More Ass Reaming From Upwork
 

For those of you who outsourced overseas virtual assistants Upwork (formerly ODesk) has some GREAT news: now we get to pay $25 a month (or 2.75% per payment) processing fee just for the privilege of hiring their workers! The % Upwork already gets from both the employer and the freelancer is apparently not enough, now they want more. Fun, huh?

First they raise the basic hourly minimum to $3 (up from $2), making hiring new employees more expensive. Now they want more and more. So.....FUCK UPWORK!

:321GFY

Time to find a new place for outsourced overseas labor. :(
Any suggestions?

I want to remember how you posted, not very long ago, about how you raised your prices to earn affiliates more and to not devalue your own product (and of course, to earn more for yourself). Fun, huh? :winkwink::winkwink:

That is how the world works, quit complaining and cough up the $25, I am sure you can afford it. If not, I promise to pay it for you your first month. You are still doing a good thing giving work to some poor countries.

Since the change from ODesk to Upwork all they have done is raise prices across the board a couple times at least. It's not a question of affording it, it's a question of gouging your business partners.

Upwork already gets paid from both ends and at a much higher rate than other places. Also, a 40 hour a week full-time factory worker in the Philippines earns between $1-$2 per hour. So there's no way I am going to pay 3x the going full-time factory worker's rate for a data entry job they can do at home.

So it's not a question of 'can I afford it'. Of course I can. But have you ever heard of death by a thousand cuts? There are alternatives to Upwork and I will find them. :)

The upside to using 3rd party platforms is the ability to escrow everything, so if the seller/worker doesn't deliver ... you have a way to withhold payment.

I suggest you shamelessly use several boards (like GFY) to find the next great worker. Many on this board are from the below listed countries, and are specialists in their own area of expertise. While they are not likely to take on "certain" work, they will be a great source of where you can turn to find just the person you are looking for. Better yet, they might help you find that person, from among people they already know.

Unfortunately for the people of these countries, you can find higher skilled workers offering relatively low labor rates:

Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, India, Philippines.

Good luck!

What are the best Upwork alternatives for adult?

I've used Upwork as well and felt the same in regards to gouging.

Is it 2.75% processing fee up to a max of $25/month?

Upwork, formerly Odesk, is without doubt the best outsourcing platform there is.

I have no problem with the fees.

It's a maximum of $25 per month, which is nothing.

$25 is about 10% of what I'd spend on coffee from the cafe downstairs from my office a month.

If it's a business expense then it's a tax deduction, if you're not making enough profit to benefit from a $25 tax deduction then you have bigger problems than Upwork charging for transaction fees. :helpme

I'd prefer Upwork remain profitable and provide a great resource than have them absorb transaction fees and reduce the quality of the service.

What kind of work do you Upwork users tend to trust them to do?

I have a few regular semi full time programmers working for me and a couple of virtual assistants. I've also had writers, grunt sysadmin workers do work for me as well.

One programmer who works for me has worked for me for over 4 years.

With all that said, I would not recommend hiring programmers unless you have the skills to manage them and to understand code yourself, otherwise how can you benchmark performance ?

It's like any other job market, if you are highly selective in who you're looking for and manage your staff properly then you can do well outsourcing.

I hate it when people say "You can afford it. If you can't afford $25...." blah blah. We can use that argument for ANY business that raises prices and we, as the customers, are supposed to just take it like a little bitch? No. Maybe that's YOUR stance but it's not mine.

So if hosting, domains, traffic, content and other aspects of this business start charging $25 monthly fees just for the privilege of using their product or service your ok with that? On TOP of what you are already paying?

It's simple, to me UpWork presents value for money, a maximum $25 monthly increase won't stop me from using the service.

If you don't like it then vote with your feet and go do business elsewhere, although I doubt you will find a better outsourcing platform. You obviously chose UpWork for some reason - if those reasons don't stack up anymore then nobody is forcing you to use them.

It's a fact of life that businesses sometimes raise prices, the market usually works this out in the end - if the price rises are untenable to the majority of customers and they go elsewhere then that's the market at work.

In any case, with outsourcing you have a direct business expense, so just deduct it like you would any other expense. If you need to pass a small increase in pricing to your customers, if you don't want to absorb the whole cost yourself, then do that.

Whinging on GFY isn't going to change UpWork's new transaction pricing, I am sure they have done enough research to know that the customer base will just absorb it.

Oh I am sure the customer base will just absorb it but this does not mean I am happy about it. Like when your bank charges you ridiculous fee after ridiculous fee. Now what if the bank then says "Pay me $25 a month on top of all that"? I would not be happy. Perhaps you would shrug it off.

And this thread (while yes whining) is also meant to let people who may be considering using Upwork know what fees they will now be paying. And then 'the market' can decide if this is a good thing.

Let us ease your financial woes by making you more money through upselling from your MA. :Graucho

Australian banks charge like wounded bulls, but there are four big ones and a number of other smaller ones, so the market can shop around for the best product/price point.

Like everything in business you have inputs and outputs, income and expenses. A maximum $25 fee in the grand scheme of things is not going to make or break most businesses and they will either absorb the price increase on transactions or they will find a way to pass the cost on to their customers.

Adobe has been charging $49.95 AUD for Create Cloud Suite and is now putting that up to $64 or something like that - their reasoning the weakening exchange rate - now that is a fairly big increase in percentage terms but it's swings and roundabouts - I use the product and couldn't do without it, it's also still good value for money when compared to the days of buying software outright and it's expense-able. However on the other side of the equation, each $USD I make is now worth 25% more to me than it did two years ago, so I'm still ahead overall.

There's going to be a whole lot more upward price pressure for cloud and online services over time - companies will begin charging what they think the market can bear, so the best bet is to make sure that you are able to hedge for expense pressure and find subtle ways to pass on price increases to your own customers. The market works it all out in the end.

In a post above someone is suggesting making money by up selling in your members area, that's one way to help cover the upward pressure on expenses over time without fucking over your existing customer base. :2 cents:

I have already offered to pay his first month in case he cannot afford it himself, but it's very nice of you to take over the responsibility from there on. :thumbsup

All very good points, and of course the actual $300 a year is not the issue. So in the end I will probably stick with Upwork while looking for other outsourcing platforms to try out. The kind of workers I need are really simple data entry type positions so that shouldn't be too hard to find. Any skilled workers, like designers or programmers, I come here to GFY to find. :)

But you know how it is man. Everything goes up and up and sometimes you just shake your head and wonder. LOL

Pricing things on what the other guy earns in relation to what some OTHER guy earns instead of what value *you* get out of the deal is not a smart thing to get into the habit of :2 cents:

I don't see it as whining.

When businesses 'take' for the sake of taking like banks do, then there is a reason to grumble. The banks know how much they can take without losing customers because they calculate the cost for the customer to switch (in dollars and in hassle/uncertainty etc...) vs the cost of just paying the fee. In the case of banks they are rich Goliaths who have decided that instead of thinking up new ways to increase profits (like adding value to their businesses), they will instead just take from their users/customers. It's seen as a greedy move and is not appreciated by the customer base, who will remember when the time comes. It is aggravating and there is nothing wrong with venting.

Perhaps, but tell any 'business' that and they will laugh at you.

We at Quantox.com are specialized for adult industry and we hire more than 100 people now. Mostly developers but we also have writers, encoders, VA etc. We already work with lot of industry leaders so let me know if we can help you somehow! My Skype id is in sig :thumbsup

If you were trying to prove that "you get what you pay for" then congrats.

:2 cents:

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:thumbsup

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8h7K2hgEbP...-cock-porn.jpg

Well, since this is monkey work - not racist, I mean a literal monkey could do it - I feel I am OVER paying at $3 an hour as it is.

Thanks for the useful post. It's your diseased country that is a major part of the problem. How's that Ganges working out for y'all? Still filled with people bathing and shitting in it? Still got cows everywhere while people starve? Does your air still smell like shit because people heat their homes with cow patties?

Fuck off and go answer a customer service phone call.

i lik Ass Reaming...

fuck you asshole. go pawn shitty content elsewhere you fucking cheap skate

But a monkey can't do the work, so it's not literally "monkey work".
If it was literally monkey work then it was a poor choice to hire a human instead of buying a monkey.

Who says that's what he was trying to prove?

step 1: find a competent worker via upwork or fiverr and pay them using upwork/fiverr escrow
step 2: after they've proven themselves invite them to a teamviewer session and offer to talk to and pay them outside of upwork or fiverr. they'll probably be receptive if you've already paid them in the past, and because both parties can save $ by circumventing the 3rd party
step 3: ??
step 4: profit

i have a design/php/sql guy from india who just banged out a beautifully coded whitelabel aff network running off of my backend hasoffers api and with tons of revisions it still ran me < $100. it could have easily gone into the mid $x,xxx with a stateside coder

outsourcing is crazy. you just have to sift through meh until you eventually find the perfect balance of inexpensive AND quality

it's dumb to hire stateside for anything you can't jail off from the necessity of an nda

Must've hit a nerve with my comments, eh Gandhi?
It's not my fault you live in a shithole and $3 could buy your entire family for a year.

Believe it or not, actual monkeys cost more than Hajis. (Another win for India.)

Thank you for your intelligent post!
This is actually something I am setting up now.

My workers have been with me for years now so paying them off-Upwork should not be an issue. :)

And yet you didn't buy a "Haji" either.

:winkwink:

your content is absolute shit man as well as fucking idiot

Since you are an expert in shit - it is all around you, after all - then I take your review as a compliment.

Exporting jobs is not a good work. Nothing against that all all in general, I also buy outsourced services. Just not agreeing that it is a congratulatable thing. :)

OK, OP makes it sound as if it is $25 flat fee (as in/or the minimum amount).
AK says it is UP TO 25, as in it is a maximum.

That are different things. :)

By the way - this is what happens when someone buys competition and grows into semi monopoly. That's business, unfortunately for the customers :)

Yes very true. :( The rates are, I think, based on if you bill more than 400 euros weekly (which I do). So I would be at whatever maximum they now have. But yes, if you bill less than that the 2.75% would be a better option. I think you can choose, too.

The workers too now have a sliding scale. basically, the more you work for someone the less they take but the max is 10%. So they (Upwork) are getting paid from both ends anyway.

well on the bright side, that idiot tool xxxtesy10 is on your case - jealousy brings the haters so keep on keeping on TPN :thumbsup

not one shit given for broke loser like him. :1orglaugh love see him cry about small money

'broke loser' - are you drunk?

and really - you can't see what he is *actually* complaining about? Why not offer some actual worthwhile advice, rather than make a clown of yourself because you are too busy trying to score a point off him to realise you look like an idiot, because you don't understand his PoV - even if you don't agree with it (should such a time ever arise where you understand such an OP as this)?

You'd give your left nut to earn 1/10th of what he does lol, so instead of being billy big bollocks on here every day, try to stfu once in a while, and use this place to learn rather than to act like a 12 year old virgin pretending he fucks all his mom's friends.

Oh I forgot - most vocal posters here these days do exactly the same. There's plenty to laugh about in this thread. It's just a shame you can't see where the actual laughter is derived from, because it's embarrassing to watch.

Well said.

Beat me to it! :thumbsup

It's annoying when people troll and throw shit in an actual business thread. That's what all the other useless (tho at times entertaining) threads are about. Anyway, got some solid advice here so that's what's important.

Now get me some curry in a hurry! All this indian shit has made me hungry. :D

exactly what work do you entrust to offshure staff for $3hr. data entry, but what for?

feel like I'm calling you out a lot lately which is not my deliberate intent, you're one of my fav posters here due to your insight and willingness to share info about biz. you also crack me up (70's soap dialogue as most recent) on the daily. 'nuff respect, hope you know that.

that said, wtf is up with valuing work based on living wage of nation of residence? prob super-sensitive to this due to working with EE cammers who are constantly devalued for no reason other than location, but either way this is total bullshit. Work is work, value is value.

would you do your best work for $3 per hour? would you consider that fair?

I live on an island where the average wage for men and women who bust their ass day in and day out (working far harder physically than anyone here who does adult for a living, including me) cleaning rooms -not easy- and doing road work under the blazing sun is $6.25 per hour. Across the board. One of the few places I've encountered where there is parity between male/female quote unquote 'unskilled labor' pay rates. Unconvinced this is a victory.

I hate laundry and recently moved into a bomb place that lacks that facility. Turns out that a sister of a friend runs a laundry where you can pass her $20 to do the washer-to-dryer stuff for you. She's in a grey area here legally but is working her azz off while she can. Walked in and she had added fabric softener and had everything folded. Paired socks that hadn't been matched since I moved in with my guy.

My laundry fairy, but either way tipped her an extra $40 for her work, for what it meant to me/my guy time-wise in not having to do it. She did something I didn't have the time to do/monitor as I was taking some time from earning to enjoy life and do my own work, was not charity.

refuse to benefit unfairly from econ inequities where I can.

My point; pay peeps what your time is worth. Guessing more than Upwork rates.

Peace and joy and keep killing it with your business.

missed this - I disagree mate, almost all successful business owners often tell you to take care of your employees, including paying them a fair wage based on what they are worth to you, not based on what they will earn in relation to others :thumbsup

Ummm sort of I guess.

I can see some thinking that way - but also others (who are just as successful) thinking it's fair and fine to get away with what they can.

All businesses that I stopped going to drove me away with dumb employees.
The employees aren't really dumb; just untrained.

The reason for this is that employees keep quitting because the pay sucks, so no one is
ever there that is trained well.


Bottom line : If TPN was really happy with the work he has been getting then he wouldn't care about the $25.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo fucking way.

:2 cents:

I get that. For me sometimes it's the employees and sometimes it's the business owner's policies that drive me away.

Disagree here. That's true sometimes for sure, but I've also spoken to many local business owners who complain like hell about employees not showing up cause they partied too late, forgot to show up, or because they just didn't feel like showing up that day without even a phone call to boot! Some of them were paid more than the average for that type of worker in the area.

Some business owners suck and some employees suck regardless of pay.


Disagree there.

I think it's okay to complain. People complain about something 'some' of the time and that includes everyone in this thread. In fact, people in this thread are complaining about TPN complaining.

Now if every single thread TPN started had him complaining endlessly like VenusBlogger and others like that, then I would understand and would probably tell him off myself :) ... but so far that isn't the case.

He wants to save $25 a month on employees but I bet he pays $250 a month in paypal fees.

:1orglaugh

I think there is a middle ground to be had here.

You absolutely don't have to pay everyone what your time is worth. Then you might as well just do it yourself. However if someone does a very good job for a low price, it's nice to give them a bonus. And if it's someone who is actually consistently great, I'm sure that he'll recruit them full-time and give them a little more money to keep them onboard.

I think if The Porn Nerd gives work to those people at a higher hourly wage than the local, he's already doing a positive thing. This is how wages rise in poor countries, slowly, but steadily. (Although I'm not familiar with how much UpWork takes from them.)