Outsourcing – Odesk Experiences vs. Elance
October 21, 2008 
9 Comments
After having a few bad freelance experiences (details here) with Elance.com I decided to look elsewhere for outsourcing certain web development tasks and research.
I have been using Odesk for a few weeks now and I can honestly say I like the service, the features, and the providers. The first thing I did when I created my account was to sign up as a provider. I wanted to see what types of hoops a provider had to jump through in order to be listed. The very first thing you must do is take a basic functionality and usability type of exam to ensure that you understand how Odesk functions. This was a painless although slightly annoying process but necessary in order to ensure basic understanding. Additionally, Odesk had other exams listed and recommended that I tak ea few in order to bolster confidence for my potential employer.
Exams
Odesk also offers internal testing and self evaluation for certain skills. Completing one of these exams adds ratings to your profile and I can tell you from experience that they aren’t a cake walk. Additionally, these are timed exams so you cant fake it by trying to Google the answers because you will likely run out of time. I consider myself knowledgeable in the network and systems security arena and I must say that the network security exam wasn’t easy. I expected it to have good questions but not tough ones and I would consider them to be a solid prescreening qualifier. However, there are those rare individuals that can pass any exam but have no practical experience and this is where the interview process and work portfolio comes into play.
Screening Candidates
Avoid the temptation to hire the candidate with the absolute lowest price. In my experience you will not be happy with the deliverable or perhaps an equally important factor, communication. Candidates with the lowest price may be trying to get a foot in the door and establish a reputation or they might just be cheap because they lack sufficient skills and you are paying them to learn. You can get good deals and find quality candidates at really low rates but it will be a gamble. Instead of price alone make sure you look at the cover letter, number of Odesk hours and feedback score. Now, regarding the feedback score, be sure to look at the total number of feedback entries vs. the score average. One or two entries may not be enough to provide the necessary assurances.
Payment
As a provider you will need to setup a credit card for automatic payment to your project providers. Payments for hourly services occur based upon the following schedule :
Monday
The work week begins at 12 a.m. GMT
Sunday
The work week ends at 11:59 p.m. GMT
The provider receives his/her timelog for review and is responsible for making sure it is accurate.
Any offline time should be added
All non-work time should be removed
Monday
The deadline for the Work Dairy is Monday 12 p.m. (Noon) GMT. At that time, the final timelog is sent to the Buyer for review and the dispute period begins.
The Buyer sees $X in Pending Debit
The Provider sees $Y in Pending Credit
Wednesday
The review period ends Wednesday evening, PST
Thursday
The Buyer’s invoice is now due.
Buyer will see a negative Balance in the "Your Balance" box on the top left of Provider Console
Buyer’s credit card is charged Thursday evening
Next Wednesday
The provider’s earnings become available.
Provider will see a positive Balance in "Your Balance" box on the top left of Provider Console
After Security Period has passed, provider can withdraw balance.
Summary
This post barely touches the surface of Odesk and the associated benefits as well as the vast number of features. So far I have enjoyed using the Odesk service and the detailed reporting features. I intend to continue documenting my experiences with Odesk as I learn more. Additionally, I will be reviewing other services as I become aware of them. If you have any service that you would recommend or any experience that you would like to share (positive or negative) along the lines of outsourcing services please feel free.
I have a whole different way for providing services. I can create an app off a db or schema.. and have an app up that user can test and request customizations the next day. It really removes a lot of the risk about can the developer do the work and when will I see something. I do it from http://www.overnightapps.com
interesting!!
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Some main qualifications we require:
* At least 85 projects or more completed as a freelancer on one single freelance website (eg. RentACoder.com, Elance.com, Guru.com, oDesk.com, Scriplance.com, GetAFreelancer.com or any other freelance website).
* Good client feedback and average rating on that freelance website
If you are interested in becoming a mentor to help freelancers be successful on your favorite freelance website or to help business owners outsource successfully their projects, please don’t hesitate to contact us through our contact us form:
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Sincerely,
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Owner and creator of RACsuccess.com
Thanks for the very thorough review! I ran into your eLance review a couple days ago and today I saw this. It’s been really helpful in my research. Keep up the good work.
If you have the time and any additional information about freelancing sites, I’d love it if you emailed them to me. Thanks again!
I have been using both odesk and elance for the last 3 months and have spent approx. equal amounts on both. I must say that I am far more satisfied with elance than on odesk. I have used elance for a wide variety of projects (logo design, bookkeeping, Virtual Assistant, Website design etc) and have worked with providers from a wider range of locations.
Overall, because of the fixed price nature of the projects on elance, I am more comfortable with it. On odesk I am currently running a team of 5 IT professionals from around the world, I am constantly less comfortable because I don’t always have a good idea the total cost of the deliverable ahead of time.
Going forward, I am planning to use elance much more than odesk.
Just my 2 cents worth of experiences.
Sudip
Yes Odesk is the best I think, I used to pay more money for my small projects for casmyfiles.com which is my site, i always needed stuff, now i can hire quality people on hourly basis, which i thought would cost more money, but i was wrong, in hourly basis job is done much quickly and it saves lots of money. I love odesk.
I wrote a piece some time ago that gives a comprehensive comparison between the two. May be people might be interested to know from someone who has tried out both these sites in depth. I do agree with you that overall oDesk shows great promise.
http://www.fruitsack.com/2010/01/elance-vs-odesk-vs-guru-the-best-freelance-site-to-start-making-money-online/
Great write up and very informative. I have used both oDesk and Elance in the past however, I still prefer the Elance system. Although both have great providers, I simply find that I am more comfortable with Elance’s system and their many tools that seem to benefit both buyer and provider both. For instance, I absolutely love their private messaging system, escrow funding, ability to interview providers before selecting them, timesheet tools, etc. I find their entire system easy to work with and an abolute pleasure. I also find they have a vast array of talented professional that really know their stuff. I guess that is why they are the leading marketplace for online talent.