Hourly Rate - Countries

[#1]

Hello,

I'd like to know how clients behave, so clients from third world countries in most case would be paying less hourly rate ?

I'd like to know how clients in developed countries thinks. I am seeing many freelancers (ex: skills translating) were able to obtain high paying clients (most from developed countries), meanwhile with the same skills, there are many other freelancer with same skills same quality (check ratings/reviews) but they are earning less. So why would these clients are paying higher while they can still find freelancers whom are cheaper with the same skills & quality ?

So is it because, if the client are from developed countries, they will eventually pay higher any ways to any freelancer ? where's the logic behind that ?

[#2]

Freelancers are generally paid according to their skills and experience, regardless of their location or the location of the client.

[#3]

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Christine A wrote:

Freelancers are generally paid according to their skills and experience, regardless of their location or the location of the client.

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But I do finds mostly based on country - location... There are more developing country freelancers hired cheaper... it's difficult to find someone in developed country with a rate of $4/hr...

[#4]

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Ely B wrote:

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But I do finds mostly based on country - location... There are more developing country freelancers hired cheaper... it's difficult to find someone in developed country with a rate of $4/hr...

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Well, yes - it would be out of the question for me to charge $4/hour in my country; I'd be starving and living in the street. If a freelancer lives in a country where the cost of living is cheap, they can definitely use it as a competitive advantage, but if they're any good at what they do, they'll charge as much as clients are willing to pay. A client might get lucky finding a good freelancer who's just starting out, but they'll raise their prices as soon as they get better clients, then they won't want to work with the cheap client any more.

[#5]

The problem is, the high paying clients are extremely more difficult to find. I can see them prefers to hire someone from a developed country also.

[#6]

A few reasons to hire someone in a developed country could be language, culture... People tend to be comfortable negotiating with others whom they think would have the same understanding or more close to their mindset. (It's only a guess)

[#7]

At $4USD/hour, minus Upwork fees - I would barely be able to buy a bottle of milk after working for an hour. 

I tend to stick to clients within my own country for a variety of reasons, including $$

[#8]

I am not a client, but here are my 2 cents as a freelancer.

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Ely B wrote:

with the same skills, there are many other freelancer with same skills same quality (check ratings/reviews)

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I don't think ratings and reviews are enough to state that two freelancers have the "same skills same quality". There are also other factors to consider: years of experience, previous work in a field, soft skills, quality of communication, and so on. So it is not easy to compare two freelancers based solely on ratings and reviews.

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Ely B wrote:

I am seeing many freelancers (ex: skills translating) were able to obtain high paying clients (most from developed countries), meanwhile with the same skills, there are many other freelancer with same skills same quality (check ratings/reviews) but they are earning less.

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I am afraid you chose the wrong example. A professional translator (unless they are bilingual) translates only in their native language (please don't get me started on the tons of freelancers offering translation services in a language they don't know natively). 

Taking this aspect into consideration, statistically you will find the vast majority of translators living in the same country where their target language is spoken. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that a client looking for translations into e.g. Italian will find the same quality level in freelancers from Italy (or Italian expats living in other Western countries) and in freelancers with e.g. Asian or African citizenships. Just an example.

All in all, clients try to make the most out of their budget. Some of them are willing to pay higher rates, others are ready to accept potential compromises on quality for the sake of paying as less as possible. Some have country preferences. Some others feel more at ease when working with freelancers speaking their same native language. Some clients will pay good rates also to freelancers living in countries where the cost of life is 2/3 lower. Other clients automatically associate low rates with low quality. And so on.

So I don't think there is any "logic" behind that. 

[#9]

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Elisa B wrote:

I am not a client, but here are my 2 cents as a freelancer.

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Ely B wrote:

with the same skills, there are many other freelancer with same skills same quality (check ratings/reviews)

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I don't think ratings and reviews are enough to state that two freelancers have the "same skills same quality". There are also other factors to consider: years of experience, previous work in a field, soft skills, quality of communication, and so on. So it is not easy to compare two freelancers based solely on ratings and reviews.

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Ely B wrote:

I am seeing many freelancers (ex: skills translating) were able to obtain high paying clients (most from developed countries), meanwhile with the same skills, there are many other freelancer with same skills same quality (check ratings/reviews) but they are earning less.

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I am afraid you chose the wrong example. A professional translator (unless they are bilingual) translates only in their native language (please don't get me started on the tons of freelancers offering translation services in a language they don't know natively). 

Taking this aspect into consideration, statistically you will find the vast majority of translators living in the same country where their target language is spoken. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that a client looking for translations into e.g. Italian will find the same quality level in freelancers from Italy (or Italian expats living in other Western countries) and in freelancers with e.g. Asian or African citizenships. Just an example.

All in all, clients try to make the most out of their budget. Some of them are willing to pay higher rates, others are ready to accept potential compromises on quality for the sake of paying as less as possible. Some have country preferences. Some others feel more at ease when working with freelancers speaking their same native language. Some clients will pay good rates also to freelancers living in countries where the cost of life is 2/3 lower. Other clients automatically associate low rates with low quality. And so on.

So I don't think there is any "logic" behind that. 

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There is a logic behind these, unless you are having trouble in finding high paying client your self. It literally means you don't have the right answer. 

[#10]

Believe me, I have no trouble whatsoever finding work. And I have been freelancing long enough to know how things work.

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Ely B wrote:

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It literally means you don't have the right answer. 

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No, it literally means you asked the wrong question.

But hey, it's a free world, so we are free to have whatever opinions we want.

[#11]

As a client, I have hired over 180 freelancers on Upwork.

As a client, I have work that I want to get done. And I have money. I would like to pay less money to get the work done, but I know that paying the lowest rates means the quality will be lower than what I need.

So I pay freelancers what I need to pay, in order to get the quality I want.

I don't care where they live.

Is this freelancer charging me a rate that means he makes far more money than his cousins and neighbors who live in his community? I don't care.

Is this other freelancer charging me a rate which is lower than what some other freelancers charge for the same quality work? I don't care.

[#12]

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Preston H wrote:

As a client, I have hired over 180 freelancers on Upwork.

As a client, I have work that I want to get done. And I have money. I would like to pay less money to get the work done, but I know that paying the lowest rates means the quality will be lower than what I need.

So I pay freelancers what I need to pay, in order to get the quality I want.

I don't care where they live.

Is this freelancer charging me a rate that means he makes far more money than his cousins and neighbors who live in his community? I don't care.

Is this other freelancer charging me a rate which is lower than what some other freelancers charge for the same quality work? I don't care.

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The way I see it you just have too much money as a client since you don't care at all how you are spending ??. 

wow... I guess this is what most freelancers have been dreaming of..

These are your skill set :

• Database Design
• SQL
• Database Programming
• MySQL
• PHP
• Mac OS App Development
• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe Photoshop
• Microsoft SQL Server Programming
• Database Administration
• SQL Programming

Why is your rate 4x higher than these guys  www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01feb31410c5debe5c ?

How do you perceive quality ? because seems those guys have good reviews and histories also

[#13]

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Ely B wrote:

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The way I see it you just have too much money as a client since you don't care at all how you are spending ??

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Clients pay more because they care more about the quality of the work; also, their time is valuable so they don't want to have to go back-and-forth explaining things and asking for revisions, like you normally do with a less experienced freelancer.

I can also say that as a freelancer, it's good to avoid working with clients who are cheap, because they tend to be disrespectful, demanding and unreasonable, in addition to low-paying. 

[#14]

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because they tend to be disrespectful, demanding and unreasonable

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I really don't understand this, seems if the client is a more paying client, they should behave like that instead of the cheap clients.

[#15]

Ely B -

I do relatively high cost projects, so most of my clients understand the complexity and skills needed for the work they want done and they have the budgets they need to hire qualified freelancers.

The only difficult clients I have dealt with were either a) just difficult people in general or b) inexperienced low budget people who don't understand their own projects and think they are being ripped off if their project turns out to be more expensive than they can afford.

One of the difficult clients, whom I fired only after about 20% of the project was done, was very controlling, complaining that I didn't keep my eyes on him throughout our Zoom calls and, instead, took notes and had to look at what I was writing! Another difficult client didn't tell me her budget was less than I quoted to her, then complained when I stopped working on her project after she later told me while I was working on her project that she couldn't pay any more for completion of her project. She protested that she would pay me later if I would just complete her project without further pay as we went. (I call such clients Wimpys - willing to pay me tomorrow for a hamburder today.)

But, based on the messages we see in this forum, there are also fraudsters who try to scare/bully freelancers into doing things that don't benefit the freelancers in terms of a fair pay rate or even paying what they have agreed to pay when a contract was agreed to by both client and freelancer.

The only real defence against these clowns is for the freelancer to have a sense of when a potential client will be that type, leave accurate feedback to warn other freelancers about the client's personality and skillset AND for Upwork to provide more information about all clients' project history on Upwork.

Upwork has shown no inclination to provide anything close to as much information about client histories on Upwork as is provided about freelancers' work histories. Even the implementation of Upwork removing certain difficult clients' feedback from their freelancers' JSS calculation is undisclosed.

[#16]

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Ely B wrote:

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because they tend to be disrespectful, demanding and unreasonable

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I really don't understand this, seems if the client is a more paying client, they should behave like that instead of the cheap clients.

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It doesn't sound like things have gone very well with your own projects when you've hired cheap freelancers, judging by all of the posts that you've made in the past.

[#17]

lol very wrong, I have hired numerous ammounts of cheap good quality freelancers !,

see how much I have spent here in upwork, 90% of them were cheap and good. Best price best quality.

But yes, there are also bad cheap freelancers, but usually they just wasted my time and leave without having the fund released, so saved money but loose time. 

But the problem is, it would be not making any sense if I want to start freelancing, get high payment, while at the same time I have a good hiring strategy in my head right ??!. Why would they pay me higher if they can just proceed with my strategy.

There are always people who can do what you are doing, in terms of any skills, since upwork is just trying to acquire more and more users everyday.

[#18]

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Ely B wrote:

There are always people who can do what you are doing, in terms of any skills, since upwork is just trying to acquire more and more users everyday.

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But clients do hire me, even though there are cheaper freelancers, so that must mean that they cannot get the same quality at a cheaper price. Some people are busy professionals with important deadlines, who don't want to wade through a bunch of time-wasting freelancers until they find a few who can do a decent job. And for my part, I don't want to work with low-budget clients, so I don't care if they hire cheap freelancers. So, everybody's happy. 

[#19]

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Christine A wrote:

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Some people are busy professionals with important deadlines, who don't want to wade through a bunch of time-wasting freelancers until they find a few who can do a decent job. 

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So how would the client knows if these freelancers are not time wasting ?. What are the metrics indicators ?. Seems JSS is not really reliable, because they can leave but still have high JSS. 

But,If you mean, pay them high, they will stick around and provide good quality of work right ? if so that's where my question is, a cheap country freelancer whom has worked a lot here with very good 5 stars profile, they may still struggle to get higher paying clients. Then if that's the case, maybe you implied that, most clients thinks country origin is the good metric indicator for that they will not waste time.

[#20]

Agree with you observation - 

"it's good to avoid working with clients who are cheap, because they tend to be disrespectful, demanding and unreasonable, in addition to low-paying."

[#21]

Hi Ely, 

I can completely comprehend what you are trying to imply and I agree with you somewhat. But there's nothing much you can do about it to be honest, specially when the rates are fixed.  The case is different where the client is open to negotiate though. But, I would suggest one must know his/her worth and the markets as well and demand what is justifiable. 

[#22]

Yeah there are some western judgemental stereotyping, if you are from third world country, then they will think you are cheap, why ask more ?.

They put aside your quality of work, they will just asume and judge your quality of work is bad compared to people from western / developed countries. Try make a client account then you will see so many third world countries freelancers are so cheap, but believe it or not, they can perform a very satisfying work.

[#23]

Buyers everywhere want to pay next to nothing.  It is specially true for buyers from the developed countries.  They multiply the countries exchange rate with usd and shout holy **bleep**, I am paying $1/hr to this vietnamese and that is almost 25,000 VND/hr.....that slob needs to kiss my feet and be eternally grateful to me (of course I will find ways to cheat him too)

[#24]

Sad but so, so true. 

[#25]

Sad and disgusting.