17 Alternatives That Will Help You Outsource Jobs to Grow Your Business

Odesk and Elance have merged to become Upwork.com and the leader in hiring freelancers and remote tracking software.

However, they’re only focused on short term projects, not long term workers.

General Freelancer Platforms

Is a marketplace where you can find, manage, and pay your staff from around the world. Here’s how it works: After you post a job, you will create a shortlist of candidates from 1,000s of Qualified profiles in our database. Next you will interview and test the candidates. And before hiring your new remote staff member, you can take them for a trial run with either a quick test, a longer paid trial of 5 hours or more, or a probation period before the hire is finalized.

Staff.com

Why It’s Different:

The key difference between Staff.com and other marketplaces on this list is that you are hiring people to fill longer term positions.

Instead of one off projects and services that can be completed in a matter of days, Staffers intend to work with a company for months, or even years.

Staff.com

Who It’s For:

Staff.com is for startups looking to scale their business by finding top talent regardless of location. They are looking to add long term team members who will help grow your company over the course of the next year, or more.

Staff.com

What it is: Freelancer.com is a global outsourcing marketplace very similar in function to Upwork, which allows potential employers to post jobs that freelancers can then bid to complete.

Freelancer.com

Here’s how it works: You post a job and freelancers make bids to complete. You can then compare and select bidders. You pay once you’re satisfied with the work.

Freelancer.com

Why It’s Different: Depending on your membership type, you will be charged fees once a freelancer accepts your offer. On Free, Basic and Plus memberships, you pay $3 USD, or 3% of the total project cost, whichever is greater. Standard and Premium memberships don’t pay any project fees, however, they have monthly fees of $49 and $199 respectively.

Freelancer.com

Guru.com

What it is: Guru lets you find and hire talented freelancers to help you complete a variety of different projects. Search for services being offered by freelancers that match your needs. They have a global network of 1.5 million freelancers (called guru’s) to help you complete technical, creative or business projects that you have to complete.

Why It’s Different: One of the cool features that Guru offers is the ability for the business owner to manage the project without leaving Guru.com because of the built in project manager app. Within Guru.com, you can create agreements, define milestones and tasks, communicate, and share documents. All of the necessary functions needed in Order to complete a project. Only when the project is completed do you pay for the service.

Guru.com

Who It’s For: Guru is ideal for small and mid-sized business owners who need a one off project like a website, app, or even a blog post. You have the ability to “shop” for a guru based on price, experience, and reputation. Some of the Guru’s will outprice small businesses, but there can be some real bargains if you search hard enough.

Guru.com

Fiverr

What it is: When you need it done fast and cheap, you go to Fiverr.com. The place where every service is offered for $5. Whether you need an explainer video, a product description, a proofreader, an email marketing campaign, or a blog post, you can get it on Fiverr.

First, you browse for the type of service that you need. You’ll get a wide array of service providers to choose from. Once you’ve chosen who you wish to work with, you can “order now”.

Why It’s Different:

Everything is $5. They do allow vendors to upsell other services, but everyone’s base service is exactly $5.

Fiverr

Who It’s For:

Fiverr is for anyone who needs to get something done quick and dirty – very, very dirty. Seriously, you get exactly what you pay for. The discounted rate for which you get the service completed comes at the expense of quality. But, it’s perfect if you’re looking to validate an idea, build a minimum viable product, or have a box to check off and quality isn’t an issue.

Fiverr

PeoplePerHour

What it is:

With PeopleperHour.com, you have three options to get started: Browse Hourlies™, fixed price offers ready to start immediately, post a job and let people find you, or search profiles and contact freelancers directly..

Features:

Like Guru, PeoplePerHour.com gives you the ability to manage the project, share documents, and pay for the service without ever leaving the platform. PeoplePerHour also offers a satisfaction guarantee, and you only have to pay for work if you’re satisfied with the final product.

PeoplePerHour

Who It’s For:

PeoplePerHour is ideal for small and mid-sized business owners who need a one off project like a website, app, or even a blog post. You have the ability to “shop” for a freelancer based on price, experience, and reputation. Some of the freelancers will outprice small businesses, but there can be some real bargains if you search hard enough.

PeoplePerHour

Witmart

What it is: Witmart.com is a Chinese based internet marketplace and workplace for non-physical products including service, designs and digital goods. Together with theirsister website zbj.com they are are one of the largest crowdsourcing Service companies with over 7 million registered users.

Why It’s Different: As you might expect, there is a heavy emphasis on Chinese freelancers. While Witmart is touted as a global marketplace, a cursory glance at the site, it’s easy to determine that most of the labor force will be coming from China. Like other sites, you can open your job posting up to an auction. This will allow the freelancers to compete for your work via a bid. This is especially useful if the task that you’re looking to achieve isn’t critical to the success or failure of your business.

Witmart

Who It’s For: Witmart is ideal for small and mid-sized business owners who need a one off Project like a website, logo, and other marketing and business functions. You have the ability to “shop” for a freelancer based on price, experience, and Reputation in order to help you find the perfect freelancer for your business.

Witmart

Here Are Other Specific Freelancer Marketplaces

99designs

What it is: 99 Designs pioneered the marketplace where vendors compete for your cash in the form of a contest. You create a design brief stating what you need. Then you launch a contest to the marketplace. You’ll receive dozens of images, give feedback, and ultimately pick a winner.

Why It’s Different: A 99 Designs contest effectively allows you to work with dozens of designers Before choosing which you like the best. Instead of hiring a designer to create a logo and hope that they deliver a great final project, 99 Designs eliminates that guess work. You get to see a wide array of completed designs and pick the one that you like the best.

99designs

Who It’s For:

99 Designs is perfect for the one off project that you need completed to move Your business, brand, or website forward. With affordable pricing starting at $299, you get to launch a contest and receive approximately 30 designs.

99designs

Toptal

What it is: TopTal.com is a marketplace exclusively used by companies who want to hire software developers. Unlike other tools such as Upwork, there is an extensive Screening process that ensures you work with only the best of the best. You tell TopTal what kind of developer you need to build your software, they find the perfect developer to suit your needs. And the best part of TopTal is that you get to work with the developer risk free.

Why It’s Different:

As I said, TopTal’s key feature is it’s sophisticated screening process to make sure You work with the top 3% of all developers who apply to be in their marketplace.TopTal’s tests include a language and personality test, a timed algorithm test, test screenings, test projects. And all developers must maintain “continued excellence”.

Toptal

Who It’s For:

If you’re a one man army looking to build a MVP to validate your idea, then TopTal Is probably not for you. They are one of the most expensive hiring marketplaces on The web. But you pay for quality.

Toptal

DesignCrowd

What it is: DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.

Why It’s Different:

DesignCrowd is a lot like 99 Designs in that it is a crowdsourcing platform. You submit a project, wait for designs to come in, and then you pick a winner. However, unlike 99Designs, DesignCrowd gives you the opportunity to guarantee that you’re going to pay a winner.

DesignCrowd

Who It’s For:

DesignCrowd is perfect for the one off project that you need completed to move your business, brand, or website forward. The pricing on DesignCrowd is entirely up to the business owner.

DesignCrowd

What it is: Need a freelance marketplace that caters exclusively to Europe? Then Twago is the marketplace for you. Twago, which stands for Teamwork Across Global Offices, bills itself as the leading platform for online work in Europe has 225,000 experts using its platform to complete projects.

Twago

Why It’s Different: As mentioned, Twago is built exclusively to cater to the European freelance marketplace. After that, it works similarly to some of the other sites that were listed here. First, you create a free profile and a job listing that outlines skills needed, requirements, and budget. Once contractors review your job post, they will ask questions, provide feedback, and the most qualified will apply to win your project.

Twago

Who It’s For: Twago is designed for small business owners who need a freelancer to do a one-off job. These jobs can range from a logo design, to building an app, to a complete website redesign.

Twago

TextBroker

What it is: Need a new blog post? How about an ebook, email, or even a press release written for your business? Then perhaps Textbroker can help. Textbroker is a marketplace designed specifically for businesses who need custom content. With Textbroker Self-Service, you determine the quality level of the content you buy as well as its cost.

Why It’s Different: Textbroker gives you multiple options at multiple price points for small business owners. First, you can purchase content by quality. Content is ranked on a scale of two stars to five stars. You can also purchase content either by commissioning an individual author, by hiring a team of writers, or by making your order available to over 100,000 proven, qualified authors.

TextBroker

Who It’s For:

Textbroker is perfect for small business owners looking to create custom content that will help you reach prospects and clients. With Textbroker, you can brand yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

TextBroker

crowdSPRING

What it is:

crowdSPRING is a marketplace that focuses on logos, graphic design, and company naming. The platform offers you two ways to work. First, you can crowdsource your project. In other words, post a job and pick your favorite design. Or you can browse through their database of 176,000 designers to find the one that you most want to work with.

Why It’s Different:

This is another crowdsourcing platform, however, crowdSPRING boasts an average of 110 entries from designers and freelancers. Once you’ve found a design that you liked, you can work with the designer to perfect your favorite design. And like many of the other crowdsourcing sites, you’re protected by a 100% money back guarantee.

crowdSPRING

Who It’s For:

crowdSPRING is perfect for the one off project that you need completed to move your business, brand, or website forward.

crowdSPRING

Local Freelancer Marketplace

TaskRabbit

What it is: If you need to hire someone local, then TaskRabbit is the platform for you. TaskRabbit allows you to hire people to do a variety of skilled and unskilled labor for your business. While initially started as a consumer marketplace, TaskRabbit has several useful applications for business. If you need a personal assistant who is local, or a handyman, work on an assembly line, or even someone to be a bartender at the company picnic, TaskRabbit can help.

Why It’s Different:

Unlike the other platforms, TaskRabbit is entirely local and designed for people who need to hire an extra set of hands.

TaskRabbit

Who It’s For:

TaskRabbit was initially built for the consumer marketplace, and still markets itself extensively as a business to consumer platform.

However, small business owners who need additional help that only a local person can do can also take advantage of the service.

TaskRabbit

What it is: Is a crowd-sourcing marketplace owned by Amazon.com that allows you to hire people to perform tasks that computers are currently unable to do.Amazon calls the businesses and entities who post “Human Intelligence Tasks” as requesters. These tasks include things like writing product descriptions or finding the phone numbers of tech companies.

Mechanical Turk

Why It’s Different: Mechanical Turk offers a turnkey solution to get your work done. You load the task that you want completed and get results from a crowdsourced marketplace. There is little to no interaction with the person (or people) who complete your tasks. You simply pay when you get the results and system will disburse your funds accordingly.

Mechanical Turk

Who It’s For:

Mechanical Turk is perfect for businesses that need jobs completed on an as needed basis. Much of the work that is performed by the workers do not require a lot of task specific training. Therefore, workers can be assigned a task and work can be completed rather quickly. Let’s be blunt here. Mechanical Turk is the marketplace when you need to hire someone to do the grunt work.

Mechanical Turk

Here Are Some Remote Job Posting Sites

OnlineJobs.phWhat it is: OnlineJobs.ph is a job board for companies who want to exclusively hire Filipino workers. Because this is a remote job posting site, you will be hiring someone who is going to work with you on an hourly or monthly salary basis. These are not contract workers. However, if you’re a western company looking to outsource tasks to a highly skilled workforce at a reduced price, then OnlineJobs.ph can help you find the skilled talent needed to scale your company.

Why It’s Different: As mentioned, OnlineJobs.ph is designed to help companies find highly skilled Filipino workers. Because the staff will be working from home, you will be able to get an affordable rate. The cost of living is lower in the Philippines than it is in western countries and you don’t have to add real estate and office supply overhead to your business.

OnlineJobs.ph

Who It’s For:

OnlineJobs.ph is for startups looking to scale their business by finding high quality talent in the Philippines. The companies who use the platform are looking to add long term team members who will help grow your company over the course of the next year, or more.

OnlineJobs.ph

Alternatives To The Upwork Time Tracking Software

RescueTime

What it is: Rescue Time is a product that really focuses on how productive you are and not necessarily how long you’ve worked. It measures the categories of time you’ve worked and gives you a overall Productivity ‘score’ based off what it deems as productive use of your time and unproductive use of your time.

What it is:

Time Doctor is a time tracking software whose mission is to dramatically improve the productivity of teams, reduce time spent on distractions, and help companies to be able to manage remote workers just as if they were in the same office, maintaining a high level of productivity when working remotely.

Key Features

Time Tracking, staying productive at work is about getting more done in less time.

Time Doctor will not only track the total time worked by every person on your team, it will also provide a breakdown on how much time is spent which projects (or clients) and tasks.

Time Doctor’s data is accurate to the second, so you easily bill clients or pay employees based on tracked time.

Website and Application Monitoring, giving you detailed insights on how you spend your time so you know where your weaknesses are and can improve them.

Time Doctor silently records application and Internet usage for all users during Work time. Managers receive a weekly report outlining which websites and Applications were used, and for how long. Individual users receive the same report outlining their own time usage stats.

This report helps to identify productivity issues. For example, if you’re a developer and you’re only spending 10% of your time on development, you can see what’s occupying the rest of your time and make adjustments to get back on track.

Who It’s For:

Time Doctor is perfect for one man armies looking to maximize productivity throughout the day as well as fast growth startups (like ours) who need to manage teams across multiple time zones and continents.

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