Does oDesk Suck?

Yeah i've also wondered this to be honest. I think Elance has a reputation for a lot of people at the top of their game and with solid experience and they feel they can charge a lot for their services and people seem prepared to pay it (myself included occasionally)
I don't know that much about Odesk though so i'll let others chime in with their opinions and experience with Odesk.

I have had good and bad experiences. Mostly good. Only one guy ripped me off for a meager amount. It was so obvious what he was trying to pull. He did a mockup and then kept asking for money. What a loser.

Read the feedback. If the contractor blocks any feedback (it will show as not showing) then don't use them. Don't rush, and don't take the first or cheapest guy who comes along. Don't give them any money you can't afford to lose until they deliver.

The people that apply for my jobs are mostly from malaysia,india and africa and charge very little for a good job.
Regards
vivi62

Everyone I've hired at Odesk have been brilliant. Did hire someone at Elance though and the guy did a crap job... Basically gave me a incomplete job.

James Scholes

I have used oDesk before and only had good experiences with them

Good and bad for me.

The thing is once you find some good people, you can just on using them again and again.

As mentioned always read the feedback normally gives a true reflection of what someone is really like.

I used oDesk to hire a guy not long a ago. This was my first experience ever hiring someone online doing a major programmer job. I must say I'm impressed and was at first scared as I thought they'd rip me off. The job was finished and I received my script and he his money.

I recommend this site to 100 %! Well, maybe not 100 % as I cannot guarantee all their members are top notch, but the site is very userfriendly and it's easy to communicate with the people you hire.

From a freelancers point of view, I consistently make more money from Odesk than Elance (@$30-$100/hour or $.04 $.08/word).

There are definitely a lot of low quality providers at Odesk, but it is like any freelance marketplace - You are still going to pay higher rates for better quality freelancers.

PS. The tests at Odesk are a joke - don't use them as a deciding factor when choosing between 2 equally qualified candidates.

I've been happy with web design from ODesk, but wouldn't source other work there. I have hired people on Elance for graphics, research and logo design, and been very happy. I occasionally find writing jobs on Elance, but never bothered to look on ODesk, because the rates would be too low there, I think!

I usually use odesk when I'm looking for cheap programmers or VA type help and scriptlance for projects that require a bit more quality, communication or attention to detail.
Most of the time it comes down to how much you're willing to spend, how well you write your job posting, how carefully you research people before hiring them and of course a little luck.

I just want to say, I do some of my major work on odesk, I make a decent income as a freelance writer to finance my IM dreams, anyways....there are some good ones on odesk, but I do outsource with elance haha

I have not used oDesk personally, but I have heard that the quality of their work varies. I have recently come upon another site though that genuinely care for both employers and freelancers. Witmart is a huge crowd sourcing site and you can post contests to try out the freelancers, once you are happy with the work you can award contract work if you wish.

Their customer service is brilliant and they assign a person to stay with you throughout the duration of the project. It is free to post a contest on the site and you are in complete control of the budget at all times. They do have a minimum fee for a logo design contest of $99 USD but with over 6.8 million registered providers you will find many talented workers . I cannot recommend this site highly enough.

Never had a good experience with either. Lots of fake portfolios around there for sure. Thankfully haven't lost any money, though I've given up on those sorts of websites. Just make sure you do your due diligence before you hire, lots of good feedback is a must.

I'm surprised. I thought ODesk was one of a very high reputation. I know in order to work up to a higher level you need to take certain tests to prove your skills. Inexpensive is not always bad, and some writers charge way less than they should.

I am both a contractor & employer of Odesk. The matter is, Odesk is the largest freelancing work place. A lot of people gathers here and the competition is much higher than any other virtual work places. So, the competition decreases the rate in fact. The quality of contractors of Odesk is super, no doubt that the worlds best contractors are available at Odesk.

Personally, I'm a freelancer, and honestly, so far I've found odesk to be better than elance.

Yes, odesk has more obviously scammy employers and obviously under-qualified contractors than elance.

BUT, I don't think this really makes a huge difference if you know what you're doing.

When you post a job on odesk, you will get a lot more spam replies than you would on elance. That's true. But, the legit applications come in too, so you just need to filter for them and you're good.

Just my two cents.

The real rule of dealing with contractors is to KNOW who you're hiring. Or KNOW the person you're working for.

There's always the potential that a person is a bad person, so what you really need to work on no matter what site you're on is to really check out the people you're hiring. That being said I've noticed that the standards on oDesk can be a lot lower than you'd hope for.

A good contractor is worth 100 mediocre ones though, and if you can strike up a good, mutually beneficial relationship with one you will be good to go on any site!

I can see that some of you're not satisfied with the quality of oDesk freelancers, I can understand that. But I can also see that some of you have no or little experience in hiring freelancers. You don't get quality freelancers because you're not careful enough when hiring them in oDesk. As far I know oDesk has some really talented freelancers who can deliver a quality job on the go.

Please don’t feel offended, I’ve no intention to offend any members here. I know when it comes to IM; I’m not even close to good than any respected member in here. This is a great community and I’ve learned a lot from all of you. I’m saying this only from my experience in freelancing. If you can see that there’s a different point of view from the end of freelancers as well. They’re also mugged a couple of times as well. I’ve seen clients hiring people with an hourly rate of $. 30 per hour. You can’t expect to get a quality job with that rate.

I’ve been working on oDesk as a freelancer and I found that you can find qualified freelancers if you tend to ask a few questions before hiring them. You don’t judge them from the number of tests they have passed. You need to judge them by their cover letters; if you find the cover letter attractive to you then they could be good. You’ll need to go through all the applicants in order to get the best freelancers.

I agree with the test quality though, this can be cheated. But you can look into their portfolios for work samples or you can just ask them to submit a custom sample that you’re looking for. Then you can judge them from the samples and get a qualified freelancer to work with.
Last of all don’t expect that you’ll get a quality job when you’re not ready to pay the standard rate. This standard rate could be different from your standard rate but it can never be close to one tenth of the actual rate. So pay better and get the best. Hiring people is always a time consuming task but if you take your time and find some good people to work with then you’ll never have to worry about outsourcing your tasks.

Thanks for reading so long post.

It depends on indivual. Yes odesk is less expensive but i love elance. It has a better messaging system. You can also try scriptlance and if you want the cheapest you can go for sites like fiveer and others but about quality i don't know.

I actually really like oDesk, the thing is to really be precise when hiring. Most of the time cheap isn't always good. The main thing is once you find a really good contractor you can hire them over and over. I have a custom wordpress expert on odesk that I rehire on a monthly basis now to do custom wordpress stuff for me. I did have to go through a few before I found him though.

There are people on oDesk who have worked hundreds of hours and gotten 4-5 star feedback- they probably are good at what they do.

Nothing wrong with Odesk. It's great for those jobs that you can't do or don't have the time to learn to do

I have never really asked for tasks to be done at any of these sites but it looks like ODesk is winning it hands down.

Since I have joined the Warrior Forum I can see that there are plenty of talented people here to get the jobs done that you need for your business.

I don't know whether there is any difference with the price either as most things tend to be sold cheaper here than they would openly online.

Hey here is a case study opportunity for testing which site is best for outsourcing:
1. W.F.
2. ODesk
3. Elance

What do you think guys?

All the best!

The finding is right. in oDesk, you will find the rate is really low. One of the main reason is the popularity if this site. Lot of people are regularly joining there. A major portion is coming from underdeveloped and/or developing country where the dollar rate is high. So they can work for less dollar amount that will give them a good conversion rate in their local currency.

Odesk is similar to other freelance sites, in that there are excellent and poor contractors available for hire. It's a popular platform, so doing some quick browsing will show you a lot of contractors, most of which aren't that great and charge very little.

However, I have hired multiple programmers on this platform, and found them to be excellent. However, I also make a point of interviewing them via Skype, and I tend to hire developers that are on the slightly more expensive side, i.e., $20 - $100 per hour.

By hiring some of the more high-end contractors on Odesk, you can, in some circumstances, save money. As they will work more efficiently and more quickly. But, that isn't true across the board.

Either way, Odesk is a great platform. And, if you're willing to do some digging and talk to people before you bring them onto your project, you will be happy with your results. :-)

I've had some great work done on odesk. The only other one I have used apart from fiverr is peopleperhour, All good work from here as well.

You're in vast market full with applicant asking for job. Of course they will appeal to you as an expert in some fields... It up to us to choose which one for the job.

I have good and bad experience using odesk.. not because of the system but because I'm less experienced choosing which one applicable for the job. At first..I thought the contractor had done a good job. Later...I found out he rip me off. The project was finished at the outside but there are lots of error inside, force me to search for other contractors.

I could tell you some horror stories - my recommendation - always check the diary videos at random points - not just the start and end.

I enjoy using oDesk more so than other freelance websites. Now I tend to hire people locally for the slightly bigger projects where I expect to pay out more than a couple thousand. This is because I've had a lot of bad experiences with people who promise they have the skills to do this or that within a specific time frame, take on the job, and then outsource it to cheaper less skills freelancers. Now if someone local accepts the job, I can write up a contract that they have to present at least a good percentage of the project based on milestones within a reasonable time frame or else I do not pay them anything.

Not used elance so cant comment about it, but odesk is good compared to freelancer.com

So im sticking with odesk as i have some good experience with odesk

Thanks

I have used both. Elance tends to be more expensive. One elancer said they paid for their listing . . . could be why I have paid more there.

Have never had a bad experience on either. Have developed a long list of fast, cheap contractors who put my work at priority.

In several cases contractors have submitted custom graphics before they won the award. This initiative always won them the project.

I always hire with a fixed fee, 90% of the time contractors already have a high rating. Starting small with a test project is low risk. Sometimes I hire 4 people for variations of work on the same project and I choose the best.

My exception to my rule of having a great rating is when an oDesk newbie says they will work for free and they only want payment if I am thrilled with their work. Found one my best video guys with that deal.

Make your jobs a win/win. If someone gives you great work, use your skills to market their services with a stellar review and give them a bonus. They will remember you and put your work at priority the next time you need them.

it's workign pretty wel for me at the moment.

You know its sort of like vworker, Have you ever used vworker, I think it is the cheapest out there and I have had the most headaches with it.

I do not think its the sites though, I think its us operators. When I do my homework I get good results, when I am in a rush, I make mistakes and hire the wrong people.

But yes each site has strength and weakness's the best site I use is scriptlance but usually always costs me the most too.

Odesk is very good and a lot better than freelancer(dot)com

Do not take hourly jobs they sucks but other jobs rocks as there a lot of professional clients. Freelancer sucks as they will ban you constantly for no reason. My friend account was banned & he lost 9500 $ without any reason. Just you violated our terms. He was one of the top freelancer there. I also got banned there. Odesk support is excellent.

There will be good and bad workers wherever there is a large workforce. Stronger reps drive a higher price. I am more familiar with Odesk and seemed to have quailty people responding to me based on their work. Maybe the Elance jobs you were looking at were hot at the moment, so workers were bumping up their rates. The demand in any market will create the rates.

i have used it and i think its cool

I have had mixed results with oDesk. I have a gal in South Africa writing a book for me and she is doing well. I have two gals from the USA and one quit the other day and she hadn't even started yet and the other one has not been contacting me regularly.

I have come to the conclusion that I may well be better off using someone from somewhere other than North America as they might be more reliable.

As a copywriter who has sought jobs on both I have found it very difficult to find employers willing to pay fair rates for good quality writing. I have also seen many providers offer sub-quality work and they are booked solid for jobs.

By and large, my experience is that people are looking for the lowest bid. Most employers are uneducated about conversion techniques using copy, so all that matters to them is how little they can pay someone to write what they can't be bothered to spend the time doing themselves.

the main thing is that if you are know the job you can offer the correct price. but if you don't know the job you will bid at a less amount.
So platform is not a fact. the main fact is your quality.

You see, this is not always about the quality. Price always varies in place to place. If you buy something from new york, you will be able to buy it in cheaper price from Dhaka. Different freelancing sites are different marketplace. Price varies because of the variation of markets.

Odesk in terms of protecting you as a client when it comes to biling is sufficient, for houlry jobs you will be given a grace period to verify your contractor's work... for fixed jobs, you totally have control over it. Just like elance or other outsourcing sites, you baiscally have control over choosing people to hire, you need to take time in finding the right person for the job at the rate you are both comfortable with. If you don't delegate a time to find the appropriate person for the job and then blame the outsourcing site for sub par quality of work... hmmm I guess it simply means the lazy client sucks and not the whole outsourcing site itself.

Offline or online, you'll meet people who will rip you off. Odesk is a global marketplace that has tons of users. There's got to be a few who are out there to deceive you. The feedbacks section is a powerful tool to read what their past clients think of their work. It also helps to check their work history to verify whatever skill/s they claim to have.

It is important to set clear instructions about what you expect the employer to do. Repeat instructions if you feel that the person wasn't able to grasp your ideas. For web development projects, set up milestone payments on every completed task instead of paying after the whole development is finished. This way, you can check if the development is on the right track and if all your instructions are carried out.

I have had positive experiences so far.

It's hard to judge a freelancing marketplace with such a variety of workers.

As somebody who has worked on a number of freelancing marketplaces including oDesk, I have found that a lot of people make rash judgements on the quality of these marketplaces based on just one or two experiences.

The simple fact is: oDesk is only as good as you make it (like any other freelancing marketplace)

You cannot judge a worker by the price he or she charges. Sometimes bargains are really bargains, but unfortunately, a lot of people miss out on them because they view them as being synonymous with poor quality work.

You can get alot of work done on the cheap on oDesk. You literally get responses to job postings in seconds. Some say the work is sub-par, but each to their own.

I also use ELance.. But be prepared to spend more if you decide to take this route.

I have seen people are working on low rates from Bangladesh and Pakistan. they are ruining the competitions. I have appeal to all odesk user that don't compromise your talent by bidding on job in low rates.

In my opinion, Elance is vastly superior to oDesk in every conceivable way.

I no longer hire anyone from oDesk and am ready to close my contractor account on oDesk aswell as there is no real way to guarantee getting paid, unless you do hourly.

Kenneth

I haven't used Elance is years... I regularly use Odesk and don't have a problem. Yes, you'll get a lot of applicants offering their work for cheap and that's sometimes something to look out for. When choosing from among the applicants, I rely heavily on their feedback and also how well they follow my job posting instructions (I always ask them to attach a sample).

In my opinion and experience Odesk doesn´t suck. I met good and bad contractors there. But it´s the same with guru.com or elance. You have to check exactly before hiring a contractor. look at his stuff and don´t hesitate to ask for more samples.

You can find some great native English writers that do quality work on there.

With odesk you should go like :

1) Search with available filters
2) find people with good rating
3) negotiate for the pricing if your budget is low
4) give them small assignment to show their capability...
5) hire someone best out of it...

This strategy works best

I think Odesk is a popular outsourcing website. There is too much work available on odesk and there are too many people searching for work in odesk. So I think quality work is hard to find but not impossible on odesk.

and How About Freelancer.com ? anyone ?

I think oDesk is cheaper because of a lot of contractors from India, Asia in general, and they offer their services cheap.

In my opinion,Odesk is the most cost effective and best outsourcing site.I have got a lot of software and web design related work done via this site and never had any problem with them.

As long as you carefully check the feedback of freelancers,properly explain the finer points of your project and don't always go for the cheapest ones,you should be safe.

Support Sucks Big Time!

I fired a Bengladish guy, he turns around and starts spamming me.

I advise support.

So their Ukrainian tech support adds captcha and sets limits.

Guy finds more holes to spam.


Figured I would be a responsible netcitizen what a waste of time.


Today he was able to find another oDesk.com forgotten user ID request hole.

Got 138 spam messages.

With Elance you can pick up the phone and talk to somebody who can make things happen.

Freelancer only offers message support but I have found a couple of good workers.

Odesk sucks I gave them 6 months to improve.

They didn't and have now been thrown under the bus!

I used it once before and had bad experience with it although I wont say oDesk sucks after only one try it seems to have a lot a crap on there too.

oDesk is great but you really need to filter out the crap when posting an ad.

My best results have come from including a sentence such as "please put the answer to 3+3 as the first character of your reply", this filters out all the automatic responses from people who haven't read the ad.

I also hire 4 people for a 'test' and pick the person with the best work ethic, fastest turn-around time, cheapest price, and best quality work.

Hiring just based on the application will more often than not land you with a dud

I think oDesk still holds some quality freelancers. It doesn't mean that if they offer cheaper price, their services is in low quality.

I do not think the Freelancer of Odesk is more cheaper than the Elance. Actually Rate depends freelancer to freelancer. it does not depend on any site.

I have experience of working in both Odesk & Elance. From my own experience, Odesk has a lot of freelancers, but most are unprofessional and their quality is too low. But on the other hand Elance has a good quality contractors comparing to those of Odesk.

I have found some success on Odesk. About as much as I believe I would find anywhere outsourcing. For me, the key has been:

1. To ask many questions before hiring. Some will tire before being offered the job.

2. To only focus on the Philipeans. Not saying I couldn't find good workers elsewhere, but I figure that's the best use of my time. Kind of like focusing on only the ones with many logged hours.

3. I usually start with a lower pay than they desire. We, then, agree on a raise based on performance. The raise will usually make up for the lower pay before. This works well.

Hope that helps!

Odesk support and especially development suck big way. It takes them a month and counting to fix a critical issue - I'm not receiving messages sent by freelancers to my email.

Then they remove the convenient calculator from the project page so I can't see odesk commission anymore - telling me go and vote on some forum to get this feature back. Really?

I have many more of these examples when odesk is not adequate in their support and development.

I've used Odesk quite a number of times and it's really a mixed bag, although I have similar experiences on other sites. There will always be good and bad freelancers but if you find a good one, keep them around.

What I generally do is give a small order to start off with and if they do a good enough job, re-hire them a second time. If they continue to deliver after a few more jobs I would consider them for bigger projects. I still keep in contact with a couple of programmers whom I've not hired for over a year, simply because when I do have a project to go, I'll have people I can count on to get it done.

Odesk is still great for work and hire some one, my best friend making good money on odesk

I had a dispute with a writer about the quality of the work and got this reply from them.

Outsourcing itself is a skill. Before awarding a job to someone, you must check their previous feedback, check their proposal with your requirements. Discuss with them first if you have any specific task which is utmost important for you.

You need to escrow the funds and release the funds once you are satisfied with the delivered work. In Odesk or elance or freelancers if you have awarded an hourly job, then there is no way to claim refund mentioning about the quality of the work. They measure only the time spent on the project. However on escrow funded project you have a fair chance, even then you must provide a chance for the freelancer to revise the work to your satisfaction.

If you are awarding the job to some one just because their rate is low, you must be ready accept the low quality work too.

I pretty much exclusively use Odesk for my outsourcing needs, and have had all good experiences so far. Granted, most of my outsourcing tasks are lead generation/collection etc. so it's pretty straightforward and inexpensive work.

Prior experience and great feedback with the area of work that you are hiring for is important.

Also, provide as much detail in your instructions as possible. I always create screen capture videos for my outsourcers and try to anticipate questions they might have to answer.

The clearer and more detailed your instructions upfront, the less of a chance you have at their being a major miscommunication resulting in subpar work.

I started as a freelancer in oDesk, I think there are lots of great freelancers in oDesk you just need to check every detail of the contractor before you hire them. I think oDesk have some features like asking additional questions on the application process. You can also put some hidden instructions on your project description so that you can filter whose completely read your instruction and those who only use template cover letter. You can also check if the contractor passed a relevant odesk test to your project. Check his or her feedback. And lastly conduct an interview via skype or any IM app.

Q: Does oDesk Suck?
A: Yes!

Well, I just think Odesk have more competition within the network. That's why people are willing to go lower in terms of prices.

But I do agree though that Elance have better quality workers over there.

There are too much contractor on oDesk, and any contractor can apply any category of the job. That's why competitions is high on oDesk. On the other hand Elance contractor can only apply only one category job, and competition is not so high. You know price of the contractor depends on competitions too

It does not depend on Odesk or Elance. It depends on the freelancer. If the freelancer is new his rate will be cheap on the other hand if he old/ expert his rate will be high. It also depends on cost. such as Elance take money to give exam of Elance on the other hand Odesk has no cost to give exam. it also depends of work quality.

oDesk is great, in my opinion.

You need to actually pay attention when hiring, though, and read the profiles of people applying.

Not everyone is going to be perfect, obviously, and some will be bad, but there are heaps of really talented people working for small amounts of money on oDesk.

Hi everyone

Matt here. If any of you Warriors want to give Freelancer.com a go I will hook you up with some free premium membership - you'll pay no project commissions at all. Just send me a note here on Warrior with your username (signup for free and send it to me) - it'd be great to get your feedback, especially those of you that have experience using other sites.

Regards
Matt

I love oDesk. I use it for graphics and data entry work all the time. If you're looking for writers or something you need a native English speaker for, Elance is better, in my opinion, but oDesk is a solid site with some great people.

No matter where you go: odesk, Elance, or freelancer ... you're protected for your work (but not your time, if a freelancer wastes it). Too avoid any issues I will always detail everything I can for the person doing the job. Clarity is key to avoid any issues - Your Clarity, that is.

If you are detailed enough, and you hire somebody with good reviews - you will usually get good results. Of course there are bad apples everywhere.. which is why your vision must be clear to begin with.

Hope that helps.