Freelancer Review – How To Milk Freelancer.com Out of as Much Cash as You Can Get

Do you have a Freelancer.com account?

I bet you do, right? According to their stats, the site has millions of users. Personally, I have made thousands of dollars from this site.

In case you have an old and dormant account or you want to join, click here to join Freelancer and then continue reading this awesome post on how you can start milking this site of all the cash your wits will allow you to.

Why Join Freelancer?

In my recent post that talks about the biggest mistake that Kenyan writers are making, I talk about why people no longer join or use Freelancer and other bidding sites. In this post, I tell you why you should join and use it…for the good reasons below. Personally, I am a writer so I’ll use writing examples here. However, the insights below will also apply to whatever skill you’d like to freelance.

1. The Battleground is Soft

Newbies always do great when they get a place that has a soft landing.

So what do I mean by saying the battleground is soft? This means that it is easy to join Freelancer, start bidding and get a paying job within a few days. In fact, due to the fact that it is the biggest freelancing website in the world, you can get a job here faster than any other bidding website you can think of.

2.  Most Jobs Require Basic Expertise

My first client in freelancer never once said that he wanted a writer with great English; he kept insisting that he wants people with normal English. This meant that you did not need vast experience or sophisticated writing skills. As long as you could write in plain English, you were fine.

This is the same for most freelancers in this huge site, whether they are writers or not.

What does this mean for you? It means that if you are a writer, you can easily write 20 minute articles for clients and they’ll love them. Note that as experienced as I am, with almost 90 words per minute typing speed, I still take 1-2 hours writing professional articles but whenever I write for Freelancer clients, 20-30 minutes work great.

3. Multiple Withdrawal Methods

One of the biggest problem for most Kenyan writers is withdrawal.

If you are independent or you use sites like iWriter and Fiverr, chances are you are getting paid via PayPal. You then use a lot of cash trying to convert that PayPal cash to Kenya Shillings.

Freelancer has multiple withdrawal methods that are so painless for Kenyan freelancers. For example, you can choose to receive your cash via your Freelancer Debit Card (by Payoneer) or Skrill (Moneybookers). Note that if you already have a Payoneer account, you can simply link your existing card with Freelancer.

Therefore, if you don’t already have a Payoneer account, sign up through this link and you’ll receive $25 for free once your cumulative load reaches $100.

Skrill also works well with Kenyan banks; therefore you can send cash directly from your Skrill account to your Kenyan bank. Click here to sign up to Skrill.

The Payoneer and Skrill options help kill our overdependence on PayPal. Of the two, I recommend using Payoneer (called Freelancer Debit Card here) since it’s an ATM card that you can immediately use to withdraw in worldwide ATMs or even buy online and offline goods. I personally love using mine on the local supermarkets!

4. They Won’t Keep Banning You

I am sure you know the struggles that Kenya and other countries have been having with iWriter. They once kept banning Kenyan IPs every couple of months. At the moment they’re not even accepting new writers.

You don’t have to keep worrying about this if you work with Freelancer.

In fact, if you are a Kenyan writer, you will be considered highly in Freelancer, with some clients even picking you for jobs advertised for native English writers.

How to be Successful in Freelancer.com

I am a writer so I’m using writing illustrations here but the methods will work for whatever other skill you’d wish to freelance. Below is how you can be successful in Freelancer:

1. Always ask for a milestone payment

Insist on working via the system and always ask for a milestone payment. This is a payment that the client releases to the site beforehand so that when you complete your work, he can then release it to you.

Once the client releases the cash to the site, he/she cannot cancel it; only the freelancer or the site can cancel it. This will protect you from the many conmen that the site is famous for.

With a milestone payment, you are guaranteed that you will get paid as long as you deliver what the client wants. In case of a dispute, the site moderates and fairly transfers the cash to the most deserving party.

Be careful of clients who offer you a small job on milestone then give you a huge one without a milestone. This is how I got conned off 6 figures. Once again, I insist, always ask for milestone payments.

2. Bid continuously

Don’t just bid once, get a job and stop bidding. Note that there is always a better client out there. Therefore, it is wise to keep bidding so that whenever a project ends, there is another one that you’ll continue working on and earning from.

3. Deliver quality

No matter how much milestone payment you’ll have been given, you’ll never be paid if you deliver poor work.

Therefore, always work on delivering quality. You’d rather tell a client that you are unable to work on a certain product/article instead of pretending that you can and delivering low quality stuff. The good thing with Freelancer is the fact that it is softer than most other freelancing sites but nevertheless, make sure you deliver quality.

4. Take an exam

I always advise all new Freelancers not to take an exam before they start earning through a site. Once they start making money, they can plough back their earnings to take an exam.

An exam will simply put you above the rest and give you a chance to bid on more profitable jobs. The problem with Freelancer exams is the fact that you need to pay for them but the payment is worth it for people who are good at what they do.

5. Always use a sample

Seeing is believing.

You can write a million words telling a client how great you are in a certain field but they won’t hire you. A few well-thought-out words plus a sample always work great. Let the client see exactly what you’ve written or done for other clients. Make sure you choose your sample carefully from your best works.

5. Move to better paying sites and get Freelancers

I thought this was Freelancer review, wasn’t it?

Yes, this is a Freelancer review but the fact is that clients here pay very little. Therefore, you need to go to a better paying site and then get Freelancers to work for you.

I have a friend who says that you’ll never earn enough money till the day you’ll get people to do all the work for you.

I agree.

Great sites to check out include Upwork and Fiverr.

More On My Training

If you are a writer and you want to know more about how you can make a kill out of better sites and methods of getting clients, be sure to check out my Complete Freelance Writing Course. Here, I train you how to make money using some of the methods I’ve been successful in. I also help you to jumpstart your blogging career.

If you are not a writer, no worries, use the methods above and you should start making something out of Freelancer.com.

The end game is not to stay on freelancer, but to get to a level where you get projects on other sites and maybe only use Freelancer to outsource work to local and international freelancers.

I wrote this post back when Freelancer was still awesome. But now when updating it, note that it’s no longer as great as it used to be. It has funny charges and is still extremely low paying. I recommend Upwork and reaching out to private clients.

What do you think about all this? See you in the comments section.