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We recommend you hire virtual workers on OnlineJobs over Upwork because you don’t have to weed out non-skilled local workers. Also, because OnlineJobs encourages employing dedicated virtual assistants, they do not take a cut of the virtual assistants pay.
However Upwork has more freelance talent than OnlineJobs.
You can read our individual reviews to help you make an informed decision:
Or if you continue reading, you will learn the pros and cons of hiring Virtual Assistants on OnlineJobs and Upwork.
Upwork does a good job of removing scammy and inactive users.
This makes it relatively easy to find virtual assistants and entry-level associates to help you get work off your plate.
If you want to do the work yourself, here’s a quick process I recommend using:
OnlineJobs has a simple filtering system that allows you to find overseas freelancers fast.
Filipinos have to limit their ratings to 5-star rating 3 times and 4-stars 6 times. While you’ll need to vet the freelancers, it’s easier to find talent relevant to your search.
In addition to doing a skill search, you can also filter prospects by:
ID Proof is a simple way to verify the worker you hire is not fake. OnlineJobs give a rating from 1-100. This is not a measure of skill or reliability.
Since OnlineJobs doesn’t provide much information about the score, I recommend filtering for an ID score of 70 or higher.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed, you can outsource recruiting to OnlineJobs. This allows you to focus on other high-value activities for your business.
Here’s OnlineJobs recruiting process:
Plus, if something doesn’t work between you and your virtual assistant in the first month, they’ll find you a replacement at no cost.
Most freelance platforms we recommend have an overhead charge for the hours you work with freelancers.
Those fees add up quickly too.
With Upwork, let’s say you invest $1,000. They’ll tack on a $30 fee to you and charge $150 to the freelancer. So on Upwork, only $850 of $1,030 will make it to your freelancer.
OnlineJobs charges a flat monthly fee.
Because all transactions between you and your VA are outside the platform, there’s no added fee. This means you’re not paying for an added middlemen or markup on their salary.
It's great that you don't have to pay massive fees with OnlineJobs. But there is a problem with this, which I will talk about later in this review.
OnlineJobs offers Timeproof as a free resource for you to track your employee’s time.
TimeProof takes snapshots of your employees' work. As the employer, you’ll also get time sheets and screenshots of what your VA was working on during their shift. This improves your odds that you’ll only pay for their actual work, not surfing the web.
For freelancers, TimeProof puts them at ease that you’ll pay for their recorded hours.
Not sure what it takes to hire a virtual assistant? In addition to their blog, OnlineJobs has curated a list of their best resources to work with virtual assistants.
Every month, thousands of virtual workers sign up to OnlineJobs:
OnlineJobs has quite a variety of virtual assistants, including:
Upwork has a massive freelance talent pool to choose from, with over 12 million freelancers. Additionally, according to Upwork’s CEO, they get over 10,000 people signing up to their website every single day. Whether you are looking to hire a Ruby on Rails developer, a brand designer, or a software engineer, if you’re looking for freelance talent, Upwork has it.
That said, you have to filter out a lot of candidates who are not virtual assistants.
OnlineJobs offers three pricing plans.
In the free plan, you can post and view job applications, use Timeproof, and use OnlineJob’s employee database. You can’t message the employees or hire anyone, and job posts will take two days until you go Pro.
OnlineJob’s Pro plan is $69 per month. With the Pro plan, you get:
OnlineJobs also offers a Premium plan for $99/month. With the Premium plan, you get everything in Pro, plus:
Upwork will charge you 3% on every payment you make. This is common among freelance marketplaces. This fee quickly adds up.
In addition, Upwork costs $49.99 a month for their Plus plan.
Plus Upwork members receive:
For bigger business clients, Upwork offers a Business plan for $849 per month. You’ll pay a 10% service fee on all payments to freelancers rather than 3%.
Business Upwork members receive everything from the Plus plan, and:
Finally, Upwork also offers an Enterprise plan with no price listed. In addition to the Business plan, you get:
Upwork does not provide much transparency about each feature on its website beyond what’s mentioned above.
A cultural trait of the Philippines is honesty. Obviously not everyone is honest, so you will want to vet the workers just like you would with a local worker. At first, have them do non-sensitive tasks until you build a relationship of trust, and then later you can give them more access.
That said, OnlineJobs does not offer any kind of dispute resolution.
After you hire someone you'll probably start noticing little things that let you know you can trust them or not.
For the most part, Upwork let’s the freelancer and client do their own projects without stepping in. However, if push-comes-to-shove, Upwork is willing to step in to resolve any disputes.
The length of a dispute resolution depends on the project type.
Hourly disputes related to time billed by the freelancer during the previous work week will be processed within 4 business days.
Hourly disputes outside of the above time frame along with any fixed price disputes may take up to 30 days to be resolved. Upwork will contact both parties within 2 business days to begin the process.
Upwork and OnlineJobs are both beneficial for different hiring needs.
OnlineJobs is an excellent source of low cost talent.
With the right process in place, you can hire someone to do work at ⅓ to ⅕ of what you’d pay someone to do from a first world country.
Upwork is a great source for a lot of talent at several different prices. While it will take more time to find a qualified virtual worker, there are several on Upwork’s marketplace.