Why Choose vWorker? (for employers)

vWorker.com gives you a triple-point money-back guarantee^tm*:
The worker will fully complete and deliver 100% of the contracted work and do it will be up to industry-expected standards. They will also deliver it by the deadline and on budget. If they don't you get your money back. And on projects more than $150.00 USD there is a fourth guarantee^* point on communication: The worker will file weekly status reports or your money back. Click here for more details on vWorker.com guarantees.
 

Elance does not have a money-back guarantee. It instead offers a more limited "Fixed Price Work Guarantee". If you want your money back, Elance will "assist both parties in finding a resolution to the dispute". However, if "push comes to shove" and the other party doesn't voluntarily hand you back your money, Elance will not intervene. Instead, you must go to arbitration to retrieve your money, and this process is not free (costs $99 or $199).

Other sites that offer a money-back guarantee, do it for free. You can compare this feature across sites here.

July 19th, 2010: Elance's CEO, Fabio Rosati, asked for an opportunity to be quoted on this item. He said that the Elance fee for arbitrations "is due to requirements that Elance must adhere to by operating a State of California licensed escrow service in which Elance cannot act as both Escrow Agent and Arbitrator."
 

*1: These sites' mandatory pre-arbitration processes allow an abusive worker to stall the start of arbitration (and prevent you from beginning the process required to get your money back) for weeks. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

Guru provides a money-back guarantee on fixed-price (via arbitration like all sites that offer such a guarantee). However they charge you 5% of the project price (with a minimum of $25) to do this, which may make it too expensive to exercise the money back-guarantee on your project. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

Freelancer provides a money-back guarantee on fixed-price (via arbitration like all sites that offer such a guarantee). However they charge you 2% of the project price (with a minimum of $10) to do this, which may make it too expensive to exercise the money back-guarantee on your project. Additionally, Freelancer limits arbitration to projects with milestone payments of more than $30. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

Scriptlance does not provide a money-back guarantee. If there is a dispute, Scriptlance says in their contract: "We do not act as an arbitrator between parties, should a dispute arise, except in limited situations." Other sites that offer a money-back guarantee do not have this limitation. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

Freelancer money-back guarantee costs $5. It "excludes the US $5 contest fee and other purchased upgrades". Click here for more details.
 

Crowdspring does not refund a $39 listing fee as well as any add-on options you chose. Click here for more details.
 

vWorker.com gives you a triple-point money-back guarantee^tm*:
The worker will fully complete and deliver 100% of the contracted work and do it will be up to industry-expected standards. They will also deliver it by the deadline and on budget. If they don't you get your money back. And on projects more than $150.00 USD there is a fourth guarantee^* point on communication: The worker will file weekly status reports or your money back. Click here for more details on vWorker.com guarantees.
 

Elance does not have a money-back guarantee. It instead offers a more limited "Fixed Price Work Guarantee". If you want your money back, Elance will "assist both parties in finding a resolution to the dispute". However, if "push comes to shove" and the other party doesn't voluntarily hand you back your money, Elance will not intervene. Instead, you must go to arbitration to retrieve your money, and this process is not free (costs $99 or $199).

Other sites that offer a money-back guarantee, do it for free. You can compare this feature across sites here.

July 19th, 2010: Elance's CEO, Fabio Rosati, asked for an opportunity to be quoted on this item. He said that the Elance fee for arbitrations "is due to requirements that Elance must adhere to by operating a State of California licensed escrow service in which Elance cannot act as both Escrow Agent and Arbitrator."
 

*1: These sites' mandatory pre-arbitration processes allow an abusive worker to stall the start of arbitration (and prevent you from beginning the process required to get your money back) for weeks. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

Guru provides a money-back guarantee on fixed-price (via arbitration like all sites that offer such a guarantee). However they charge you 5% of the project price (with a minimum of $25) to do this, which may make it too expensive to exercise the money back-guarantee on your project. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

Freelancer provides a money-back guarantee on fixed-price (via arbitration like all sites that offer such a guarantee). However they charge you 2% of the project price (with a minimum of $10) to do this, which may make it too expensive to exercise the money back-guarantee on your project. Additionally, Freelancer limits arbitration to projects with milestone payments of more than $30. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

Scriptlance does not provide a money-back guarantee. If there is a dispute, Scriptlance says in their contract: "We do not act as an arbitrator between parties, should a dispute arise, except in limited situations." Other sites that offer a money-back guarantee do not have this limitation. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

 

oDesk does not offer escrowing on fixed-price project s, which forces you to choose between two potentially unpleasant alternatives. Click here for more information.
 

Elance offers arbitrations on all projects (regardless of size). However, since it charges $99 or $199 for each arbitration, in actual practice you may find it too expensive to invoke on smaller projects. The majority of sites that offer a money-back guarantee, do so for free and do not have this limitation on smaller projects.  

Freelancer limits arbitration to project s with milestone payments of more than $30. You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

Scriptlance does not provide a money-back guarantee. If there is a dispute, Scriptlance says in their contract: "We do not act as an arbitrator between parties, should a dispute arise, except in limited situations." Other sites that offer a money-back guarantee do not have this limitation.
 

Sites that charge you for arbitration often also have potentially expensive "Pay Extra or Lose Your Guarantee" challenge rules. Such a rule says that the worker can challenge you at any time with an arbitration. If they do, you *must* pay a non-refundable fee for the arbitration, or lose your money (and your money back guarantee). Sites that don't charge for arbitration, don't force potentially expensive "Pay Extra or Lose Your Guarantee" rules on you.
 

On Elance, the worker can challenge you at any time with an arbitration. If they do, you *must* pay the non-refundable arbitration fee (either $66 or $133.33), or lose your money (and forfeit your money back guarantee). Other sites don't charge for arbitration, and don't force potentially expensive "Pay Extra or Lose Your Guarantee" rules on you.
 

On Freelancer, the worker can challenge you at any time with an arbitration. If they do, you *must* pay the non-refundable arbitration fee (5% of the milestone amount with a $5 minimum), or lose your money (and forfeit your money back guarantee).(*Note 12/20/2010: This fee went up from a previous charge by Freelancer of 2%.)

Other sites don't charge for arbitration, and don't force potentially expensive "Pay Extra or Lose Your Guarantee" rules on you.
 

*6: This site does not publicize statistics on their maximum times to close arbitrations.
 

Some workers are better at meeting deadlines than others, and when you have a critical and time-sensitive project you need a way to quickly differentiate between the two. The most effective way to do this is to require the worker to guarantee on-time delivery with a deposit (which they only get back if they make the deadline). This significantly discourages less qualified workers from bidding on your project , and financially aligns the worker you do select more closely with your own situation, resulting in a better partnership.
 

These fees are paid by the worker and not by you. However, they may be passed on to you in the form of higher prices.
 

Workers on Elance cannot place more than 3 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee ($9.95/month for 20, $19.94/month for 40 or $39.95/month for 60). This may reduce the number of bids you receive and the worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge subscription fees.
 

Workers on Guru cannot place more than 10 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee ($9.95-$34.95/month for 100 bids for a person, $12.94-$45.44/month for 100 bids for a company). This may reduce the number of bids you receive and the worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge subscription fees.
 

Workers on Freelancer cannot place more than 10 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee to Freelancer. (At the $24.95/month rate, it also reduces their commission fee from 10% to 5%). The worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge subscription fees.
 

Workers on Guru are charged charged 2.5% if the employer uses Pay Pal or charged up to 4% if the employer uses a credit card. The worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge these fees.
 

vWorker.com gives you The AccuBilling guarantee. Click here for more details on vWorker.com guarantees.
 

*3: No money-back guarantee. These sites implement hourly in a manner that allows an abusive worker to bill you for hours not worked, because they neglect to do one ore more of the following:

1. Require the worker to validate their billed hours by punching in and out of a real-time timecard system.
2. Require the worker to demonstrate that they were at their workstation by recording their web-cam during billed hours.
3. Require the worker to demonstrate that they were working on your project by recording their computer desktop during billed hours.

You can compare this feature across sites here.
 

 

Elance does not offer escrowing on hourly project s, which forces you to choose between two potentially unpleasant alternatives. Click here for more information.
 

*9: These sites do not record the worker 's desktop during billed hours, so you cannot detect when a worker is billing you for time when they are working on something else (or not working at all).
 

Liveperson does not record the worker 's desktop, but requires them to be interact with you via a chat session during billed hours, which indirectly allows you to monitor their activity.
 

vWorker takes 10-15 images per hour (or once every 4-6 minutes) to let you watch the work as it evolves and identify and weed-out workers who are too slow or incompetent.

Some other sites only take 6 per hour (or once every 10 minutes). That works okay when your worker is doing well, and doesn't require any close supervision. But if you suspect they are working too slowly or incompetently, you need more frequent images to be able to see what they were doing. Otherwise you are forced to guess or ignore the issue.
 

Elance takes images of the worker's desktop (and optional webcam) 6 times per hour (or about once every 10 minutes). This can be fine if the worker is doing a good job and you don't need to watch their work closely. However, if you suspect they are slow or incompetent, there is not enough detail to determine what they were truly doing. As a result, you must either guess or ignore the issue.

vWorker takes 10-15 images per hour (or once every 4-6 minutes). This lets you watch their work as it evolves, and identify and weed-out workers who are too slow or incompetent.
 

Odesk takes images of the worker's desktop (and optional webcam) 6 times per hour (or about once every 10 minutes). This can be fine if the worker is doing a good job and you don't need to watch their work closely. However, if you suspect they are slow or incompetent, there is not enough detail to determine what they were truly doing. As a result, you must either guess or ignore the issue.

vWorker takes 10-15 images per hour (or once every 4-6 minutes). This lets you watch their work as it evolves, and identify and weed-out workers who are too slow or incompetent.
 

These fees are paid by the worker and not by you. However, they may be passed on to you in the form of higher prices.
 

Workers on Elance cannot place more than 3 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee ($9.95/month for 20, $19.94/month for 40 or $39.95/month for 60). This may reduce the number of bids you receive and the worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge subscription fees.
 

Workers on Guru cannot place more than 10 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee ($9.95-$34.95/month for 100 bids for a person, $12.94-$45.44/month for 100 bids for a company). This may reduce the number of bids you receive and the worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge subscription fees.
 

Workers on Freelancer cannot place more than 10 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee to Freelancer. (At the $24.95/month rate, it also reduces their commission fee from 10% to 5%). The worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge subscription fees.
 

Workers on Guru are charged charged 2.5% if the employer uses Pay Pal or charged up to 4% if the employer uses a credit card. The worker may pass these fees on to you in the form of a higher price. The majority of sites do not charge these fees.
 

This site only allows on-the-job trials (via crowdsourcing) in design related categories (logos, website layout, t-shirt design, etc).

vWorker.com is the only site that allows you to do it on every category of project.
 

This site only allows on-the-job trials (via crowdsourcing) in design related categories (logos, website layout, t-shirt design, etc) and writing.

vWorker.com is the only site that allows you to do it on every category of project.
 

This site does not offer market-based pricing. Instead, it forces you to use their pre-determined price (for all projects in your category). This is often too high. It can also be too low, which results in not enough participation and can result in a failed contest.

vWorker.com is the only site that has PerfectPricing™. Click here for more details.
 

This site does not have trialsourcing. As a result, it does not allow you to do larger projects affordably.

vWorker.com is the only site that has trialsourcing. Click here for more details.
 

Freelancer.com charges $19 for "DesignStudio", which gives you the basics of crowdsourcing:

• Online Visual Workspace - view every design submitted and rate, reject and comment on them to give your Designer immediate feedback.
• Messaging system for fast communication.
• Contract management system - handover the copyright to the design

Other sites do not charge for this.
 

Freelancer.com charges $30 to make a contest private. Other sites do not charge for this.
 

vWorker hours:
Monday through Friday: 9am - 5pm.
Saturday, Sunday: 9am - 3pm
 

Elance hours:
Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm PST
Saturday, Sunday: 8am to 12pm PST
 

Guru hours:
Monday - Friday 9am to 6pm EDT
Saturday, Sunday: Not available
 

99 design phone hours:
(Website only indicates "design consultations" within these hours, but we are assuming full support is also available too). Monday - Friday 8am - 5pm PST
Saturday, Sunday: Not available
 

*15: These sites have chosen to not make this financial information public.

*Before April 2010, vWorker was formerly named Rent a Coder and is listed under this name in the INC 5000.

Creating a detailed project posting is the most important thing you can do to make your project successful. However, it's also time consuming and difficult, and requires so many details that even the most experienced employers often forget to include all of them. Unfortunately, omissions often end up costing you unnecessary time, money, effort and/or aggravation.

A requirements wizard interviews solves this problem by asking you simple questions which explore areas that you probably haven't thought about before. It then creates a detailed specification for you that the worker can use.

As an example, let's say you want an internet site created. The wizard will explain that there are many different browsers and browser versions out there, and that websites rarely work on all of them unless the worker specifically codes it to do so. Cost is important to you, and you realize that you can't afford to support all of them. To solve your problem, the wizard explains the market share of the different browsers and you realize that you can still cover 95% of the market by only supporting 4 browser types/versions. This enables you to save a substantial amount of money in development and also avoid potential miscommunication with your worker later over the scope of the project .
 

Many employers do not realize that many countries that are good to outsource to (such as India, Pakistan and Romania), do not have strong intellectual property laws. In such countries, workers can (and unfortunately do) steal source code from employers and do not have to worry about being prosecuted for it.

To protect yourself from this, it's important to choose a site that allows you to safe-guard your source code from theft.
 

vWorker allows you to require all workers who bid on your project to be Chaperon enabled. Chaperon makes it virtually impossible for a worker to copy or pirate your source code by protecting it from creation and transport to storage and retrieval. Click here for more information on Chaperon.
 

Creating a detailed project posting is the most important thing you can do to make your project successful. However, it's also time consuming and difficult, and requires so many details that even the most experienced employers often forget to include all of them. Unfortunately, omissions often end up costing you unnecessary time, money, effort and/or aggravation.

A requirements wizard interviews solves this problem by asking you simple questions which explore areas that you probably haven't thought about before. It then creates a detailed specification for you that the worker can use.

As an example, let's say you want a worker to make your site rank higher in the search engines. The wizard explains the market share of the different engines so that you can pick the ones that are most cost effective for you, and also walks you through the different onsite optimizations and offsite work that might be helpful to you.
 

Affiliate programs with residuals, pay you more than once for the same referral. Programs that don't, pay you only one time and generally pay less over the long term.

 

Pays you repeatedly for all new business generated by all referrals (employer and worker).

 

 

Pays you repeatedly for all new business generated by all referrals (employer and worker), as long as it occurs in their first 3 months on the site.

 

Pays you repeatedly for all new business generated by all referrals (employer and worker).

 

Pays you a one-time $50 bonus if the employer or worker does over $1,000 in business.

 

Some sites post hypothetical earnings for their affiliate programs based on hypothetical (and sometimes overly-optimistic and unlikely) sales figures. In contrast, all of the amounts on this page are based on actual vWorker.com historical data from May 2001 - January 2011. To keep them realistic, employer examples are based on the average employer posting average sized projects at the average frequency and rate. Worker examples are based on the average worker winning the average sized projects at the average frequency. These averages are:

1. Employers:
    
   • First 3 month's activity average: $245.82 over 2 projects.
   • Yearly activity averages:

     Year	Total $ spent	# of projects
     1	$583.36	4
     2	$872.14	6
     3	$953.17	7
     4	$1,030.85	8
     5	$1,093.64	8
     6	$1,014.76	8
     7	$936.25	7

2. Workers:
    
   • First 3 month's activity average: $300.02 over 4 projects.
   • Yearly activity averages:

     Year	Total $ spent	# of projects
     1	$747.64	8
     2	$1,485.86	10
     3	$1,840.33	11
     4	$2,011.20	10
     5	$2,259.23	10
     6	$2,298.96	9
     7	$2,409.08	9

*Affiliate programs with life-time residuals (vWorker.com, eLance and Scriptlance) can actually pay even more than 7 years, because there is no limitation on how much is earned. This would increase the amounts calculated for those programs. However, for space reasons, the calculations are limited to 7 years.
 

*22: Amounts shown are the standard affiliate, super affiliate, and ultra affiliate amounts (respectively).

Click here for more information and how the vWorker figures are calculated.
 

When selecting from many potential workers it can be difficult to determine which truly have the specialized knowledge that your project requires.

Some sites allow the workers to prove their knowledge by becoming pre-certified by an appropriate testing agency. These sites also allow you to limit bidding on your project exclusively to workers who are certified in the area(s) you require.
 

*21: These sites allow you to require all workers who bid on your job to have been certified in one or more of the hundreds of tests created by ExpertRating.
 

Guru allows workers to hide negative ratings and comments and replace them with "No feedback published" (see the Guru help page and click on "How do I block feedback?"). As a result you may never discover some or all of the poor performance of a worker you are evaluating, nor can you ever know if information has been blocked or not. Other sites give you as much information as possible so you can make the most educated decision, and do not have this limitation.

Odesk allows workers to choose which employer comments appear on the profile and to hide negative comments (see the Odesk help page). As a result you may never discover the exact reasons for a particular rating, nor can you ever know if information has been hidden from you or not. Other sites give you as much information as possible so you can make the most educated decision, and do not have this limitation.

Instant messaging (IM) lets you communicate back and forth in real-time with the other party. It allows a much faster "back and forth" communication than posting a normal message on the private message, which can make it great for interviewing (or being interviewed), working out questions/issues and asking for (or giving) quick status updates. Unlike a chat room, IM doesn't require both parties to formally coordinate a time to meet, and allows for impromptu conversation which is more rapid, natural and effective.
 

If funds are paid via a method which is cheaper to process, the the fee is discounted.
 

vWorker gives you a 2.5% discount immediately, and calls the discount a "preferred payment discount". Click here for more information.
 

Guru.com gives you 1-2% back for use on your next project, and calls the program "loyalty dollars". Loyalty dollars expire, if left unused for two years.
 

vWorker is the only site that give this discount immediately, and applies it to your current project. Guru.com requires you to fund a second project to receive the discount.