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In the UK, if you work through a recruitment agent then they will be taking 10-20% of your rate as a margin. If you work through a consultancy that could be as

In the UK, if you work through a recruitment agent then they will be taking 10-20% of your rate as a margin. If you work through a consultancy that could be as high 30-50%. If you do your own business development then that is hard work, risky and also expensive. It would take much more than 10% of your time. Though freelancing can be a tough gig, I don’t think Upworks rates are unreasonable considering they have a marketplace of work requiring very minimal biz dev and various financial protections to make sure you get paid. All of these rates just gets loaded into the rates the clients pay anyway so it’s a wash to a certain extent.

aerhardt 3y ago
> In the UK, if you work through a recruitment agent then they will be taking 10-20% of your rate as a margin. I would still expect a pure software marketplace to be significantly cheaper than a recruitment agency, given economies of scale and other efficiency gains.
- webmobdev 3y ago
  It is significantly cheaper and more efficient. The expectation that this benefit would be passed on to us clients is what is unrealistic. :)
- barry-cotter 3y ago
  Why would that mean it was cheaper instead of making the middleman’s margin fatter? Upwork isn’t a charity, the owners want to make money.
  - jabradoodle 3y ago
    In a word, competition.
webmobdev 3y ago
A recruitment agent or a consultancy will often give you a personalised one-to-one service, and hence the higher fees can be somewhat justified. Upwork largely provides an automated service. So let's be realistic and not compare the two.
benatkin 3y ago
What if it goes up to 15%? The Overton Window is shifting. Just this last week I saw ads for the "CPA Card" from Expensify with 2% cash back. All those cash back offers from credit cards is from money extracted from businesses of all sizes by monopolists. I think there should be pushback for any increases in cuts that are taken.

aerhardt 3y ago

> In the UK, if you work through a recruitment agent then they will be taking 10-20% of your rate as a margin. I would still expect a pure software marketplace to be significantly cheaper than a recruitment agency, given economies of scale and other efficiency gains.

webmobdev 3y ago
It is significantly cheaper and more efficient. The expectation that this benefit would be passed on to us clients is what is unrealistic. :)
barry-cotter 3y ago
Why would that mean it was cheaper instead of making the middleman’s margin fatter? Upwork isn’t a charity, the owners want to make money.
- jabradoodle 3y ago
  In a word, competition.

webmobdev 3y ago

A recruitment agent or a consultancy will often give you a personalised one-to-one service, and hence the higher fees can be somewhat justified. Upwork largely provides an automated service. So let's be realistic and not compare the two.

benatkin 3y ago

What if it goes up to 15%? The Overton Window is shifting. Just this last week I saw ads for the "CPA Card" from Expensify with 2% cash back. All those cash back offers from credit cards is from money extracted from businesses of all sizes by monopolists. I think there should be pushback for any increases in cuts that are taken.