After becoming fed up with chasing no-response, low-paying, questionable looking jobs on craigslist; I’ve migrated to other job boards. Some of the job boards I am with charge a membership fee. For many freelancers, paying a fee to look for projects is a no-no. Just as many projects can be found for free. However, sometimes it may be beneficial to pay for a membership. Here’s why:
- Less competition. Most freelancers hate extra expenses because their income varies so heavily. This means that few full-time freelancers are willing to pay for memberships, giving you a better chance of gaining visibility and the project.
- Employers will take you more seriously. Employers will take freelancers more seriously if we are willing to put the time and money into improving our businesses.
- You’ll land better projects. One thing I’ve noticed about websites that charge membership fees is their dedication to screening all project posts thoroughly.
- No sifting through crummy projects. This is pretty much the same as the one above but with a few differences. Free job sites are plagued with spam, repetitive job posts, and low-paying nonsense. Paid sites will treat their freelancers with respect and dignity.
Best Paid Membership Freelance Sites
I’m sure you can think of more reasons than what I’ve listed. Now, don’t just go paying for any old website. You have to do the research to see if your investment will be worth it. The following websites have worked well for me.
- Freelanceswitch.com. The FS job board charges a membership fee of $7 per month. Their projects are high-quality and often long-term. While I have not personally landed any work from this site, as I have not submitted very many applications, I do know first-hand that its an excellent website and the response rate is very high compared to other job sites. The webmasters are also very professional and dedicated. One time I noticed a bogus ad from a design “company” that wanted free work. I reported it and within 48 hours the ad was removed. Now that is customer service.
- iFreelance.com. This website has been around for a long time. A basic membership costs $5 per month and allows you to bid on as many projects as you want. Most projects receive 5-15 bids. New projects are posted weekly.
- Elance. While Elance can be a free job site, it may be ideal to pay for a professional membership which runs at $10 per month. This membership allows you to bid on more projects. While Elance has recently become notorious for inviting low-paying buyers, filtering projects by price can often eliminate the buyers “on a tight budget”.
Always read multiple website reviews before committing to a membership. Do not simply take my word for it. While one person may have had a positive experience, others may have had negative ones. Read multiple reviews and if possible, contact the website’s admin to learn more about membership. The easiest way to find website reviews is to type in the website’s name + reviews in Google search.
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Hi, this is Nicole from vWorker (formerly known as Rentacoder). Like Elance, vWorker provides access to programming, writing, illustration, even data entry jobs. Success at these types of sites strongly depends on what these services offer, and the services available (or unavailable — depending on how you want to look at it) at Elance could limit that success. Consider the following:
1) 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.
2) On Elance a Employer can challenge you with an arbitration at any time. If they do, you must either choose to pay the non-refundable arbitration fee ($66-$133) or forfeit your money-back guarantee. vWorker, on the other hand, never charges you to exercise your guarantee.
For more details on the above see:
http://www.vWorker.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorInformation/OneOnOneComparisons/ElanceVersusVWorker_ForSellers.aspx
Hi Nicole,
Thank you for the information. I’m a member of Elance and vWorker and I am actually very happy with vWorker as I have obtained several awesome projects from there. To this date, I have not incurred such difficulties with Elance but I will keep these things in mind for the future. Thank you for shaing.
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Hi Cedrick,
Yes, I generally maintain this blog on a weekly basis.
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You’re quite welcome, admin. Glad to have you aboard!
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