freelancer upwork people per hour

[Mr Monday]

I will be needing a promotional video soon, so I have started fishing around to see what kind of prices I am looking at.

After checking out a few sites, I realised it is going to cost a bit more than expected, so I decided to check sites such as freelancer.com, upwork and people per hour. I have seen people recommended these sites for more affordable prices.

The reviews for these sites are completely mixed, some sites having 4.5 stars and others having 2 stars. I do understand that generally when you read low rated reviews, you find people complaining about nonsense, but in this scenario the reasons for the low ratings vary.

I myself posted a project and first of all, I had reply from people within a 30 seconds, it takes longer than 30 seconds to read about the project. and also when looking at the profiles a lot of them have similarities which are questionable.


Has anybody actually had any good results from using any of these sites which saved them money?

 

[Socio South West]

Ah... Another PPH thread!!!

I havent contributed to the other thread, but I have used PPH a bit

As a buyer I have sifted through stacks of dross and generic meaningless responses to find one or two decent people who I have gone on to work with on several occasions.

As a seller I have again sifted through stacks of badly worded vague unreasonable adverts to find a few excellent opportunities which have earned me sensible money.

However, finding the good stuff - seller or buyer - takes a lot longer than it used to. The moderation of the adverts is apalling, and should be improved to improve the quality of response and quality of job

 

[paulears]

The problem is the phrase "Promo video" - it means zilch! Nobody who knows what they are doing, and can do it to a professional quality can even think of a ballpark figure without asking questions - LOTS of questions. The last one I did a couple of weeks or so ago took about 6 hours to shoot, and that was with the 'set' already built be a different team - in this case lots of tube and drape, then lots of equipment. Editing the two, three minute songs took two days. So the price reflected this amount of work. Every week I get emails offering videos services for my business quoting prices for promo videos that simply make no sense whatsoever. I can only imagine what the results will look like for the prices they charge. What kind of promo video is in your head?

 

[pbdesigns]

Not used Upwork, but find Fiverr is for very low budget items, ie, things that don't take long to create.

PPH tends to have higher quality products, but the price matches.

I've found that if you have a knowledge in that area, it's much easier to cast, as you can write a very clear brief about what is required, which means the job is priced correctly to begin with. Equally, as someone with experience, you can easily view a portfolio and see where that person's strength lays.

Many people will bid for your project, the difficulty comes in giving the work to the right person.

 

[godoit]

put a phrase in your brief to identify those that actually read it. I usually put " please write the word umbrella in your first sentence"
It knocks about 90% of the responses out and then you can do your due diligance

 

[naxtech]

Generally speaking you will not necessarily find better prices at sites like Fiver, PPH, upwork, etc. It's all down to whether you find the right person to work with.

There are lots of people on those sites who respond within seconds and have a copy-paste answer which they send to everyone and as you'd expect the quality of their work matches. Also, I've found that often they pass work of others as their own, just to demonstrate good quality, when in reality they have not done the work. So be very very careful.

Of course you could be lucky and maybe the results you get are good but 99% of the proposals are usually rubbish or the suppliers are not even answering your questions.

So my advice would be to ask lots of questions and try to ensure that the person you're talking to is competent.

That aside, in the past we used http://www.videoanimationstudio.com/ which is a small business in Spain but we were happy with them. Naturally it all comes down to preferences, chemistry/communication, budget, etc but I hope the above help.

 

[serendipitybusiness]

Yes I agree with Paulears, there are a lot of moving parts with a promo video, you need a full brief and probably story board. Is it a location shoot, animation, do you need actors, sets, music, voice over, how long is it, how many scenes etc etc. Then on the back of this there is post production which can only be valued based on what you initially require. Depending on what you want it can be as little as a couple of thousand or run over 100K. You also get what you pay for in terms of quality with staff. You can have newbies or season professionals and the difference is tremendous in both output and cost. Unless you have an amazingly detailed brief on there then you are likely to be unhappy with the results as no one can properly bid without a lot of information.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Claude didn't spend thousands on these videos... but he still thinks they were one of the best investments he ever made in advertising...

 

[HazelC]

put a phrase in your brief to identify those that actually read it. I usually put " please write the word umbrella in your first sentence"
It knocks about 90% of the responses out and then you can do your due diligance

This is a brilliant idea; you definitely know if they have read it then.

I just wanted to add that I have used (purchased) from the sites and been available for purchase on the sites too.

I would recommend you check the reviews people have left for those applying for your job as this tells you about their standard of work, and ask for examples too so you can see what to expect.

I advertised my services on there when I first started out writing content as I needed testimonials for my website and this was a great way of doing good quality work and getting testimonials from across the UK too. Basically trying to say, without bigging myself up - there are some really good skills on there.

Just my 2pence

 

[Businessquotes]

I've always felt that Upwork has a higher calibre of professional than PPH and most definitely Fiverr.

 

[Honey Blinds]

I have done freelance work on all those sites, and in my opinion the problem is the indervidual Freelancers, that is why the reviews are mixed, it is not a single supplier. Unfortunately the pressures to lower prices means that freelancers have less time to devote to a project. It seems obvious that if what you are offering what equates to a few pounds an hour the supplier will try to complete the work in a shorter time to make it viable. You have to find a middle ground that you can afford, but does not make it a job that is not truly viable for the freelancer, even though they will still take it on to make some cash.

 

[Tom Davies]

I use Fiverr and Upwork but to be honest I prefer upwork as they have more advanced freelancer.. I have hired a content writer from Upwork and she's really good.. $20 for 1000 - 2000 words which is not bad!

I'd recommend Upwork

 

[Jessica A.]

Has anybody actually had any good results from using any of these sites which saved them money?[/QUOTE]

Have you ever tried looking for workers at Onlinejobs? There's tons of employers who are happy with the people they hire on the site and they keep coming back whenever they're in need of more workers for their businesses.

 

[-Chris-]

Have you ever tried looking for workers at Onlinejobs? There's tons of employers who are happy with the people they hire on the site and they keep coming back whenever they're in need of more workers for their businesses.

Is this for http://www.onlinejobs.com ? I have been looking for a coder, so how would I find one on there?

 

[Jessica A.]

It's actually onlinejobs.ph. Employers find their own workers by contacting them directly via the skill search area or by posting a job. It would be best if you create a job post first so that you can gauge the interest of workers.

 

[godoit]

I use freelancer a lot for ad hoc work from excel formula at £60. website fix at £100. logo at £15 and got a couple of people who i do longer term business with now.
It works best for me when I don't need to trust the person, like a face to face meet.

 

[serendipitybusiness]

Yes I use them quite often and have found some good talent but I very often don't go for the cheapest. For instance I posted a small job on people per hour yesterday. I closed it off after 8 applicants as I had 3 good UK PHP developers apply with a relevant response. I would have been happy to work with any of them but I actually chose the most expensive of the 3 (nearly double) as he came up with the most elegant solution. The price was still acceptable based on my ROI.

It helps that I give a detailed brief with technical understanding and know what I am looking for. Just hire based on quality, not price and it works well.

This one seemed to bring a better quality of applicant that some of my past postings, maybe the quality has gone up recently. The guy I hired was new.

 

[Anna12]

How do you protect your business if the hired freelancer infriges copyright? As far as I understand, there is no indemnification clause in their Terms of Use to protect businesses in case the freelancer has delivered to them anything that infringes copyright. Do you have them sign a seperate contract?

 

[Julia Sta Romana]

The problem is the phrase "Promo video" - it means zilch! Nobody who knows what they are doing, and can do it to a professional quality can even think of a ballpark figure without asking questions - LOTS of questions. The last one I did a couple of weeks or so ago took about 6 hours to shoot, and that was with the 'set' already built be a different team - in this case lots of tube and drape, then lots of equipment. Editing the two, three minute songs took two days. So the price reflected this amount of work. Every week I get emails offering videos services for my business quoting prices for promo videos that simply make no sense whatsoever. I can only imagine what the results will look like for the prices they charge. What kind of promo video is in your head?

It's possible to find great people everywhere. The key to increasing your chances of success is to have a clear idea of what you want done and have realistic expectations about the result.

I have a friend who does freelance video editing. She gets frustrated because sometimes clients have unrealistic expectations of what a video editor can do. They can't turn low resolution videos into HD, they can't clean up the audio of the source file is corrupted, and they can't create new footage. They edit, that's it.

So if you want to outsource a promo video, you have to know exactly what you want done. Are you outsourcing the editing of the video (which means you have raw footage) or do you want to outsource the production ( starting from scratch). And if you're outsourcing production, who's going to film it? Is there a storyboard in place?