A few years ago, I signed up for both Textbroker and Elance at about the same time. (Elance has since merged with Odesk to become Upwork.) I have since tried to sign up for at least two other services and never completed the intake process because it was too cumbersome.
My recollection is that Elance required me to bid for work. In other words, I had to put time into deciding how much I would work for and competing with other people. I believe I was allowed to do up to 5 pieces of work per month without paying a membership fee, but would have had to pay a membership fee in order to do more work. I never did any work through Elance.
In order to research this article, I spent a bit of time looking at Upwork. It looks a lot like the deal Elance offered to freelancers. So I don't imagine I will bother to create a freelance account with Upwork. Here are a couple of quotes from their description:
Textbroker was easy to set up. They weren't charging me money to work. They rate your writing and then give you access to work in accordance with your rating.
They make the full descriptions of the assignments available to you to read. You can read it and decide whether or not to pull an assignment. You decide when you work and how much you work. No one is tracking your hours. It is piece work. You get paid for articles completed satisfactorily. If you get good at finishing satisfactory work quickly, your hourly pay rate goes up. You decide how much to put into getting fast. If you are happy to work slowly, no one will hassle you about it, as long as you are meeting deadlines.
If you have a good rating and work full time, you can make a few hundred dollars per week working out of the general pool. If your rating is high enough, you can also apply to teams and you can fill out your profile to attract direct orders. You set your own rates for direct orders. Teams and direct orders generally pay better than work from the general pool. Such orders also tend to be easier to write in that you tend to have a subset of topics you are writing on and the same instructions over and over, reducing the time it takes to figure out what the client wants.
If your rating is good and you belong to teams and carve out a niche for yourself that attracts direct orders from clients, you can potentially make a lot more money than you would make working out of the general pool. You still set your own hours and work as much or as little as you like. You can take a day off or a week off or a month off and no one will hassle you.
Upwork is geared towards giving the people doing the hiring the majority of the power. In contrast, Textbroker does a good job of giving the worker control over their work while also offering the clients satisfaction. Meanwhile, I never have to chase my pay. Freelancers often have to chase their pay. Textbroker makes sure that if I did the work, I get paid.
My recollection is that Elance required me to bid for work. In other words, I had to put time into deciding how much I would work for and competing with other people. I believe I was allowed to do up to 5 pieces of work per month without paying a membership fee, but would have had to pay a membership fee in order to do more work. I never did any work through Elance.
In order to research this article, I spent a bit of time looking at Upwork. It looks a lot like the deal Elance offered to freelancers. So I don't imagine I will bother to create a freelance account with Upwork. Here are a couple of quotes from their description:
Getting freelance work is a lot like traditional searching — you submit applications on projects, then impress potential clients before being offered the project.
It's free to join Upwork. Once you begin doing freelance work with a client on our platform, we deduct a 10% fee from each payment. So, be sure to price your services accordingly. Upwork also offers premium membership plans for an additional cost.
Textbroker was easy to set up. They weren't charging me money to work. They rate your writing and then give you access to work in accordance with your rating.
They make the full descriptions of the assignments available to you to read. You can read it and decide whether or not to pull an assignment. You decide when you work and how much you work. No one is tracking your hours. It is piece work. You get paid for articles completed satisfactorily. If you get good at finishing satisfactory work quickly, your hourly pay rate goes up. You decide how much to put into getting fast. If you are happy to work slowly, no one will hassle you about it, as long as you are meeting deadlines.
If you have a good rating and work full time, you can make a few hundred dollars per week working out of the general pool. If your rating is high enough, you can also apply to teams and you can fill out your profile to attract direct orders. You set your own rates for direct orders. Teams and direct orders generally pay better than work from the general pool. Such orders also tend to be easier to write in that you tend to have a subset of topics you are writing on and the same instructions over and over, reducing the time it takes to figure out what the client wants.
If your rating is good and you belong to teams and carve out a niche for yourself that attracts direct orders from clients, you can potentially make a lot more money than you would make working out of the general pool. You still set your own hours and work as much or as little as you like. You can take a day off or a week off or a month off and no one will hassle you.
Upwork is geared towards giving the people doing the hiring the majority of the power. In contrast, Textbroker does a good job of giving the worker control over their work while also offering the clients satisfaction. Meanwhile, I never have to chase my pay. Freelancers often have to chase their pay. Textbroker makes sure that if I did the work, I get paid.
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