Elance Freelance Marketplace: Years ago I discovered Elance when helping some guys put together a major online business portal. They needed experts at a certain type of back end programming that due to their budget they couldn't afford to hire anyone in the Chicago area. The going rate at that time for the programming they needed was about $125 per hour. They ended up using programmers from Elance - from India - who cost them I believe it was $6 per hour.

It was a little hard to believe one could get senior level programmers for that kind of money - but they did. They not only got the guys they chose - they had bids from about forty other programming firms from around the world. All of those bids were in the $4 to $6 per hour range. They selected the winning bids based on customer reviews.

Elance has thousands of customer reviews from people worldwide on each individual or company that is part of the marketplace. You can post your job - whatever you need from programming to web design to help with Power Point - and you'll immediately get bids on your project from all over the world.

What's great about how this works is you only pay Elance. They are an American company who acts as an escrow agent. You can talk with the people you choose via online work rooms or email - but you don't have to worry about your credit card or other personal information being distributed. And you can stay anonymous through the whole process if you want. The freelancers cannot - but you can as a buyer of services.

When you join you'll have instant access to over 500,000 freelancers from America and around the world. You can see all of the rates and choose based on what other customers have rated and reviewed. Choose from hundreds of areas of expertise in Programmers, Designers, Writers, Marketers, Administration, Consultants, Finance and Accounting, etc.

Click Here to Browse Elance Freelancer Marketplace!