Elance is Killing Freelancers.

18 May , 2010

I joined Elance about two years ago, and while I will continue to keep my profile on it under the free membership, I no longer feel it is worth my while to use it as a freelance job search site.

Pricing
My number one complaint is that there is no realistic pricing structure. Let’s say that you are looking to hire an illustrator on Elance. You go to the site, and it asks what your budget is. Knowing little about pricing guidelines, wouldn’t you advertise that your budget is the lowest choice (“Less than $500″) in order to save yourself money? It seems that’s what about 95% of the employers on Elance do. I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen illustration jobs advertised at market rate. People, if you’ve got your nice little children’s book and your budget is $200, go ahead and toss those benjamins to your Dear Aunt Sue. But if you’re going to a “professional” (I use that word loosely) database, do a little homework. Let me break this down. A 40-page children’s book at $500 equals $12.50 a page. I’ll just tell you that my panels take days of work. I mean several 8-hour days. In the immortal words of Napoleon Dynamite, “That’s like 6 cents an hour!”

Which brings me to my next point.

Outsourcing
There are many, many people in certain countries to which corporations outsource jobs that are happy to work for 6 cents an hour. Elance ought not to allow this. It’s unethical. At the very least, there ought to be a disclaimer. I happen to know that a lot of these outsourcees make a living by copying other artists’ work. This happens every day in fashion. Secret shoppers are often designers from low-budget companies that simply copycat. That’s frequently the kind of drivel I see on many Elance portfolios.

Professionalism
Despite 12 years as an illustrator, I qualify for a “Level 1″ status on Elance. It’s because I have not participated enough to gain another level. Why, you ask? Well, frankly, I’m not going to waste my time bidding on a project if its budget is “Less than $500″. Finding work that’s a good match (especially for an analog illustrator like myself) is like a needle in a haystack anyway. It’d cost me about 48 cents to find these cheap jobs.

So in two words: NO THANKS. Or: Buh-bye.

One Response to “Elance is Killing Freelancers.”

1. DBosch Says:
   July 9th, 2011 at 11:49 pm

   I just came across your website and this post after being outraged with elance business structure. googled the “elance is killing web design” and your blog poped.

   It’s very true what you said but you are talking about 500$ not being acceptable, I think you haven’t visited elance recently. I just saw 4 bids on 8PSD files to cut for Strict html/CSS for 50$. Also 7 bids for “good looking web designing” for 35$. And I realized elance is not for Westerners at all. proces are so low even Russians dont bid. Mostly India and Pakistan.

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