How to Make Money on Elance

Well, I feel the most important thing I can add here is that this article does not give reasonable expectations for the average individual using Elance. For someone with credentials as impressive as the writer, you will naturally have an edge over much of the competition. However, for the majority of users, which is those who DON'T have years of extensive work history involving impressive writing positions, we are a dime a dozen on Elance.

The problem for Americans on Elance is that there are tons of individuals from overseas willing to do the same work for a fraction of what we will. Because of the cost of living in the US, we simply can't compete in many of the categories on Elance. Even after you build up your reputation, unless you have a very specialized niche for yourself, you will never end up getting over this hump. For every single "article" writing job you see on Elance, there is typically 20-40 proposals submitted to it. Just think of the hours you'll spend on submitting proposals that get declined just to get a few jobs.

If you can really establish a reputation on Elance AND you have special niche markets that doesn't have much competition, you can make a modest living there, at best. However, when you add up the time it takes to get work and how many low paying jobs it takes to get there, you have to ask, is it worth taking that chance?

I too make the majority of my income on Elance, but I feel this article does not address some major concerns. For one, it can take months or years to build up your credibility on Elance or any other platform, unless you have credentials from somewhere else that you can bring in, which even then may not count for much. As Ben mentioned, he already was a writer before he became a freelancer. That's a lot different from just deciding to delve into freelancing with absolutely no background.

Secondly, because of this "anyone can do it" mentality the price and quality erosion on Elance is quickly reducing the platform to a bit of a joke - if any decent clients do post jobs they either get burned by a farmer outsourcing the work for pennies to a non-professional, or they get plagiarized, spun, stolen, or simply poor content or product. Some of these clients leave and never come back.

Like any entrepreneurial endeavour, you have to be ready to work long hours, spend time learning new trends and technologies, and continually upgrade your skills to stay competitive. You also have to develop the backbone to be able to say no to jobs that are illegal or unethical, even if it means going without.

Even if you do manage to succeed, due to the aforementioned market influx of newbies and rip-off artists who constantly underbid everyone you are not going to make market rates. What you could get paid $100 for in the brick and mortar world will go for $10, $5, or even $1 on the platform. Many long-term Elancers have found that although the platform provides cheap marketing and payment protection services, in the long run they are going to make way more by marketing themselves outside of an open-bidding environment.

I'm not sure that I'm terribly impressed by making less than 33K a year, with NO benefits. After taxes for unemployment, medicare, etc. are taken out (you are paying all of the taxes on that income, right?) it'd barely be over 20K for a family of three. Something does not add up here. Where is the health insurance coming from? How much did it cost to lose out on matching contributions to retirement plans and other benefits? Crimey, this is just another idiot who isn't saving, who's probably not paying their taxes, whose wife is probably collecting unemployment, who prioritizes being able to wear PJs to providing for himself and his family. Hopefully his wife wises up and goes back to work soon.

i still prefer Odesk..

First of all, congratulations on your accomplishment! I do believe it is possible to make a decent living working with Elance. My only question would be how you have been able to make over 100k when some projects pay only $50-100 and the volume of work is clearly worth much more.

Only 100 or so members of elance's Writing & Translation category earn more than $20K annually, and reason is that only a handful of (successful) small businesspeople and indviduals are willing to pay rates of $50, $75 and $100+ per hour.

These buyers have a stricter definition of "legitimate" credentials than the vast majority of elance writers, including the author. They want to see college degrees in journalism, communications, public relations, marketing, etc. and, more important, they want to see years of experience writing for "brand name" publications, ad agencies and PR firms AND subject-relevant portfolio samples.

Writing a blog for your FB page isn't a legitimate "cred" when it comes to high-paying buyers - and neither are vague mentions of "awards" or "best sellers" that some providers paste into their profiles without backing up these claims.

I'm currently ranked 11th in W&T, with 30 years' experience working for newspapers, magazines and PR firms, but it's still a struggle to earn real money at elance, because there are few good buyers paying good money. And if I didn't have legitimate creds and killer samples, the task would be hopeless.

Pete

I have done at home projects through elance and the extra dollars come in handy. However from my experience be prepared to work cheap. There is alot of competition and especially from overseas.

With all this time at home couldn't the hubby then be the one to stay home and then allow the mom to go and get a job outside of the home?

I tried Elance and I too had a hard time competing with all the overseas companies. I was so excited for my first project, but when I added up all the hours compared to how much I got paid (especially after Elance fees) I realized I could make more money at my grocery store job. But all in all, it's good practice in learning how to get jobs and communicate with clients. I just wouldn't ever expect to make a living with it.

Congrats Benjamin! Don't listen to the naysayers who commented before me. They are corporate drones who have no idea what freedom you get from working for your self and the accomplishment you feel when clients appreciate what you do rather then an employer who is never happy.

I joined Elance a while ago and I was never acknowledged by any of the clients when I bid for their projects. It's been months since I last looked at their site.