Freelancer is an Australian freelance marketplace website, which allows potential employers to post jobs that freelancers can then bid to complete.
Employers get inherent advantages from hiring freelancers rather than workers. Hiring freelancers has financial advantages since you don’t need to pay employee benefits, including healthcare, Medicare, Social Security, and retirement benefits.
With the increasing preference for hiring freelancers, many people opt to become freelancers rather than full-time employment. More and more people have come to realize that freelancing poses more benefits to a worker as well.
As such, the number of freelancers using the Freelancer site has grown dramatically over the years, and the website itself is now one of the most popular destinations for online staffing. The Freelancer database is currently estimated to contain around 50 million users (as of 21 February 2021) or freelancer profiles, which is astonishing by all metrics.
Freelancer.com is a freelancing platform that is similar to Upwork (formerly oDesk). As of writing, Freelancer.com accommodates millions of global users and caters to hundreds of thousands of freelance projects ranging from outsourced software and application development, writing, design, and other commercial services.
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Brief Background About Freelancer
The Freelancer community offers an opportunity for freelancers and businesses, including over 45 million participants from across the globe, representing more than 247 nations. There are writers, software developers, designers, data entry workers, scientists, engineers, marketers, salespeople, accountants, and legal professionals to aid companies that search for contractors on the internet.
Freelancer.com has acquired several outsourcing marketplaces, including GetAFreelancer.com and EUFreelance.com (founded in 2004 by Magnus Tibell in Sweden), LimeExchange (a former business of Lime Labs LLC in the United States of America), Scriptlance.com (founded in 2001 in Canada by Rene Trescases, one of the early pioneers of freelancing), Freelancer.de Booking Center (Germany), Freelancer.co.uk (United (founded by Ian Ippolito, USA, another early innovator in the freelance marketplace space).
There are freelancers and employers worldwide, but the recent Asian invasion of the freelancing industry has swamped Freelancer the most. The majority of the site’s active subscribers come from India, China, and the Philippines, and much more skilled and dependable experts from Eastern Europe, who also accept to work for pay below the minimum level of their local rates.
How Freelance Works
Whether you’re a freelancer or an employer, the first step is to create an account on Freelancer.com using your email address and password or your Facebook account. Here are the following steps to hire your best candidates:
1. Submit a proposal or participate in a contest
Create a project or contest for the work you need, and within minutes, you’ll get competitive bids from freelancers.
2. Select the ideal Freelancer
Browse profiles of freelancers—real-time communication. Compare offers and choose the best one. Once you’ve assigned your job, your Freelancer will begin working on it.
3. Make the payment only when you are entirely pleased with the outputs.
Secure your payment through the Milestone Payment system. Make payments only upon the completion of the job, and you are entirely pleased with the outputs.
Freelancers are paid after the job is completed and approved. For freelancers, to make a withdrawal, you must have at least $30 in your account, and the maximum monthly withdrawal is $10,000. The withdrawals of the payments may take up to 15 days to complete. Upon completion of the job, the employers pay ahead, and the Freelancer gets paid.
Services
More than 16 million job listings have been placed on Freelancer since it was created. Services is a newly enhanced feature on Freelancer.com.
It is intended to be a straightforward method to get work done, with predefined descriptions and pricing, making it simpler than ever for employers to find workers and for freelancers to be employed.
Each project has a set price, and by agreeing to work on it as a freelancer, you commit to complete that predefined amount of labor at that price. When a service is purchased, a provider is chosen and rewarded using the unique selection system, and Milestone is generated immediately.
Pricing
The plans and pricing vary according to the employer’s or employee’s membership level, from free to $59.95 per month. The cost of freelancers varies according to the kind of projects or services and the premium plan you’ve subscribed to.
- 10% or $5.00, whichever is higher, on fixed-price contracts; 10% on hourly projects
- 10% or $5.00, whichever is higher, for contests
- 20% for services; a fee of the total service price is charged
- 15% project fee for the Preferred Freelancer Program
Additionally, freelancers are limited to eight proposals each month before being required to upgrade to a premium account. It may discourage some freelancers from utilizing the service since many rivals do not charge a monthly or project fee.
Employers must submit milestone payments to Freelancer.com’s escrow system, which holds funds until the project is approved.
There are many methods for paying and withdrawing funds through Freelancer. You may deposit or withdraw money with a validated credit card, PayPal, Skrill, or Moneybookers account.
Payment protection enables freelancers to request an advance payment and customers to insist on satisfaction in exchange. The site has a whole section devoted to settling conflicts between freelancers and clients.
The one-month free trial period enables both freelancers and clients to evaluate the platform without incurring service costs; however, this does not imply that you will get free work. You would still be responsible for paying the freelancers you employ.
Pros
- Businesses can save money from benefits and training cost
- One of the biggest freelancing platforms for employers and freelancers
- Can access a diverse variety of services and project solutions via contests
- Reasonable service costs
- One-month free trial
- 24/7 live chat support
Cons
- Higher costs for hourly tasks
- Account may be suspended without further notice
- Hire at your own risk
Other Job Platform Alternative
Freelancer.com operates in a somewhat similar manner, just like Upwork does. Posting a project, comparing and choosing freelance bids, and paying upon approval are all the same.
Upwork is a freelancing marketplace for professionals in various fields, including writing, graphic design, and web development. It is a platform where a hiring employer can find remote freelancers that would complete tasks and projects.
Consequently, it assists professionals in locating jobs, communicating with clients, and getting compensated for every completed task.
If you want to hire a dedicated, highly-trained virtual assistant from a different outsourcing approach, you may try Boldly. It is a reliable provider of skilled, dependable, and verified virtual assistants, marketers, and project managers who can assist you and your company’s needs.
Boldly is a premium global staffing company, serving customers and staff members in North America and Europe.
Overall Review
Though this used to be a significant advantage, Freelancer no longer controls the number of spam applications and postings that appear on the platform.
A well-known proverb states that quality always prevails over quantity. If you let yourself become bogged down in a minefield of low-quality postings, you will have a constant flood of low-quality candidates to contend with.
If you’re ok with having a massive number of applications and bargain-basement rates, then you won’t have any issues with Freelancer.
Have you used Freelancer before to hire virtual assistants? Would you please leave a review below and rate the company to tell everyone about your experience?
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