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In today’s post, I’ll be providing an honest and long overdue review of Upwork.com. I’ve been using the platform for hiring online workers for the past 4 years and it has been quite a tool. It’s a platform that we continue to use today as we work with FreeUp clients and find amazing workers for our company.
In this post, you’ll learn the inner functionalities of Upwork.com along with the pros and cons of using it for outsourcing. If you’ve never been to Upwork.com before, strap in.
Upwork, formerly known as oDesk, is one of the leading online hiring platforms. The platform brings together business owners with skilled workers from all around the globe.
The platform offers a variety of software that allows you to:
The platform has been developing over the past 5 years into a massive resource for both online workers and business owners. Upwork makes money by charging a 10-20% service fee on the worker’s rate.
Here’s an example. John White is a business owner that just signed up on Upwork. He finds a capable worker that charges $20.00/hour. Because of the 10% service fee, the worker only receives $20.00 – ($20.00*0.1) = $18.00. Upwork earns the $2.00 per hour.
As with any company, there are always pros and cons when comparing to other solutions in the market. Granted Upwork is one of the leaders in the online outsourcing space, they have a handful of pros, but they also have a number of cons depending on how you want to hire remote workers.
So, you’re probably wondering,
Should I use Upwork to test out hiring remote workers?
It’s a great question and I’m glad that you are considering incorporating remote workers. Deciding to use or not to use Upwork very much depends on the time and risk that you want to put into hiring remote workers.
Because of the massive community of workers that Upwork has built, there are hundreds of remote workers constantly looking for new work meaning that your process of interviewing and selecting the best possible one can be a difficult and time-consuming task.
If you are open to spending a significant amount of time recruiting and interviewing a remote worker, Upwork is a great place to start.
If you don’t have the time and want to hire the best possible remote worker quickly and without the hassles of interviewing, use a service like FreeUp. FreeUp takes care of the recruitment and interviewing so that you can focus on continuing to build your business. Just tell us the worker that you need and we introduce you within hours.
No minimums. Fast access to top US and international talent.
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This is so true – I’m a freelancer and have become somewhat frustrated with how Upwork has been raising their fees, and also how some clients try to cheat their hires.
I have done some hiring via Upwork and found it tedious and the costs became so high that it simply wasn’t worth it anymore. Do you have any suggestions for other platforms that can offer a good pool of workers?
Hi Sanford, there are quite a few freelancer hubs out there with slightly different approaches. Toptal, Fiverr and Freelancer come to mind. It really all depends, however, on what your requirements are and what kind of work you need done. If you like, you can schedule a free consultation with team here: https://freeup.net/meet/
I have both hired on Upwork and done some freelancing there and I can say that the process really does take up a lot of time, although Upwork does try to provide security for both parties but it’s very impersonal and can make you anxious if you have a tricky dispute.
I like to stay in control and Upwork gives me that, but the quality issue is a real pain sometimes
We hear you Barney! This is why we established FreeeUp, to offer a pool of the top 1% of freelancers to give you more control over quality. You can give very specific details on the kind of worker you want and interview (or not as you wish!) until you find the one that you want.
I don’t have time! lol but im glad i read to the bottom of this post and have signed up just now!
Awesome Bea, welcome to FreeeUp and we’ll be with you shortly!