Reviews and expert opinion PeoplePerHour

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.

An Outsourcing Solution for Both Casual and Frequent Buyers

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.

An Intuitive Platform With a Visual Interface

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.

Expect Slow Response Times and Incomplete Answers

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 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.