Can someone explain to me how Odesk works? *employer*

oDesk's FAQ is very confusing. As far as I understand, you make the full payment to oDesk, and oDesk pays your contractors AFTER the work (or a part of the work) is done. oDesk doesn't provide escrowing, making it rather a risky service when compared to others. You also can't get a refund for unsatisfactory work.

with odesk, if you hire people to work by the hour, then they do the work and there is a grace period for you to review the work before you are billed to your credit card.

Thanks, so if I pay the fixed price, I will not be able to see the person actually working on it? like logs and videos?

I use odesk for a few things and what I would do is break the fixed price up into modules per hour that is how I do and that way I get to see the weekly tracking per hour per min to see what they are doing. Be careful to when these people work they will show pics of logging into something but that does not mean they did any work for you. Make sure you are very clear with them. Odesk is very good about dispute if they (the workers) are not following your instructions for work. I always give directions via the inbox messaging system they have that way it is documentation of work you have designated the worker. And I like it better because you see work first before you actual are withdrawn from your credit card too. Hope this helps.

Oh! Oh! Pick me pick me! I can answer this one because I lurv me some oDesk. I figured I'd write you up a quick step by step:

1. You write up a job posting and put it up in their system. Take some time to fill out the different parameters and you'll get more targeted applicants.

2. (Optional) I always like to go out and actually find people that I want in the position and message them asking them to reply. I have a little form letter that I use, so it's really easy to do. I usually try and find about 30 people that would be *awesome* for the job and message all of them...Usually I'll get 3 or 4 that actually apply.

3. You have 2 choices, you can either pay by the hour (recommended) or pay by the project. I highly recommend hourly rate, because oDesk has awesome features built in to make this a breeze to handle.

4. When you hire someone on an hourly rate they will have to clock in and clock out on a program they have installed on their comp., when they're clocked in the program automatically takes random screenshots for your review to make sure they're working. oDesk also lets you set weekly limits for each contractor and keeps a time log for you in real time so you can always see how much you're spending.

5. At the end of each week you'll be notified that the 'work week is over' and you'll be given until the next Thursday to review your contractor's work and make sure they deserve pay.

6. Come Thursday any payments owed will automatically be deducted from your bank or PayPal account, depending what you have setup. There is no escrow involved, it is a direct transfer, however there is no way for you to lose money because you've already had time to review and make sure you want to pay.

As for the pay-per-project option I think payment works in a similar fashion. Don't quote me on this cause it's been like a year since I hired people this way, so I don't quite remember 100%, but I am quite sure that there is no 50% up front requirement or escrow requirement. However, I believe you do have to have your bank accnt or some payment option set up with them before you can hire. Again, I could be off on this, but I believe that's how it works.

Honestly, I love oDesk and it's pretty much all I use outside of the occasional Fiverr gig. I love how easy it is to hire hourly contractors...It's awesome.

Anyways, hope that clears things up for you there, bud.

Kindly,
- Stephen

Thank you alot guys! great feedbacks! I hired a guy who has been there since 2008 for a fixed contract to design a joomla site for me, I paid him 25% , he has great feedbacks and gave me a very nice price, nobody could compete with him..

Glad you found a good worker on oDesk!

I've been hiring workers there for a while now. I prefer to hire using fixed-price gigs, (rather than pay-for-time) because I'd rather reward efficiency and effectiveness than penalise it!


Chris

The guy asked for 200$ , and 50% upfront then he agreed to do 25% and if I want he can do hours, but I didn't want the hours, very nice guy I will see his work and if his work is very professional as it seems I will pay him 25$ more , I like to keep the people who work for me happy so when I come for another project they will keep me happy

Oh and I will never use paypal to pay for such sites.. at least if anything happens I can go to my creditcard company and they get me the money back and force Odesk to return it, paypal will tell you that the item is tangible and basically go .. off lol