Freelance sites have been around for a long time. You've probably heard of Upwork or sites like Freelancer.com. But there are other websites like PeoplePerHour which gives freelancers another place to find freelance work. Chances are you have probably read some of the other PeoplePerHour reviews online looking for all the good and bad involving this site. If you weren't satisfied with what you found and want the real scoop, including any complaints, you will definitely want to continue reading on. Let's dig in, shall we?
What is PeoplePerHour?
PeoplePerHour.com is basically a freelance website for freelancers and people looking to hire freelancers for a variety of jobs. The website was founded in 2007 by Xenios Thrasyvoulou. PeoplePerHour is headquartered in London, UK. The website has posted over 1.1 million jobs and states that freelancers in more than 89 countries using the site have earned over $100 million dollars since the site was launched.
How Does PeoplePerHour Work?
Businesses and individuals (Buyers) can post various jobs on the site for freelancers to bid on. Freelancers (Sellers) can also post their own various services (called “hourlies”) along with their rates. There are numerous job categories to choose from including Administration, Design, IT and Development, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Translation, Tutorials, Video, Writing, and more.
Buyers set up a down payment in an Escrow account when they post a job. Freelancers send the buyer a bid proposal when they are interested in the job. Users can contact one another through an instant messaging platform within the website that includes invoicing and work workstream features. When jobs are completed, payments are released automatically to the seller's account.
How Do I Start With PeoplePerHour?
Anyone can join the website for free by registering an account on the company's website. You can use your LinkedIn or Facebook information to create your account. Then you will create an online portfolio on the platform that contains a headshot, job title, about me section, and keyword-based skills. You can also choose to set an hourly rate if you wish and upload work samples. When you complete jobs on this site, the portfolio will also list any starred reviews you receive so other users can see them.
You can search the platform for opportunities and send employers a bid proposal listing your skills and rates. You may also list any services you offer with rates. If you want to create a more passive stream of income while working from home, you might want to check out my Best Work At Home Recommendation.
But, if you don't like being limited to buyers approval and bids proposal you can make money online by doing what you do every day like playing games, watching videos and so much more on FusionCash.com, Swagbucks.com, and InBoxDollars.com. You can also take paid surveys on SurveyJunkie.com of products and services that you use.
How Do I Get Paid With PeoplePerHour?
PeoplePerHour serves an international market and supports a wide variety of currencies. Payments are made directly to a bank or PayPal account. Transfers to these accounts can take up to three days.
What We Like
Payment Protection: Freelancers working from home are well aware of clients who disappear on them when it comes time for payment. PeoplePerHour eliminates that struggle by making buyers place funds for the work up front in an Escrow account that is released when the job is finished. If there is a problem with payments, the company has a dispute process to handle these issues.
Earn What You Want: You can choose to work as often or as little as you want and can set your own rates.
Positive Customer Feedback: Many freelancers say they were able to earn a significant amount of money using the platform. You won't get rich, but you can make enough to pay your bills and even have a little extra.
PeoplePerHour Complaints
No company is perfect Here are a few flaws, I found complaints with the company:
No BBB Profile: PeoplePerHour does not have a profile listing on the Better Business Bureau website. This is most likely because the company is not located in the United States. However, there is no accurate way to tell how well the company handles customer complaints and support issues.
But if you prefer companies with a good BBB rate you may want to check out FusionCash.com, Swagbucks.com, and InBoxDollars.com. where you get paid to complete simple tasks like visiting websites, listening to the radio or giving reviews and so much. Other companies like SurveyJunkie.com will pay you to complete surveys of products you already use.
Low-Paying Gigs: The site lets you post your own rates and does offer better-paying opportunities than similar alternative sites like Fiverr and UpWork. However, there are plenty of low-paying jobs listed on the site. You may want to check out my Best Work At Home Recommendation instead to earn what you're really worth.
Limited Free Bids: Freelancers only get 15 free bids per month. After that, you must purchase additional blocks of bids. The company does not clearly post how much these blocks costs on its website.
Handling Fee: The company charges a fee to freelance sellers for using the platform. The company deducts a 20% handling fee on the first approximate $600 received each month and then 5% thereafter.
Horrible Customer Support: Freelancers report that it is hard to get a hold of the company with tech and support issues with the platform.
So is PeoplePerHour Legit or A Big Scam?
PeoplePerHour is a legitimate freelance website for freelancers and buyers. Users can search for opportunities in a large number of categories and even post their own services for sale. Payments are protected through an upfront Escrow account and you can work as little or as much as you choose. However, users only get 15 free bids per month and are charged a handling fee on payments they receive.
If you are looking to make some extra income that is not limited to bids you can participate in paid surveys on SurveyJunkie.com. You may also supplement your income by playing games, watching videos, reading emails, visiting websites amongst other tasks on FusionCash.com, Swagbucks.com, and InBoxDollars.com.
Overall, PeoplePeHour can be a great source to add to your multiple streams of income. But if you are looking for alternatives, you may want to check out my Best Work At Home Recommendation and my Work At Home Courses. Now that you have read this review as well as other People Per Hour reviews, you should completely understand how the company works and what the position has to offer. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with the company. Feel free to post your comments below. And if you enjoyed this review, please free to check out my other work at home reviews as well.
Until next time,
Eddy with a y
I have to concur with everything others have said, Peopleperhour is a total ripoff.
They charge you on every penny you earn multiple times.
they take 20% commission on everything you earn and then charge you 20% tax on top of that when you get paid
When you want to withdraw your money they charge you 1.9% for that too.
They also won’t even give you access to your money for 14 working days after you have been paid.
You only get a certain number of credits per month to apply for jobs, if you run out to credits, you have to pay more. So you are essentially paying PPH for the privilege of earning money for them.
If you want your proposals to be pushed to the top, you guessed it, you have to pay for this too, which makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
It is incredibly easy for any buyer to scam you. They can simply ignore you when the job is done and refuse to pay the invoice, and PPH always sides with the buyer in my experience, and all you get from them is “there is nothing we can do”.
They will tell you to ask for more deposit upfront, but this makes no difference whatsoever.
Customer service is a joke….
So many times I have tried changes to my profile rejected with no explanation, and spent weeks and weeks going round in circles with people who cannot even understand english trying to find out why, only to keep getting nonsensical replies that have nothing to do with the issue.
It is hard to imagine how PPH is even legal.
I have been on PeoplePerHour for a while now and while I admit it’s not a perfect platform ( there is no such thing ) It is by far – in my experience at least – better than most well known competitors out there.
I don’t think the platform can gain anything from trying to scam either the buyers nor the freelancers it’s a big brand and something like would just hurt its reputation
I would love however to get more free proposals. But 15 are not bad especially considering Upwork now charges for connects and fiverr doesn’t really offer something similar.
So all in all I think PeoplePerHour is a decent platform and you can really use it to build and grow your business, but no one can deny they’ve got stuff to improve and work on.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
People Per Hour discouraged me from refusing work by a cryptocurrency scam project. Now they want me to talk things over… with a criminal.
Bit I feel peopleperhour is not a good site for freelancers. Clients are getting his/her work free by creating issues and peopleperhour simply and easily refund hard earned money from freelancers accounts to clients.
This is horrible issues. Their support person also seeing support message and deciding that freelancers are wrong and they returning money to clients.
So this site is heaven for Clients. This site allow to Client’s to post job and when job done simply create issues and then after peopleperhour Admin will refund money without see freelancers hard work and tickets.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for this Article, Eddy.
People Per Hour is a good at cheating freelancers.
Once buyer approves the release of amount.
PPH will start asking for personal credentials that you won’t be able to provide and even you provide they will keep sending requests.
And they will create unnecessary hurdles and eventually block your id.
There are not more than top 25 freelancers who are top earners. Remaining is long tail because of high drop rate.
Every category on daily basis I never saw more than 10 projects posted.
Hey Addy,
You’ve made some strong accusations. Are you speaking from experience or just things you heard?
Well it depends on your luck with freelance .. mostly they are scam .. be careful and *peopleperhour will not help you*.. you will feel they support scammed to make more profit ! ***Not recommended at all. ***
An internet search for People Per Hour dot com scam shows hundreds of complaints going back many years and they progressively get worse and worse reviews all the way up to present time of April 2018.
* – Though it is easy to sign up and start doing work, the process of payment is very lengthy and discouraging to the seller. Very vital personal information has to be sent to the site making the process very tiring.
* – The personal information you send to the site can be used maliciously. There are clients who have reported abuse of their personal information. The info is spread all over the internet.
* – The site has frustrated many sellers to the extent of losing hope in tracking the money. If you do not live in the UK, getting your money may prove to be difficult to the extent that you may be tempted to leave the money.
* – Some of the terms set out in this site are exposing sellers to being conned. There is a particular clause which states that if you do not communicate with the buyer for a certain period through the site, the buyer might successfully petition escrow to return funds. Since communication is mainly done directly through email, this clause puts the sellers into great danger.
* Freelancers only get 15 free bids per month. After that, you must purchase additional blocks of bids. The company does not clearly post how much these block costs on its website.
* **PPH extorting personal sensitive data.** They are not a bank and people pay in advance. Some authority needs to step in…
Conclusion….
Well, the site is good for doing freelancing jobs, but the many complains have made its legitimacy to face scrutiny.
Best of the best freelancers do not recommend people per hour as the only source of income. It has been claimed that it is a scam in the making and therefore you should have other online sites and put peopleperhour as a supporting site so as to avoid disappointments.
Well, thanks for sharing your thoughts and observations about this company. Clearly you’re not a big fan. lol
People per hour scammed me out of 200 pounds. I wanted a logo and never got the work done. Then they charge me a monthly admin fee????? Even though I do not use the site. I cannot log in, and am getting emails saying that that if I don’t log in by January 1st I’ll be charged a monthly fee due to changes in their policy. There is no way to contact them, no way to log in, no way to communicate. TOTAL SCAM SITE
What a nightmare of a company is PPH,
1- Breach of Privacy, your personal information is shared with third party outside of PPH, advised to me by their own seller.
2- Hidden feed and non transparent T&C almost fraudulent way dubiously taking money from m account. and nothing to give in retune neither the product nor the service not the write to comment.
3 – Zero customer service – no human being to answer your fb messages, your email or any other form of reply. While they will spam the hell out of you by their junk emails offering various freelancers.
4 This is what pissed me off the most: they remove negative feedback or not so good review about their seller, They removed my feedback and then sent me email advising they only publish feedback thats not in their favour. That just simply wrong, its manipulative and misleading information. I selected this seller due to her review now I know ofcourse she has only top review because the negative one are removed. I then went to their community and check many customer have complained about that and think its unfair. Ofcourse it is – After a customer has been robbed least they have is the right to complaint and provide feedback about their experience.
I then wrote to their CEO three times. And Now I know where their crappy customer service attitude comes from – Top Down.
If you search google for just 15 min you see how horrible this organisation is. On glassdoor.com read their own employees negative opinion about their CEO.
If this is a paid gig and they paid you to write a blog glorifying how good this company is, please don’t associate with them. It will cause you more harm.
Wow, thanks for sharing your experience. That’s some major accusations you’re making. But you definitely reaffirmed some of the complaints I listed above so thanks for that. And no I wasn’t paid by this company and my reputation is over a decade strong so I’m good. The reality is some people have used this company and didn’t have the experiences you laid out. It’s not to say your experiences aren’t valid or true. Either way we appreciate you sharing it. And it will help folks who read this to make a more informed decision and decide for themselves if this is really a scam or not. A lot of things can change when these reviews are written.
Hi Again Eddy,
Thanks for commenting. I am glad it is not a paid review and I didn’t mean to question your integrity but I have zero faith in their integrity. So thank you and apologies if that came out wrong. Thats not my intention. My only and only intention is to save others from wasting their time and money with them. And take my right back of leaving a feedback.
Yes no doubt that there are some best people working for them and surely not everyone there is unprofessional but its the individual’s work ethics whether buyers or sellers not this company’s.
Its not them I am questioning its the PPH’s conduct and treatment of their customers.
I cannot send images here or else I would. I tried to attach all photos of the messages I sent to their CEO.
Its still shows up on my fb wall. Happy for anyone to send me a fb request and have a look. I have sent him a message on Fb messenger and I send him a message on linkedin too .. No reply anywhere. I just wanted to see if a CEO will care to just write, “hey apologies for the inconvenience, let me look into it” even a statement like that puts your trust back. But I heard nothing. Even though FB messenger confirmed he accepted my messages.
THIS IS ON THEIR COMMUNITY PAGE, from someone named PAUL : you may look it up as well. Here is the link :
https://support.peopleperhour.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/219868567-Cancelling-Job-seller-ignoring
Paul
October 04, 2016 21:16
Hi, can you tell me why, in relation to this job, the 0/1 star feedback made no longer appears on the sellers profile and still rated at the same cert level?
This is very important to me because if negative feedback can easily be revoked when a seller ignores me, breaks PPH rules and communicates outside of PPH, fails to deliver and then can remove any negative feedback or indication of this, surely that defeats the idea of feedback and all trust in the platform is lost?
Job was https://www.peopleperhour.com/freelancer/rebecca/virtual-pa-admin-assistant-data-ent/48616?ref=provider
Also, a comment in the thread was moderated????!!! Message was РReview was moderated by our Customer Support Ninjas Ҭbecause it violated our Terms & Conditions
This is what they sent me :
THU 11:15PM (LOCAL TIME FOR AMMAD: THU 3:15 PM)
PPH Customer Support reviewed your refund request and unfortunately it was not approved for the reason below. Please take a look at the refund and cancellation policy.
PPH Customer SupportDispute Resolved. From the users. FEEDBACK IS NOT ALLOWED FOLLOWING A DISPUTE AND IT WILL BE REMOVED.
So they took my money for providing nothing and they removed my feedback for that person. So when the next/ new customer goes looking for similar work they only see best reviews about these seller. Thats unfair to the existing as well the new customer.
Everything I have written is available online if anyone would search . No one has time and energy to sit and bad mouth an organisation. If it would be only about money I would let it go. Its about principle !
As for my experience I have already lost time, 3 months- and money and I am still getting unpleasant emails from their seller.
I just think in todays day & age we don’t need one more business that has no respect for its customers.
Thank you for taking time to read my comments.
I appreciate your apology and clarification. And thanks for the further details. I think it’s always important to give everyone the opportunity to share their experiences as long as it’s done in a professional way. Even if I don’t agree with someone’s comment or assessment I always welcome healthy discourse done in a constructive way. So I appreciated that you provided your experience. Thanks again.
Please stay away from them. They are no less than Nigerian scammers. They will take money without you having a product or service in return, They have no customer service team, both their Fb messages and customer service messages are automated that mean no one is reading them. You will be stuck without any work being done and lose money. I regret doing business with them. There are no checks done on their sellers who are rude, ill mannered and unprofessional.
Terrible customer service.. Lots of hidden fees .. I am still waiting to get a refund (I accidentally paid twice) and they are going to charge me for it! (I will get charged twice, once for the payment and another time to refund).
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Hi Eddy,
Very interesting review. I have been involved in freelancing since a few years now. Mostly on Fiverr, as a buyer and seller. While I made a lot of money, things have changed in the past couple of years. The competition has increased terribly and whenever I buy a service, most of the time I receive what I can call rubbish.
When searching for a service, you find loads of offers from extremely well presented websites, then you are delivered an unacceptable job by someone who can hardly write English, then when asking for a revision (as they offer unlimited number of revisions), they just reply that they have delivered exactly what I have asked for and that there is nothing to be revised.
So, now we have to compete with this crowd of incompetent sellers who even clone your own gigs, and buy 5 star positive reviews so that they get ranked better than yourself.
Conclusion, is that I am steadily re-converting to affiliate marketing, which I have a lot of experience with.
Looking forward to reading more of your interesting articles Eddy with a ‘y’.
Regards,
John
Hey John,
I have to agree with a lot of your experiences and observations about freelance websites. I still use them to hire people for certain things. But they can be a hit or miss. And the competition is fierce. But there are people making great money with it if you can master a system and find your niche. But like you I prefer affiliate marketing. Thanks for chiming in.
Great review, Eddy.
I love the fact that People Per Hour includes payment protection and that it includes a dispute process. That protects both parties.
I think freelance work can definitely be a great way to create an additional stream of income rather quickly. It’s great for someone who needs money right now. However, I think it’s a pretty common case that most freelance gigs don’t pay a lot of money.
I think long term, the best way to make money online is to build your own online business.
Thanks Andy. I agree that freelance sites can help people make money quickly if you’re actually able to land gigs against all the competition. It has its pros and cons like other ways of making money. I prefer affiliate marketing. It’s probably just as competitive if not more competitive than freelance work but at least it’s passive income once you get it rolling. So I hear ya.
I am looking to do some freelancing. The second I read that the support is horrible, I made up my mind on People Per Hour.
I believe, that if people are just going to leave you out to dry when you are trying to make some money, then might as well look somewhere else.
Its always quite a pain, that one has limited gigs on this platform.That means your earning potential is capped.
This review certainly helped me out
Thanks
Roopesh
You’re very welcome Roopesh. You may want to give this out yourself to see if you experience the same issues. But I could understand how you wouldn’t want to take the risk.
Hi Eddy,
As you said, freelancers can make huge income using these kinds of genuine sites. I just heard about people per hour and it seems to be promising.
Thank you so much for the review and share.
Take care,
with best wishes,
You’re welcome Manoj!
Hello Eddy with a ‘y’!
Too funny!
SO, PPH, I am familiar with them. I was a member for a while. It was an OK experience for me.
Your review is ‘spot on’ about them. You will not make ‘millions’ using this platform, however, it can be used to get your feet wet.
Thank you for sharing this information. Great website. I will visit again as time permits.
Michelle
Hey Michelle,
Thanks for agreeing with my review. It’s great to hear your experience with them. And yes I know the whole Eddy with a y is funny but it’s a great way to help people to spell my name correctly. lol
Hi, Eddy
As seen in your analysis of this company, peopleperhour does provide people with specific work experiences an opportunity to work as freelancers and get paid for their services.
Reading through your review, I was wondering just how this company is able to bank some money, mainly because they must have people working for them to handle the logistics/administrative tasks associated with keeping the site up.
Sure enough, about two-thirds of the way through, you answered my question. The company charges that initial 20% handling fees coming out of sellers’ pockets to cover the administrative costs from the first $600 received, 5% after that.
This company in fact while legit does not provide a candidate with the best possible opportunity to earn money online – specifically if he/she wants to run an online business for him/herself. Freelancing opportunities might have their definite down periods in which the individual is not working for anyone. I also believe that a person would never make 6-figures per year as a freelancer and no matter the industry.
Jeff
Jeff,
I don’t know if I agree with you that a freelancer can’t earn 6 figures doing freelance work. It all depends on their skillset and client base. So I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion. There is definitely value in being a freelancer and I liken it to being a business owner. You have clients that you server. I’ve worked with a lot of freelance writers that make good money writing for others. Some of them have fired me as a client so they are their own business owners.
I had considered freelancing at one time, but I thought the competition would be too great. I interpret your information as a bit of a warning, as it does not sound like it would be a positive atmosphere to work in. The sign-up process is so simple. Do they do any screening? It sounds like it is international. What currency do they use?
Yes Freelance websites are very competitive. But so is anything that will make you real money.