.com/
7. GetACoder
http://www.getacoder.com/
8. iFreelance
http://www.ifreelance.com/
9. SoloGig
http://www.sologig.com/
10. ContractedWork
http://www.contractedwork.com/
For me personally only elance and guru have worked with good results, but maybe for other type of works other sites might be useful also. Others that I found ‘interesting’ but not very useful for me personally were oDesk (because of their hourly rate scheme but I haven’t found interesting projects) and Onforce (because of the onsite work provided that was the only one targeted towards that, but of course not useful for me either).
I will conclude with a list of what I consider smaller such sites (just so you can test my above tips 
):
Project4Hire
FreelanceWork
AgaveBlue
FreelanceJobSearch
FreelanceAuction
Mac Freelancer
WriterLance
Hirelancer
Tags: elance, Freelancer, freelance_marketplace, guru
29th March 2008, 15:07
Hi mate, You have missed out my site
http://www.soskod.com
Unlike them, i do not charge from freelancers or project hirers
I am sure freelancers prefer my site much more :p
6th May 2008, 18:22
Here’s a marketplace website that’s exclusively for accounting projects. No signup fees for project posters or freelancers, and low commissions. Check it out…
4th August 2008, 12:40
Hello ducea,
I just want to add my site http://cebufreelancer.com - find a freelance web designer or php web developer in Cebu Philippines. You can post your projects as many as you want for FREE and the interested freelancers will place a bid.
Thanks and have a nice day
22nd October 2008, 08:22
hi
nice stuff.actually i was looking for web designer/developer and SEO team.so i decided to put my project on elance or any other bidding sites.
But thankfully one of mine friend advice me not do this.He told me that
“The bigger problem on Elance, , is dummy projects. Some buyers post projects simply to get an idea of the cost or to try to find free work.”So, he advised me to hire employees from marketraise corp,and i am satisfied with there performances.
sophia
26th October 2008, 18:16
You can check out http://www.savvylance.com also, looks cool and have projects out here, I have success fully completed my first projects and get paid for my job although the payout was not high.
6th January 2009, 23:12
Great list! As a freelancer I find it is helpful to use several sites, and focus on the marketplaces with the type of work you are good at and looking for. I have recently started a Freelance Marketplace taking my experience as a freelancer and hopefully building a great resource for buyers and providers. My site is called Prolancer and it can be found at http://prolancer.cricketsoda.com. Please let me know what you think, as I am always looking for feedback and ways to improve the site.
7th January 2009, 17:11
Hey guys-
Don’t know if you might have missed these two (and possibly dozens more good ones, old and new, but):
http://www.freak-lance.com (web and graphic design projects only, worldwide)
http://www.thesuperlancers.com (all programming, design, and other freelance projects, worldwide)
Hope that helps someone -
Take care,
Lance
11th June 2009, 10:27
I have been on Scriptlance as a webmaster and as a programmer and as a programmer they are horrible. There are just too many webmasters on there that expect way too much. Sometimes you get job posts like. Website template needed, must provide 4 mock ups. Must convert PSD to CSS(link) (Cascading Style Sheets)/XML format (no tables). Must be on MSN, Yahoo or AIM(link) until project finished. Must be finished in 5 hours. Maximum budget $10. The amazing thing is that people (usually zero feedback, bid on these). I just joined Get A Freelancer and will join Elance as appear to have a lot more quality job postings. Anyone else have an option comparing the three?