Elance v Upwork - no contest for me, Elance wins by a mile

[Rachel O]

I've been on both sites for around 18 months and despite what Upwork have said, the quality of the clients, the rates offered, payment terms and the website are all far superior on Elance. I will hate the fact that Elance is finishing. The following are the issues that will affect me the most:

1. The job feed on Upwork is rubbish and has been even worse for several weeks, meaning that I can't effectively search for the most suitable jobs.
2. I have no idea where the client is on Upwork until I view the job (sometime it still doesn't say) and that matters when you're proofreading or editing. I very much prefer to work for those from UK, US, Europe and Australian/NZ and will target jobs from those countries.
3. The job descriptions are far better on Elance and if I look at a job on page 2, the webpage doesn't reset every time so I have to go backwards to view another one.
4. Charges are 10% instead of 8.5% for a worse service on Upwork.
5. Rates are higher on Elance and clients expectations are higher too, meaning they expect to pay a reasonable rate for a professional job.
6. I get paid straight away on Elance, but have to wait 10 days on Upwork with no justification.

Upwork needs to improve vastly in my opinion. Anyone else agree?

[Wassim T]

Rachel,

With all due respect to your points which indeed are valid ones - but don't you think it's more wise to wait until the full merger takes place? If the quality of clients on Elance are better as you say, then those quality clients will join Upwork soon (good amount of them at least).

So why are you concerned? Let's all wait and see how it turns out.

Best regards,
Wassim

[Fergus M]

"So why are you concerned?"
 

Probably because a big chunk of her income depends on it and she's worried about the consequences if Upwork doesn't improve?

[Zoltán N]

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@Wassim T wrote:

Rachel,

With all due respect to your points which indeed are valid ones - but don't you think it's more wise to wait until the full merger takes place? If the quality of clients on Elance are better as you say, then those quality clients will join Upwork soon (good amount of them at least).

So why are you concerned? Let's all wait and see how it turns out.

Best regards,
Wassim

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Unfortunately, all(!) of my Elance clients refused to join UpWork because of it's horrible interface, the tons of the missing features and the painfully low freelancing work culture on both of the contractor and client side (which is probably an ungracious heritage of the onetime ODesk, which always had a poor reputation on the global freelancing market due to this)...

Anyway, we really don't have any other choice than waiting.

[Jennifer M]

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@Zoltan N wrote:

Unfortunately, all(!) of my Elance clients refused to join UpWork because of it's horrible interface, the tons of the missing features and the painfully low freelancing work culture on both of the contractor and client side (which is probably an ungracious heritage of the onetime ODesk, which always had a poor reputation on the global freelancing market due to this)...

Anyway, we really don't have any other choice than waiting.

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 This really sucks. I'm surprised they are being stubborn. I'm pretty sure mine will follow me. I am still contemplating the best way to get them to move though. It needs to be as simple and easy as possible without them getting frustrated. I also want to make sure I'm easy to find.

[Elizabeth G]

As has been pointed out, if the two platforms specialize in rather distinct market shares, with Elance occupying the higher end of that spectrum in both rates payed and quality of work submitted, why should anyone assume that "most" of the clients on Elance will transition to UpWork? 

For those of you the remember Border's or have lost your local Barnes & Noble, I bet you didn't just aimlessly transition, at least not comfortably or voluntarily, to Books-A-Million. 

[Calee A]

I too am losing clients who do not want to migrate to Upwork's clunky userface. Skimming through the jobs show low quality rubbish, just like when Upwork was ODesk (which was why I chose Elance over ODesk back then.) Clients may migrate over, it's true. But I feel that many will reach out to higher quality freelancer sites. I plan to do the same, but I have also worked hard for my Elance repuatation, and I'll stomach the switch to try to make Upwork work. 

[Chris M]

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@Calee A wrote:

...Clients may migrate over, it's true. But I feel that many will reach out to higher quality freelancer sites. ...

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 Hi Calee,

'Reaching out to higher quality freelancer sites'.

Are there any freelancer sites that can match Elance? I don't know of any.

[MD SHAHADAT H]

Hello,

Everything looks better now but Message option is not smooth according to my experience. Many times I can't open inbox message. I think Upwork will focus and update the message system.

Thanks,

Shahadat

[Yoko M]

I agree with your points...in these areas Elance does exceed Upwork in ease of use!

But I still have been sucessful in finding clients here. --Or rather, Clients have found me! I'm not sure how the Freelancing search engine works on Upwork, but I have gotten more interview requests (invites) that have connected directly into paying jobs here than I have on Elance. 

-So that is one plus in Upwork's favor.

I don't think Upwork is a lost cause. I would like it to continue to improve. It is very difficult to find jobs that match my specifications with the current search engine, as you mentioned. I get a lot of errors while browsing through the site and completing certain functions as well.