UpworkReviews 2,128

Overall, the service was great until they recently started monitoring your IP addresses. So what happened was that I have a business account with my partner. We both login to the account to perform different actions there. They noticed that 2 people(IPs) with different user names are logging into 1 account and put our account on hold in order to investigate. They had us send documents verifying our identities and even had skype intervews to make sure that we were real people. After I explained everything to them, they still told me that I need to agree not to do this in the future. I basically need to agree to not have multiple computers and devices accessing our business account! It's insane and they cause so much headache for some honest hardworking individuals.

If you use the service, make sure you use a Tor browser. You will never have this issue.

Elance got me started writing professionally. I made sure my proposals stood out from the rest… And I was able to gain a couple of good writing jobs that have been paying very well. There is a lot of competition on Elance but if you take the time to write a good proposal and show them just what you can do then you should be able to get what you're looking for.
The fee they receive is a little bit high but if it wasn't for elance I wouldn't be making the money that I am making today.

Very good website. It may be hard to find work at first, but don't give up. Try harder and you will definitely become a well esteemed freelancer.

First thing to know about Elance is that there is no Elance vs Odesk. They are one company with the same owners. So your experience will be pretty similar - support. Fees, pros and cons. That can be a good and bad thing.

Their fees are:

Site takes 8.75% fee for every project you complete. Elance fees have been raised last year from 6.75%. Fee's on earning $4k/month = $350. Plus $10/month if you want to use Elance actively and appear higher in search results.

What I didnt enjoy most about Elance was that it isnot totally free – if you don't join paid membership, you will keep feeling like you are using limited version of Elance.

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Great things about Elance of course is it's size, they take Escrow payments to ensure safety. And there are loads of helpful applications for accountability and communication. It's a great place for beginners and freelancers from third world countries. It isnt so good place for web professionals.

We did massive research about best 8 freelance marketplaces, compared their pros, cons, fees and how to make it out there.

You can read full review and also see comparison chart here - http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/best-freelance-websites/

I really like the site and would recommend the people for using it. At least it is much better than other freelancing websites in the market.

Great to work online, easy to get quality contract job. Thanks

They charged me for the inactivity fee, while it is their freelancer who do not deliver! What the hell is this?

Elance is a company of scammers
Most of their contractors are scammers Indians
Aman Aggarwal Expert in Databases and Server Administration: is a good example
https://www.elance.com/s/aman-aggarwal-dba/
I worked with him and he just stole my money
All his reviews are fake
Notice the number of overall reviews of users who submitted the reviews 1 or 2
He delayed the project over 30 days and then disappeared
I turned to elance to get refund
But their response was:
As there are no funds currently held in Escrow and the last payment released from Escrow was more than 30 days ago, the job does not qualify for a Dispute Assistance call or arbitration through Elance. We can not issue a refund without the freelancer's consent.
I told them that the work was not performed
There is no response from them!
Elance = scam, aman619aggarwal = Indians scammers
Fraud Scam company!

This website is a scam! The 'customer service' is offshore in India and the Philippines. They suspend people's paid memberships for no reason, take money that belongs to the freelancers. The management ignores complaints- and most of the jobs are scams run by blackmailers.

No professional in their right mind should consider using Elance, as you will regret it!

I accepted my first job on elance. Indian-based company paying $5/hour... I accepted it thinking I would do the job to get a rating. Big mistake.

This company is out of Mumbai and the guy was impossible to please. Said my work was of exceptional quality, then turned around at the end when I said I wouldn't do any more work until we renegotiated a new rate and gave me a 3.7 out of 5 rating.

That just ruins my rep for any future clients.

Client ratings are too subjective and the rates offered freelancers are way below market value. I would not recommend elance to anyone in the U.S. or, at best, only submit proposals to U.S. or European-based clients.

I've worked with several freelancers from Elance with about 60% success but recently I had a horrible experience with one of their freelancers and received very unsatisfactory support. The freelancer is Scoped Design. Here is what happened.

I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO PROCEED WITH CAUTION. This freelancer completely swindled me out of $500 and did not deliver the work of customizing a wordpress theme based on Zeyn theme. S/he is the most dishonest person I've dealt with on this service. I had significant correspondence with freelancer prior to accepting job. Scoped_Design then contacted me stating that one of his jobs had cancelled for the week and offered a discount. Now, I of course know why the previous job backed out. They smelled something fishy. He asked for $500 up front stating that he needed to pay the outsourced SEO team, so since we'd had so much correspondence and he was very responsive I (stupidly) released funds. INSTALLED INCORRECT THEME: At that point, Scoped_Design installed a completely different theme on my wordpress site that I'd requested. This process took over a week. TOOK THE MONEY AND RAN: When asked to conform to original job request he did finally install requested theme and then I never heard from him again. ELANCE SUPPORT refused to assist in getting the monies back. They approved my claim agains Scoped Design but since the funds had been released, they seemed to have just dropped it. Good luck with them if you ever need assistance. I'm dismayed that they don't police their freelancers any better than that.

Filed a dispute after a horrible outcome on the job, and Elance forced me to pay for work I couldn't use... NEVER use this site