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Have you ever attempted (as a freelancer) to pick up some extra quick and dirty work on Rent-A-Coder, ELance, or ScriptLance recently? It’s a very desperate situation.

Think of this scenario. You’re reading a request for bid, on a project. Let’s say for arguments sake, 10 page website, a little php for a contact form, and a logo. SEO too (which most people that I’ve dealt with just DEMAND and expect to be free). So let’s break this down here:

• Custom graphics and coding (let’s assume CSS will be used).
• Branding, design and conceptualization of a unique, original logo.
• SEO on the site top to bottom.
• PHP Programming for contact forms, and possibly for including certain areas of the website to make things easier on you.

 Now if you were to charge this person, WELL below market standard, let’s just say $25-$30 an hour, and you spent let’s guess, 8 hours on the project, that results in a net of: $240. That’s already very low, but let’s just assume, that you’re doing ok now, and 8 hours won’t break your back. So you get back after reviewing the posted bid, and go to make your own. What do you see? People offering to do it, in one day, for $100, $95, even $50! Usually there will be someone with a lot of reviews, a very large amount in fact, overbidding big time, simply because they’re banking on their reviews netting them the most amount of money (whether or not it’s QUALITY work begs to reason, however they do have a lot of reviews).

So what are you to do? You’ve already gone well below your market worth, and you’re willing to cut corners, and do it in 8 hours, but there just is no way to compete in those markets with numbers such as that. It just wouldn’t be worth your time.

I’ve run into this debacle quite a few times. And it’s the same across the board on most all of the freelance websites I’ve seen. Often I find Craigslist to be a better pool, however even on there, people will ask for a Myspace clone, with FaceBookoptions, and the usability of google, for $100, or FREE! It’s ridiculous! It’s insulting.

Rent A Coder tends to have a bit more of a higher quality base to it, however it still suffers somewhat from the plague of cheap labor that abounds on the internet. Usually it’s a firm, who has 50+ employees, who they pay low wages, and the workers scour the internet for work, at even lower prices. In such mass quantities however, the firm makes it big in the end. They’re essentially capitalizing the freelance sector right now. Is this fair? Who’s to say. It’s more of an economical thing than anything else. Life expenses are a lot less in the countries these programmers are coming from. It still makes it very difficult on everyone else.

I’m interested to hear any other views on this subject. Please comment if you have some, I’ll update this post as I see fit.