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I feel for the guy, and freelancer.com seem to have terrible, appalling customer service. But this brings up another point, which is that freelancing often isn'

by objclxt 12y ago

I feel for the guy, and freelancer.com seem to have terrible, appalling customer service. But this brings up another point, which is that freelancing often isn't a good way to get money quickly. You can't live paycheck to paycheck freelancing. Your clients will pay you late. They'll pay you the wrong amount. Your freelancing agency will delay the payment. You'll get a check, but it'll bounce. It would not be unusual when freelancing to start receiving your money for a gig two months after you started it (30 days for your client to pay your agency, 30 days for your agency to pay you). Freelancing and needing money fast are, in my experience, mutually exclusive. One of the (many) reasons a freelancer charges a comparatively higher day rate than his or her salaried counterpart is there's risk involved with freelancing. If a company fails to pay their full-time, salaried employees at the end of the month it's a big deal. If a company fails to pay their freelancers on time...that's not out of the ordinary.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "But this brings up another point, which is that freelancing often isn't a good way to get money quickly." Although I agree with most of what you've said it all depends on how you structure the milestones. On every job I work the first milestone gets paid immediately. In other words if I win a job, I immediately get some money. If they job is small I use two milestones: 1. Project started (50%) 2. Project completed (50%) For larger projects I split the job up further and reduce the amount required in the first and last milestone. But the result is the same - money up front as soon as you win a job. It's also a good way of gaining some trust the client will pay. I didn't do this for the first 18 months I freelanced and got screwed several times. That happens rarely now.
- erikb 12y ago
  You are probably one buying work on freelancer websites? I don't have any experience in this area, but what the author in his blog post says is that the transaction itself did not start. So the client had already paid, and the website would have probably showed him that the first milestone is paid, but the freelancer didn't receive his money in that instance. Even if everything goes as it should it would have taken a few days till his money would have arrived.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    >> "You are probably one buying work on freelancer websites?" No, I sell my services. My main point was that if he took money immediately he might have got these issues sorted out sooner. No guarantee though. I've been stung by freelancer.com's 14 day wait for the first payment too + they used to only process withdrawals once per week.
mcv 12y ago
> You can't live paycheck to paycheck freelancing. This. Experienced freelancers have a couple of months of financial buffer. You need it. A client might refuse to pay over some totally fabricated dispute, you might have an accident and be unable to work for a while, you might not be able to find any suitable project for a while, etc. Anything could happen, and as a freelancer, you carry your own risk. You need a buffer, and you need sufficient margin to keep replenishing that buffer.

by objclxt 12y ago

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> "But this brings up another point, which is that freelancing often isn't a good way to get money quickly." Although I agree with most of what you've said it all depends on how you structure the milestones. On every job I work the first milestone gets paid immediately. In other words if I win a job, I immediately get some money. If they job is small I use two milestones: 1. Project started (50%) 2. Project completed (50%) For larger projects I split the job up further and reduce the amount required in the first and last milestone. But the result is the same - money up front as soon as you win a job. It's also a good way of gaining some trust the client will pay. I didn't do this for the first 18 months I freelanced and got screwed several times. That happens rarely now.

erikb 12y ago
You are probably one buying work on freelancer websites? I don't have any experience in this area, but what the author in his blog post says is that the transaction itself did not start. So the client had already paid, and the website would have probably showed him that the first milestone is paid, but the freelancer didn't receive his money in that instance. Even if everything goes as it should it would have taken a few days till his money would have arrived.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "You are probably one buying work on freelancer websites?" No, I sell my services. My main point was that if he took money immediately he might have got these issues sorted out sooner. No guarantee though. I've been stung by freelancer.com's 14 day wait for the first payment too + they used to only process withdrawals once per week.

mcv 12y ago

> You can't live paycheck to paycheck freelancing. This. Experienced freelancers have a couple of months of financial buffer. You need it. A client might refuse to pay over some totally fabricated dispute, you might have an accident and be unable to work for a while, you might not be able to find any suitable project for a while, etc. Anything could happen, and as a freelancer, you carry your own risk. You need a buffer, and you need sufficient margin to keep replenishing that buffer.