by Shawnte Pierce

Created on: May 19, 2010   Last Updated: October 13, 2011

In 2009, about 40 percent of Freelancers Union’s members had issues receiving payment for their work. News articles over the past few months have reported on this startling trend from the Wall Street Journal, CNN and Business Week. Most of these articles give advice on how to collect payment for services rendered. But what about making a preemptive strike? Discover how freelance marketplace websites can help minimize late or non-payments by clients.

Why Use a Freelance Marketplace Website?

The first thing that comes to a freelancer's mind when they hear “marketplace” is offering their skills by bidding on assignments, projects, and jobs available on the web. However, these websites have another untapped use. Many freelancers do not realize they can direct prospective clients to freelance marketplaces such as Elance to propose projects specifically for them to fully utilize and take advantage of all their services.

In general, the freelance marketplace provides a venue for freelancers to define the terms of service, store documents and correspond; the website then accepts money from the client and passes it on to the freelancer for a fee. Typically, this fee is a percentage taken from the payment you receive for service. Fees can range from as high as 35 percent (Constant Content) to as little as 6.75 percent (Elance).

Elance Offers Guaranteed Payment for Freelancers

Elance offers one the safest client/freelance platforms on the Internet. When the client and freelancer/provider agree to work together through the system, Elance offers payment to the freelancer once the project is logged as complete. This guarantee is offered for both fixed price and hourly work projects.

The Elance Hourly Work Guarantee

Elance's work guarantee is offered when the client and provider agree to use two tools called Work View and Tracker. Tracker is a timer that tracks the billable hours you work and automatically fills in those hours on your timesheet that you submit to your client. Additionally, Tracker uploads snapshots of your work and your comments about your work directly to your client through the Work View feature on Elance.

When used together, Elance guarantees payment for up to 10 hours of work per day for a 50-hour workweek. The client has five days after the timesheet is submitted to review the work, timesheet and screenshots. At the end of the fifth day, Elance will deduct the billable hours from the client's chosen method of payment and the freelancer

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