Have outsourcers raised their rates?

Look at it this way! Would you want to make only $3.33 per hour for providing a service that has a high demand?

$3.33 per hour? Why would anyone charge this low?

If they charge you $5-$10, that's still good.

Generally yes.

To be more specific, it depends where is your freelancer located. I am sure you can hire someone from Asia at this rate.

As per my understanding, programming is a high-demand industry but look at all the suppliers. The number of freelancers is increasing rapidly. Demand-Supply theory. The price has to go down, and it has gone down.

Might be you are contacting the same programmers that you hired last year. I'd suggest hiring a relatively new programmer.

Suggestion|: Try Fiverr.

post a fixed budget project......

it is better than pay hour bid.......

hourly rate*time= X

The $3 an hour guys are not worth $3 an hour. Hire the $35-40 an hour guys.. they get the job done in 5-10 hours vs 3 months like the $3 an hour guys.

Doesn't matter if you fix bid or per hour the job.. its all the same.. one human working on your project that expects to make a certain amount of money. I've outsourced HUNDREDS of projects.. everything from $50 scripts to $600k systems.. and I have never seen a single project.. even directed by my best project mangers.. be completed by a $3 an hour guy. These 'workers' are not oversea individuals in a different economy.. they are project mangers that are putting $4 in their pockets, paying their worker $5 and working them an hour.. then charging you for 3 hours. If you would like some proof.. ask them to work on Skype video screen sharing the entire duration of the contract and POOF watch every $3 guy vanish or drop out of the winning bid. You get what you paid for.. so pay for TALENT and get the job done.

Due to Odesk new policy minimum hourly rate is $3.00 . One years ago there was no this rules. So new freelancer work at a cheap rate to get a good feedback. So it was easy to find a cheap rated freelancer before. But today of course the $3.00 also cheap. It is not a huge amount of money. So you need to increase your rate also.

As others are saying, it depends. Not for webdesign and programming, but I've had plenty of outsourcers on oDesk do relatively simple admin work for 20 cents an hour.

While the developed-world seems to think that living on a dollar a day is "impossible" that just shows the total ignorance of those making such comments. There are plenty of places in Asia where money is not needed at all . . . if you own a few square meters of land, you can grow crops and raise a few chickens and pigs, and swap those things with your neighbors, so these people are not starving or anything, living on zero a day. (by the way, I say that after having lived for 15 years in Asia, with an Asian girlfriend).

So the whole concept that a particular rate of pay is acceptable or not, is just ignorance, fundamentally.

One factor is that the lower the rate you pay the more work YOU will typically have to do to get the job done right. For example, I had a minor change in fonts made on a WordPress theme, I paid something like $10, but it took me 47 messages back and forth for me to get the guy to actually do what he'd agreed to do, I had to check it myself after each change, and say the same thing 10 times etc. Later I paid someone else to make a similar change, paid $20 and the job just got done right in the first place, which saved a lot of MY time. So don't forget to factor in your own time in managing the workers

Late month I got someone on oDesk to create a Html theme to look at same, and have the same responsive behavior as a WP Theme I liked . . . from what I found, around $10 an hour is about right these days for programming for this kind of mid-level work in terms of difficulty. You might be able to get simpler work, and reasonable graphics done for less than that.

Really, if you have built a good reputation, oDesk is likely to give a good indication of the real going-rate for a particular job, because, as anyone who's ever got work there will know, it is VERY competitive in most areas. I tend to post fixed-price jobs (because I don't know many workers anywhere who will work as fast if they know they get paid more for working a bit slower), and invite a lot of suitable applicants to the job, that way there are plenty of applications and they can all see what others are bidding, so the prices quoted tend to be as competitive as is realistic.

Chris

Why would someone work for $3.3/hour? It doesn't even cover living expenses for most of the world.

Nevermind, the above comment answered it. It is still hard to believe though.

But most of the outsourcees charging this (or less) are in the other parts of the world, in many of which $10 is a good day's pay. That's why prices are so low: it's a hugely international market, and there are very highly skilled internet workers in such countries, many of whom also speak good English and have reliable internet connections, these days.

People don't generally pay outsourcers.

"Outsourcers" are the people who pay their "outsourcees". Just like employers and employees. In fact they are employers and employees.

It's pretty much a free market, for buying and selling, isn't it? Prices are determined - as in other contexts - by the relative availability and buying/selling pressures of outsourcers and outsourcees.

I employ three full-time VA's (I'm not sure whether you'd count them as "outsourcees", really?) all on the South-East Asia side of the world, and I pay each of them between $4.00 and $4.50 per hour, according to their skills. I think it's probably quite a bit more than the "going rate", for what they actually do for my business, but they were terribly difficult to find, and are particularly good, and I'm not an easy employer, in some ways ... and I like to reward loyalty, reliability, confidentiality and the other things I need and expect from them.

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Chances are, those particular freelancers went out of business or moved onto greener pastures where they can charge more money for the services being provided.