Pros and cons of hiring an agency vs. individual freelancer at Upwork.com

In the current scenario, businesses are not confined to the local talent in their organization. There are platforms such as Upwork, Skype, Freelancer etc. which let you tap into the talents from different states, countries or overseas. Let’s understand the same using Upwork as an example. Through Upwork, businesses are connecting with the world-class professionals to work on different projects via web.

Hiring a remote employee might be a risky factor. Here we will share some tips and tricks on how to choose a remote vendor for your upcoming project- an agency or an individual freelancer. We will go through the pros and cons of hiring an agency or individual freelancer at upwork.com

About Upwork.com

Upwork.com remains as one of the most popular freelance platforms across the world. Since its foundation in 1999, the company has raised a total of $168 million. The platform offers a wide choice of subcontractors to their clients as per their requirements. And, depending on the project scope, budget and time duration, the clients can hire either a freelancer or an agency for their business needs. For bigger and complex projects, considering Upwork agency is the preferred solution.

The major deciding factor for choosing from a freelancer or the agency will be your project and its requirements. Now the question is, how do you find the right fit? Would it be better to hire a freelancer to perform multiple jobs or hiring an agency with specialized skills?

And, to answer all the above questions, let’s discuss the pros and cons of outsourcing your projects to an agency or a freelancer one by one.

Pros and cons of hiring a freelancer

Everything has its own pros and cons, and all this depends on you how to take them. Just like before deciding to hire the freelancers, you must know its pros and cons to understand how they will benefit your business.

Pros:

1.1  Hiring a freelancer is cheaper option: We all know it very well that freelancer usually work at very cost-effective prices set up by them. These prices are fixed by them and vary depending on the length and type of project. Apart from this, they have no overhead cost to consider while asking their prices.

1.2  You can hire more freelancers based on your project requirements: If you project is bigger and you need more individuals to manage it, you may go ahead. This is the right option when it comes to marketing projects which don’t need regular updating.

1.3  Hiring freelancer is a flexible option: Yes! Outsourcing your project work to freelancer is an excellent choice for some particular work. This includes short-term or the side projects along with those which don’t require much updating. Further, you may hire as many freelancers as much you want.

1.4  Freelancers have specialized skills: Freelancers are usually paid for their specialized skills. Often they hone their skills in one area of expertise. If you need a specific project to be done, you can approach to the freelancer who is the best in this task. With this, you can assure that the right person and talent is handling your project tasks.

1.5  Freelancers involve through a creative process: Since, hiring a freelancer will let you directly communicate with them; you can get involved in the whole process. This allows you as well as him to lessen the future issues and unsatisfying results. If anything is unclear to anyone, they may ask questions and clarify in the right manner.

Cons

1.1    Scheduling with them might get tricky at times: Most of the freelancers have flexible work schedules and they might not available at your location which further means that managing with them is tricky. This is very complicated for the organizations working with multiple freelancers across different time zones. And, there may be times when freelancers are unavailable when you need them urgently for a particular task.

1.2    Managing multiple freelancers is a difficult task: If you have multiple and specialized tasks for your projects then you may require multiple freelancers. For e.g. your project may require a coder, writer, graphic designer, and more, you have to hire them. Handling them all may get tricky when they are at remote location.

1.3    Work overload: A freelancer may work on different projects from different clients. At times, the tasks and deadlines may pile up on their desk which further affects their performance. If they get exhausted, the projects will not get done properly. All this further can bring unsatisfactory results.

1.4    Reliability: There are a lot of freelancers over the web and it becomes very difficult to choose the genuine and reliable ones. If any freelancer bails you in the mid of your project then your project will suffer and you will be required to find another one. Whereas, when you choose an agency, they will put another person for you in that place.

Pros and cons of outsourcing to agency

It could be a challenge for the freelancer to collaborate with the other members of your team. You may end up spending more time and efforts to manage than getting the results which you are looking for. In that case, hiring a freelance agency at upwork.com is beneficial. 

Freelance agencies are designed to handle the complex and specialized tasks for your project. You can hire the one based on your project requirements. Hiring a freelance agency is the perfect option if you have a bigger project and needs many disciplines like planning, designing, development, and testing.

Pros

2.1 Accountability is built-in while hiring an agency: Agencies are more reliable and trustworthy. They never quit your project in between as it will tarnish their reputation. Whenever you hire them, they will assign you a manager which will be handling the freelancer. They initiate the processes like planning, management, quality control, testing, emerging response etc. Also, you need not to worry about checking individually with each freelancer. They can also provide replacements whenever required.

2.2 Collaboration: Apart from the refined project handling processes, outsourcing agency have a wealth of resources in place. Collaboration is smooth as the project manager will be handling all tasks by handling individual freelancers at their end. Contrary to that, it is very tough to bring isolated freelancer on the same page while working with multiple freelancers.

2.3 Agencies have a track record: When it comes to outsourcing your project, agencies have an extensive portfolio of projects, testimonials, case studies etc. All this lets you examine their previous projects track record as you will be reviewing suitable agencies.

Cons

2.1 They are more expensive: The main drawback of outsourcing project to agencies is in the form of costs. As compared to this, hiring a freelancer is cheaper as some of the agencies have to pay for the office spaces, staff, managers and more. All these costs add to the total cost of hiring an agency.

2.2 Response time could be slower: When you are hiring an agency, you will not be dealing with an individual but the whole administration. This way, the agencies could response slow. Of course, this is not the case with all the agencies but these factors must be considered in all aspects like the mode of communication and the level of agility.

Conclusion

Outsourcing your work or project is an amazing way to grow your business. It has numerous benefits for the startups too. But choosing the right one is the challenging task. Hiring a freelancer makes sense when you have a smaller project and want to be involved in the process.

Hiring a freelancer is advisable if:

·        Project is small

·        You don’t want multiple specialists

·        You want to involve in the creative process

But on the other hand, if you are looking for the more predictable outcome, it’s better to choose a freelance agency. This will help you to nail complex project under strict guidelines and you need to pay more for the same.

Hiring an agency is sensible if:

·        The project is complex and requires multiple phases to manage

·        You need multiple specialists

·        You can’t manage multiple freelancers

·        You are always busy and can’t keep up with the whole team

So, your best bet is just weigh the pros and cons of both to make a smart decision.