Best places to outsource repetitive tasks?

Builder16

Joined
Jan 16, 2017
Messages
2
Likes
0
Degree
0
Other than Odesk and Fiverr; any suggestions on outsourcing websites that accept Paypal?
 
I'm a big believer in Upwork.
It's by far the easiest way I've found to find freelancers. I'd highly recommend figuring out the hours it'll take to complete the task and then put a job up as a fixed price. This way you can get freelancers under the $3/hour minimum that Upwork allows you to put for hourly jobs.

For example; If you want someone to gather emails for 100 sites and you think it'll take 3 hours then you could put a job up for $3. That way you're only paying roughly $1/hour instead of the $3/hour minimum that Upwork would let you do.

I've found some really great freelancers there who have been working for me for months at a time.
 
There are quite a few of these types of sites out there. I only have experience with oDesk & Elance ( both of whom have been bought by Upwork, same thing now).

There are sites like:
  • Microworkers
  • People Per Hour
  • OnlineJobs.ph
  • And a ton of other less popular options
Beyond those types of sites, there are even sub-reddits for "making beer money" or hiring web developers and more. The possibilities there range from nonsense work to extremely difficult, specialized work.
 
I concur with @Prentzz. When I used to work as a solo writer and I thought of expansion, Upwork was one stop solution for me. I scrolled through lists of writers, some of them joined my team. They are reliable and of course, provides top notch quality work.

Apart from that, PeoplePerHour is also a convenient option.
 
Prentzz said:
I'm a big believer in Upwork.
It's by far the easiest way I've found to find freelancers. I'd highly recommend figuring out the hours it'll take to complete the task and then put a job up as a fixed price. This way you can get freelancers under the $3/hour minimum that Upwork allows you to put for hourly jobs.
Click to expand...

Same here. Upwork is awesome. I don't live in an english speaking country and none of my projects are in english and I can still find a significant amount of budget (and high quality too!) writers/VAs/etc.

And Prentzz's advice is spot on! If you wanna save some money, do the task you want to outsource yourself a couple of times (if you haven't already) and see how long it takes you to do it. This way you can take the hours and multiply them with a fair hourly rate and put the job up as a fixed price. Puts a little pressure on the VA and you're still paying them a fair amount of money.

And even though it's against their ToS (at least I think it is) you can easily tell people to send you their email addresses after a couple of successful jobs and then continue working with them without the "middleman" (the middleman being Upwork who's charging a 20% commission). I know it's a bit of a dick move and I don't do this anymore, but I used to do it when I was just starting out to give my VAs a 20% raise without actually paying 20% more.

Anyway, long story short: +1 for Upwork :smile:
 
esca1 said:
I know it's a bit of a dick move and I don't do this anymore, but I used to do it when I was just starting out to give my VAs a 20% raise without actually paying 20% more.
Click to expand...

Ask the freelancers : are they ok with it?
I bet they are.
Most of my real life friends that had to rely on upwork when running low on cash, they hated it.
A lot of employers expect to pay peanuts and to have a ton of revisions (my friends are illustrators/animators). On top of that, Upwork is getting its cut and probably your government wants its cut too.
I think both the employer and the freelancer naturally want to move out of the upwork platform, especially after a few jobs (when you know that you got at least a bit of trust going). To be honest, I don't consider it a dick move. I'd rather say it's how things work naturally in the world of middle manning and also shows how the current freelancing platform model is WAY TOO OLD for internet times and we need a new model.
I've been looking at DesignPickles as a model for a while and it's kinda like time-sharing an employee with other agencies/entrepreneurs.

I also kinda believe in paying a fairer wage to employees too, no matter what country their from (come on, 3usd/hour is already pretty low).
As an entrepreneur it is also easy to understand that the more you give, the more it will come back.
And as Henry Ford pointed out to his management when they mentioned that maybe he was paying his workers too much : "Yeah, well.. Who's gonna' buy the cars?".

Which is true for the reality we live in, with the newer generation sinking their lives in lowly paid jobs and literally giving up their work life mostly because it's literally "not worth it" and you can still get cheap entertainment anywhere nowadays (that describes most of my friends in my current circle).
 
I started using Golance recently. It's a nice alternative to upwork but with 10% fee
 
I've had the most success with upwork and people per hour. Found some good people there I've been using for years now.
 
Thinking a little bit further here -- have you tried using software to automate tasks? Check these out:


Both connect 3rd party apps using triggers and automations, which out can further extend by linking them to a VA. If you really need a VA, I recommend checking out Chris Ducker's Virtual Staff Finder.
 
I quite like fiverr.com for this. If you cannot find somebody doing the task already, you can always post a request.
 
Xenon said:
I started using Golance recently. It's a nice alternative to upwork but with 10% fee
Click to expand...
Update: Golance sucks. The freelancer I hired had issues with their tracking app so I decided to return to upwork.

If you are looking for an alternative check out https://talent.hubstaff.com/ There is no fee. You pay the freelancer directly.
 
From my experience Upwork is great for putting up projects, not so great for the writers/programmers. Golance wasn't enjoyable to use at all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back