GoLance Review: Is GoLance Worth It for Hiring?
Jason Quey
Updated:
December 29, 2020
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With several freelance platforms offering connections for freelancers and clients, several players are trying to get a piece of the pie.
One of the newer contenders in the freelance-platform marketplace is GoLance.com. Perhaps you are a startup and want to hire a full-time SEO marketer. Or maybe you are a busy business owner looking for legit copywriting for your e-commerce store. Whatever your situation, getting the freelance work you need is just a job post away with GoLance.
There are other companies like Fiverr if you need to hire freelancers for jobs starting at $5. Another useful platform is OnlineJobs to hire talent from the Philippines. Toptal is useful for finding vetted freelancers, but they don’t cover all verticals.
But, with all of the opportunities out there for clients and freelancers, is GoLance worth it for hiring? Let’s take a look.
When clients use the GoLance platform, they post jobs and receive a list of freelancers who have the necessary skills. GoLance gives clients two options for hiring freelancers. One is to directly invite individual freelancers to jobs. The other is to put the job out for bids, letting clients see who is interested.
Clients can then keep track of their projects with milestones. They can choose to pay their clients with an hourly wage or with flat rates. Clients can discuss this with their freelancers before establishing milestones.
Once a client hires a freelancer, the client releases payments as freelancers complete milestones. They can track their hourly work with GoLance’s GoMeter time tracker. Clients can work with their freelancers on their shared Work Diary.
When freelancers complete their work, they send invoices to clients on Mondays. The clients then review the work over the next five days. Once they approve the job, they release the funds, which then go into the freelancer’s GoWallet. If freelancers need money early, they can request a payday advance for a fee.
One of the positive features of GoLance is that freelancers do not bid for jobs. With freelancing, clients get what they pay for, and the freelancers who offer extremely low rates are usually not highly skilled. When clients offer opportunities on the site, they include their rate of pay in the description.
Skilled freelancers appreciate working for clients who respect them, and they submit good work in exchange for reasonable pay.
Freelance platforms charge fees to clients and freelancers. Some platforms, like Upwork, have payment-processing for clients. But, with GoLance, the client does not pay a fee, instead, the freelancers do.
Upwork also offers several tiered features for additional client fees. They offer a Basic level at no cost for freelancers, but the features are limited. The next tier is $49.99 per month with helpful features like increased numbers of freelancer invites. The third tier is $849 per month for businesses that need to fill unlimited positions.
GoLance does not have any tiered levels or monthly fees for clients. Everything is free. Clients are treated equally, whether they are hiring one person or hundreds of people.
Clients receive money back from GoLance after they pay their freelancers. They earn a small commission every 60 days, and the rate is between 2% and 5%. So, instead of paying GoLance to find freelancers, GoLance pays clients for using their platform.
Another benefit of GoLance is the regular payment schedule. Clients can release funds one day per week on a regular schedule. Contrast this with UpWork, where clients are asked to release funds at any time, keeping them busy on the platform.
Clients appreciate that their freelancers can receive payday advances when needed. Clients have the option to release money faster with GoLance’s Flexible Review Periods.
GoLance also allows clients to choose the payment platform that fits their needs. The platform partners with
Another benefit of GoLance is its growing collection of clients and freelancers. It is tough to compete with a powerhouse like UpWork, but GoLance is building a base that attracts more clients and freelancers. There are jobs available on GoLance, and the clients are hiring for online positions.
GoLance is a growing platform adding freelancers for their clients. UpWork has so many freelancers that the platform often rejects new users, but this is not the case on GoLance. On a relatively new platform like GoLance, the site does not reject any potential freelancers so their clients can choose from a wide talent base. All users can search for jobs, but it is ultimately up to the clients to hire them or not.
Clients appreciate emails from GoLance as projects are updated and freelancers submit work. Since GoLance does not have a mobile app, email lets clients communicate with their freelancers when they are away from their desks.
The most common complaints about GoLance involve a lack of opportunities.
The other common complaint involves the number of freelancers who bid on them. Because there are more freelancers than clients, the competition is fierce.
With clients not having to pay to post a job, they do not have to hire anyone. This can be troublesome for freelancers who take time to apply for a position only to be ignored.
“It was going good then I tried to get my payment yesterday and it won't let me log into my golance account.” (source).
“I love golance. The only thing is that the gometer would crash every now and then or take a long while to launch. But other than that, the billing, the application process, the support team and so on--i like how everything is simple and straightforward.” (source).
“I have been with goLance for more than a year now, and my first year here was awesome! I have not encountered any problems with my account, and they have given some bonuses as well. However, these past few months, my withdrawal seems to be longer than before. I used to receive my withdrawal on my bank account just hours after I withdrew, but recently, I experienced weeks of waiting. I hope this won't happen again as most of the freelancers in a third world country have both ends meet. A delay can affect a lot.” (source).
GoLance is offering cashback benefits to clients who hire on the site. But, the site does not provide benefits to the freelancers, which means fewer freelancers for clients to choose. The 7.95% fee is attractive, but other websites have more job opportunities. GoLance might want to consider other ideas to attract freelancers that clients want to hire.
The site might take some cues from UpWork. The freelance giant is offering clients the opportunity to speak to freelancers before posting jobs. On GoLance, clients can invite freelancers to job opportunities, but not chat with them before the opportunity is created. This saves clients time in not having to create the job posting and vet the freelancers who apply.
Check out our list of GoLance alternatives.
GoLance has a simple fee structure for freelancers; but for clients, the website is free. Clients can post jobs at no cost. The commission fee for freelancers is 7.95% and is withdrawn from every project before payments go to freelancers. Clients can earn some money back from the fees their freelancers pay.
The platform does not charge for withdrawals or memberships, as other platforms do.
When clients award a job to a freelancer, they can choose to pay their freelancers through milestones or an hourly basis. Both must agree on the terms before the job begins. For hourly jobs, clients review the job and release funds. For fixed-priced jobs, clients release funds after the freelancers complete the milestones.
To prove to clients that their freelancers are working, GoLance offers an app called GoMeter. Clients can see screenshots while their freelancers work. With the GoMeter, clients can review the screenshots before releasing funds. The app captures screenshots at varying intervals and saves data in the shared Work Diary.
To encourage clients to hire freelancers on GoLance, the website offers clients a cashback benefit. Clients need to add a bank account, credit card, or other payment option, so GoLance can withdraw funds to pay freelancers for completed work. GoLance deposits cash-back bonuses into the client’s attached account.
GoLance offers a tiered cash-back bonus for client fees. The tiers are based on the amount of money you pay your freelancers each month, and is structured accordingly:
GoLance explains their cash-back feature this way:
“You can earn up to 50% cashback on fees [paid by the freelancer] when you meet the goLance cashback program requirements: a high goLance rating, paying bills to freelancers on time, no disputes in the past six months, and having spent more than $10,000 total on goLance projects. If you meet these minimums, goLance will give you 50% cashback or 5% of the [7.95% freelancer] fee on every single dollar you spend on the platform.” (source).
The cash-back feature is paid through the 7.95% service fee on the freelancer’s pay. So, if a client spends $42,000 paying their freelancers, they receive 50% of every 7.95% their freelancers pay. Of that $42,000 paid to freelancers, GoLance collects $3,339 from freelancers. Clients - at the 50% rate - would receive half of the $3,339 at minimum. That is a cash-back bonus of $1669.50 for a client who paid $42,000 or more to their freelancers.
The cash-back opportunities are attractive for clients. And, GoLance offers a referral program that gives clients and freelancers more opportunities to make money. Any user who refers friends or affiliates to the platform can earn 10% of their initial GoLance commission. This is off of the 7.95% that the freelancer pays when the job is complete.
GoLance does not put a cap on the rewards that clients and freelancers can earn in the referral program.
Yes.
For clients, GoLance is a money-making venture. It is the only freelance platform that rewards clients for hiring and paying freelancers. Unfortunately, the number of available freelancers is not as high as websites like UpWork. But, the site is growing, so clients should be able to find viable candidates.
GoLance is working hard to draw clients and freelancers. Their attractive low-fee structure should continue to attract both types of users to their platform. Hopefully, they can keep up the low rates while providing a robust platform of jobs so they can keep both users coming to the site.
The largest freelance sites are still UpWork and Freelancer, and you can read reviews of that site and a few others before making your final hiring decisions:
Check out what GoLance freelancers have to offer to you. If you find someone that can fulfill a need for your business, you could get some money back and get some work done. If you like the platform and refer your friends, you could benefit even more.