Online global outsourcing is growing at a rapid pace with a projected growth of over 40% for the industry. The biggest platforms are Upwork (formerly oDesk), Elance, Freelancer and 99designs, although 99designs is really a different category as it’s a crowdsourcing site more focused on design, whereas the other platforms encompass any type of online work.
We have a newer article on Upwork and Elance competitors here: 20 Upwork alternatives that will help grow your business
In this infographic we compared the platforms according to funding received, number of freelancers and jobs posted, percentage they charge and cumulative earnings of freelancers. Great information if you are interested in the online outsourcing space!
UPDATE: We got a comment from Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer. I have posted it here as it points out that some of the figures in the infographic (based only on publicly available information) are inaccurate:
“The graphics are neat but the numbers sourced for the infographic are way off. Freelancer user earnings are much higher. vWorker alone had $140M in user earnings before Freelancer acquired it. Also the commissions are 0-3% for employers and 0-10% for freelancers, not 13%. At 3% for freelancers, this is the cheapest by far for a freelancer doing any volume. The amounts raised by all companies is also incorrect. Elance and Odesk have raised significantly more than reported by Crunchbase and Freelancer hasn’t raised anything near $40m. Freelancer hits 8 million users today.”
Rob Rawson is a co-founder of Time Doctor which is software to improve work productivity and help keep track of what your team is working on, even when working remotely.