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Overall, PeoplePerHour provides a flexible marketplace for hiring freelancers. But the marketplace has some significant downsides, too. If you read the terms carefully and know what to expect, you can get your money’s worth – but if you haven’t factored the fees into your costs, PeoplePerHour might not be the best deal for you, and you’d be better option for a more affordable option, like Fiverr.
Overview
PeoplePerHour at a Glance
Fees
No sign up fee, but on every order, pay £0.6 + 10% of the order
Online messaging platform
Yes
Live chat support
No
Variety of freelancers
Everyone from writers to podcasters to developers
A Flexible Freelance Marketplace With a Few Surprises in Store
Whether you need a freelancer to create content, program an app, edit a podcast, or do just about anything else, you can find someone on PeoplePerHour – and for a relatively cheap cost, too. But is this online marketplace really a reliable solution, or is it a worse deal than it appears?
Although some PeoplePerHour reviews ask if the site is really legit, it looks promising at first glance. Since 2007, the marketplace has connected freelancers with marketers, entrepreneurs, and business owners. Today, the platform supports a long list of industries, ranging from writing and design to business and technology.
PeoplePerHour also has flexible hiring options – meaning you can browse gigs or post your own projects – and a helpful rating system to guide your recruitment. But when I tested the platform, I found it’s not always easy to get your money’s worth, especially with all the added fees.
Keep reading to see if PeoplePerHour is the right freelance marketplace for your needs and learn more about some of its hidden surprises before you sign up.
With its streamlined hiring and project management systems, PeoplePerHour.com has the features you need to outsource just about any job. If you want to manage projects outside of the office, the mobile app has you covered too.
Although the platform is pretty full featured, it does have one major flaw. Most freelancers offer services for hourly rates, but PeoplePerHour doesn’t have a time tracking app.
Other freelance marketplaces, like Upwork, offer time tracking apps because it’s helpful for both the buyer and the seller. Freelancers can ensure they get paid for their time, and clients can ensure they pay only for work that falls within the project scope.
If you hire through PeoplePerHour, you’ll have to use another program or trust freelancers to track their time manually.
Multiple Hiring Options
PeoplePerHour gives you three options for hiring freelancers:
Search offers: Review and purchase available service packages
Search freelancers: Filter sellers by level, skill, or hourly rate
Post projects: Pitch your own job and get proposals from freelancers
I was glad to find that most of these options were easy to customize, even premade offers. For example, freelancers can often do jobs faster than advertized, or add complementary services for a set fee.
Freelancer Scoring Algorithm
While PeoplePerHour doesn’t vet freelancers with skill tests or other traditional means, the platform does use a scoring algorithm to rate sellers. The CERT algorithm considers four elements: community, engagement, repeat usage, and trust. Since it factors in both skill and performance, this score seems like a fair way to rate freelancers.
However, PeoplePerHour isn’t particularly transparent about exactly how they calculate CERT scores. They do state that they factor in skillset, work quality, professional ability, response time, reliability, track record, and number of jobs done. But it’s anyone’s guess as to how these elements translate to a numerical score.
If you want to hire a freelancer with a high-quality score and consistent performance, you’ll want to look for CERT 4 or 5 sellers. You can also seek out TOP CERT freelancers, who are considered the best of the best.
Customer Ratings and Reviews
An internal ranking system like PeoplePerHour’s CERT algorithm is great for identifying top performers. But, like many business owners, I also want to read customer reviews – especially since they tend to highlight both selling points and flaws that might be deal breakers.
I was glad to see that PeoplePerHour publishes customer reviews and ratings alongside CERT scores to offer more insight for buyers. I’d be even happier if I could filter freelancers by rating or number of reviews, but the platform doesn’t have this functionality.
On-Site Availability
In most cases, you’re likely to be hiring freelancers for remote work. For some projects, however, it might make more sense to collaborate in person.
Not all online marketplaces offer this option, but PeoplePerHour allows you to search for freelancers who are available for on-site projects. Your options for non-remote freelancers will naturally be much more limited, but the marketplace still provides reasonable results.
To test this feature out, I looked for sellers available to complete an on-site project in New York City and found about 50 freelancers who could do the job.
Getting started with PeoplePerHour is relatively easy, as the platform has an intuitive design. The visual interface makes the marketplace pleasant to use, too. Each results page makes the offer and base price clear and prominently displays the freelancer’s star rating and number of completed jobs.
You can easily click on any profile that catches your eye and scroll through the seller’s portfolio. If you like what you see, you can bookmark freelancers or offers so you can find them quickly when you’re ready to place an order.
Multiple Search Capabilities
If you want to get a sense of what you can get for your budget, you can search the marketplace a couple of different ways. You can type what you want into the search bar, or you can browse PeoplePerHour’s freelance categories.
Then you can filter by price, delivery time, or location and click to read more about any of the offers or freelancers. You can then contact freelancers directly or proceed with a purchase.
Workstream Tracking
Once you get started with a project, managing related communication is straightforward. The PeoplePerHour inbox applies status tags to messages so you can quickly track down projects that are in discussion, in progress, or completed.
You can also star messages and apply project labels to manage your inbox more efficiently. That means messages won’t get lost in a busy inbox, and you won’t have to wonder where anything is.
Easy-to-Find Rates
Whether you hire freelancers per project or per hour, their rates are crystal clear and displayed prominently on their profile or offer. Any add-ons include pricing so you know exactly what you have to spend.
However, the PeoplePerHour fees that the marketplace tacks on to every order are less clear. See below for an explanation of all the extra buyer fees you can expect.
If you don’t mind hunting a bit for information, PeoplePerHour has a pretty comprehensive help center. You can type your question into the search bar or review common topics to find answers.
Alternatively, you can browse the community forum, where someone may have already asked your question. You can also post questions there, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get a response.
I posted a question about viewing freelancers’ portfolios and work samples on a Saturday afternoon. Five days later, I was still waiting for a reply. A lot of the forum activity is geared toward freelancers instead of buyers, which may explain the lack of response.
If you need a reliable answer, you can use PeoplePerHour’s email support system – at least in theory. The customer support team is only available from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. UK time, though, so you could end up waiting a while.
I submitted a question about the refund policy on a Saturday afternoon, knowing that I’d have to wait until at least Monday before getting a response. I eventually got a reply on Tuesday afternoon, so it took about two business days to hear back.
As you can see, the response wasn’t exactly insightful. It provided no explanation and just pointed me to the (very lengthy) terms and conditions. At the very least, I’d appreciate a jump link to the appropriate section or an excerpt from the policy.
Pricing
2.5
Pricing for projects on PeoplePerHour varies a lot since freelancers set their own rates. While there are plenty of inexpensive projects and affordable freelancers, base pricing is higher than what I’ve seen on other platforms. For example, the cheapest hourly rates I found were $8, and the least expensive PeoplePerHour jobs started at $10.
As a buyer, you also have to factor in the PeoplePerHour fees. Buyer fees for most payment methods – including PayPal, Skrill, and major credit cards – are £0.6 + 10%. That’s about double the fees that freelancer marketplaces like Fiverr charge, making PeoplePerHour a much worse deal. With Fiverr, you pay for the price of the freelancer, from as little as $5.
Be prepared to do a bit of currency conversion while you’re at it. PeoplePerHour lists buyer fees in pounds and freelancer prices in dollars, so you’ll want to do the math to know what you’re paying in your local currency.
If you’re on a tight budget or a strict timeline, you’ll also want to keep an eye out for PeoplePerHour’s additional fees. For example, it costs £10 to flag a project listing as urgent, £15 to mark a project as “featured,” and £26 to add a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to a project.
Before hiring a freelancer, you’ll also want to get familiar with PeoplePerHour’s refund policy. Although you can cancel and get your money back for orders that are in progress, the marketplace doesn’t issue refunds for accepted orders.
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Paul
India
August 19, 2021
I was a freelancer in PPH and suddenly they deactivated me
I am a freelancer in PPH and suddenly before 2 days I was biding for projects and suddenly now I got a notification that my PPH account has been deactivated. Rather I am a freelancer with 4.9 stars and my journey was going far smooth but suddenly I don't know without any reason I saw this?
Definitely, I would like to clarify many things in regards to this matter, As without informing me the PPH directly deactivated my account as there is no single mistake from my side and PPH just deactivated my account because that client is very angry and she just shouts if something does not happen what she wishes as I no his nature I worked one month long without money and at last what I got is the deactivation of my account.
See,
I know who that client was. But I will not take anyone's name over here.
I started the contract with him on 7-7-2021 to Migrate his store from WordPress to shopify and so far as she was very lazy in responding, So it took few more days to work in his Shopify store and at last when I completed the full store and we were only left to redesign the landing page and all work was been completed she denied to pay me a single rupee and she said that she will only pay me pound 250 where the full price of the project was finalized and contracted is pound 500. But when I discussed with him that the project has been 90% completed so she shall have to pay some more funds.
Then she raised a refund of the first milestone, downloaded the code files of the theme from Shopify, and complained about me that I did a late delivery. The story does not end here. She used to shout at me, say bad-words to me and she was trying to threaten me that she would kick me out from PPH, Rather she was a liar, a cheater because she wanted to develop the store for me for free and she wanted to run away.
But as soon as I told him that I would talk about this with the PPH support team, she had turned up this story and blamed me and tried to store as many as proofs on behalf of me and she raised an issue in PPH.
Rather for the good sake, I told him that okay, I don't want money let us just please end this contract over here and I will not connect you, Then she tried to be evil and instructed me that I must have to do this project in otherwise she will ruin my career and this is something PPH has done, Rather I was not at all expecting this thing from PPH because once I can bear a loss but this thing proves that without freelancers fault you have ruined a career of mine.
Here I would request that you please see this matter, Wherein it clearly states that the client was more than happy on the project I was working on but as soon as I raised the invoice she turned into EVIL.
I would also request one more thing that please read my chat message with the support team because several times she used to pinch me also after we ended the contract and I have also raised issues about this in support, But they just simply say that they do not respond to him.
Here if I will write all things then it would be a book type, Because I wasted my one month time with this client and at last what she gave me is she ruined my career. So here is my humble request that please see this case in a detailed manner and activate my account as it was not at all fault from my side and my career has been ruined.
Rather I have told PPH support that the client is harassing me so please block him and rather PPH has blocked my career itself.
Please help me in this matter and I would be expecting a positive response from your side after investigating the whole case.
The site is just a tin, I just spent a lot of time trying to find a replacement for the past copywriter. At first, an inadequate one was caught, after it seemed that a normal one was found, but it was delayed by the terms. In general, I was not satisfied!
I've been a member of PPH for 7 years. In the early days, it was a great site.
I got loads of work from it. Then around 3 years ago, you could see a change. There were more overseas workers coming in. The price of jobs dropped significantly.
PPH reacted to this, by raising its fees. After all, the lower the job price, the less they earned.
So, now, not only am I competing for work with overseas workers. Willing to do the jobs for a tenth of what I would charge, I'm also having to pay out a 5th of what I earn as a fee.
Factor in that I also pay UK tax, and I'd be working for practically nothing.
Whoever has been making the decisions for PPH over the last few years, should hang their head in shame. A once great site for work is now just a sweatshop.
This platform used to be quite good, decent jobs and fairly quick payments. They used to care about their customers. The prices crept up, support is now just nonexistent and all the jobs are low quality, low paid and so attract low-quality low paid freelancers. Now payment takes weeks to get out of PPH and they just don't care about anything or anyone. It's kinda sad really
Worked for two months on a project. 12 days after completion pph still has not paid me the money that is in my account. They say there's been a technical glitch since early May so accounts are not being paid to freelancers. No notion when they will be. I have one more job with them, then I'm out. Will go to another company. Information has been less than scant. Phones not answered and online help and support not working properly until today when the complaints began to flood in. The company is too expensive at 20% of the overall cost of a project being paid by the freelancer. VAT on top of that. Most of the projects offer a pittance e.g.: £47 to ghostwrite a book that was advertised recently.
Has gone from being a quick and easy platform with quick pay-outs to being slow and not paying out at all within its guidelines. And not even explaining why without making excuses. Are they in trouble? Be careful with your deposits as they may start to disappear.
Waste of time- 4 Months 2 programmers and my project is not finished
When I started working on my site I was setting a maximum time plan of 10 days now 4 months and it's not finished. the first programmer did not finish and told me I will not be able to continue even most of his work was related to the unfinished work. Then I contacted another programmer after agreeing on 200 dollars, and after a week she told me the amount is little I want more, I paid an additional 100 dollars and after two days she says to me I want more I offered her another 100 dollars and without finishing the work, this site is full of poor programmers, want only get paid much more what they deserve.
I just completed a job and found out that the buyer had to pay an additional 16% on top of my quoted price. So the total that they earned was a whole 36%. What makes it even worse is that I was not aware of this additional cost to the buyer until he already paid for it. I searched their support and found a 4-year-old feed where various freelancers complain about the exact issue.
Overall, PeoplePerHour provides a decent marketplace for hiring freelancers. With this platform, you can outsource the vast majority of your business’s needs, from marketing to tech to design. Since you can purchase freelancers’ offers or post your own job, the marketplace offers a lot of flexibility, increasing the chance it can meet your needs.
If you read PeoplePerHour’s terms carefully and know what to expect, you can get your money’s worth. But if you haven’t factored the fees into your costs, then PeoplePerHour might not be the best deal for you.
FAQ
Is PeoplePerHour a good way to hire freelancers?Yes, PeoplePerHour is good for hiring freelancers, since it supports a wide range of project types and budgets. When you use this marketplace, you can filter freelancers by ratings, reviews, and skills to find the right person for the job.How does PeoplePerHour make money?PeoplePerHour makes money by charging fees. In addition to the service fees that buyers pay, freelancers pay a percentage of their earnings to the platform.How much does it cost to use PeoplePerHour?Freelancers’ hourly rates start at $8 per hour, and project offers start at $10 apiece. Since sellers can set their own rates, some experienced freelancers charge more.Which is best: PeoplePerHour vs Fiverr?These marketplaces are two of the best freelance websites for 2021, but Fiverr is better than PeoplePerHour. Fiverr rates start at $5 per project, and the platform features freelancers specializing in a much wider range of categories.
Anna Sonnenberg is a digital agency owner who specializes in email marketing, content strategy, and social media management. For over 6 years, she has run Sonnenberg Media, a digital micro agency that works with small businesses in the CPG, SaaS, marketing, and health & wellness industries.
