PeoplePerHour.com is a services marketplace, where employers come to find talented freelance professionals across all disciples to outsource work to reliably and with accountability.

In most cases this work is done remotely by people working in freelance capacity so if you’re a self-employed professional or aspire to be one, or if you’re someone working after office hours to supplement your income – you’ve come to the right place.

Buyer = Employer looking to hire a service provider 

Service Provider  (‘provider’) = professional doing the work, usually in a freelance capacity, and in most cases working remotely (off site)
 
Freelance workers = a professional supplying services usually under contract under flexible arrangement to any number of clients. Freelance is NOT a legal concept. The capacity in which freelancers operate can vary, from self-employment status, to operating under a services company or partnership or an intermediary

Escrow: a secure client deposit bank account where funds are held in Trust until released by the payee (you) to the beneficiary

Project:   a piece of work that needs to be done. This can be as small as a few hours work (for a skilled professional) or a contract job

To offer your services on PeoplePerHour.com you first have to Register as a Service Provider . This is a simple and quick  process much like creating your online resume / CV.  Once you register you will have a Profile on the site which will be seen by Employers searching fro skills

TIP: We recommend that you take the time to complete your profile with as much detail as possible as this will increase your chances of getting work.

Once your registration has been completed you can begin to search for projects. See the latest projects or use the search box on the same page to define your project criteria.

To make the most out of your Provider account you can import feedback to get a head start with your feedback rating.

No, registration is FREE and you can start bidding for work with no charge at all,

The only mandatory fee is a success-based Service Fee which charge on the work you win through the site. This varies depending on which registration scheme you chose: Standard, Gold or Platinum –  See comparison table

TIP: When bidding for work you will be presented with a calculator that will clearly display your net earning so you can adjust your price to factor in the PPH Service Fee.

Our service fee is to cover costs of maintaining the site and the service in order to bring more work opportunities to you. Being a success-based fee we believe this is one of the fairest and most generous in the market. If you disagree , we would like to hear from you with reasons why: here

There are three different Provider schemes: 

You can create a Standard Account which is FREE but has limitations on the amount of bids (10 per month) you can place and the categories you can bid on. Or you can create a Gold or Platinum account where for a small monthly fee you can bid for more projects, in more categories. Gold and Platinum accounts are featured more heavily and tend to get more business.

PeoplePerHour.com is for any professional service. We offer the following categories of service.

Depending on which scheme you resister under ( Standard / Gold / Platinum) you will be able to bid for work in a number of categories: See comparision table

When registering a Service Provider account you will be asked to select project notification categories, when a new project is posted in one of your chosen categories an email notification will be sent to you.

You can select any number of categories  and choose to receive the notifications on an individual project basis or as a daily summary email.

Some providers choose to receive notifications for projects in their chosen Service Categories, others may choose to receive emails on projects in categories they are not registered for. Then, if an interesting project is posted that you would like to bid for you can choose to purchase another service category for a small fee or upgrade to a subscription account to receive more options.

When writing your profile you will be prompted to add a Job Title and then a description in the About My Services section.

Buyers can search our database of freelancers by the job title field so ensure it matches the type of work you do. For example if you work in Web Design your job title would be 'Web Designer'. If you have more than one core role this can be added e.g. 'Web Designer and Translator'.

In the 'About My Services' field include a detailed description of the services you provide.

TIP: We recommend that you take the time to complete your profile with as much detail as possible as this will increase your chances of getting work.

We recommend that you upload a personal picture to make your profile more personable. Our photo upload tool will automatically resize your photo to the correct size.

Importing feedback is a way to get referred by clients that you have worked for outside PeoplePerHour.com. Referrals will improve your feedback ratings on PPH and will make it easier for you to win work.

To submit a referral login to your account and click the 'Get Referred Now' button on your summary page. You will need to input details such as the name and email of the client and a description of the work completed. An email is then sent to the client for approval. Once approved it is checked by a member of PeoplePerHour before being approved and added to your feedback profile.

Once the client has approved and returned the feedback to PeoplePerHour it can take up to 3 working days for the feedback to appear on your profile.

The Standard account is FREE and  comes with the following Monthly Usage Plan

• 10 bid credits (one credit is used to make one bid),
• 3 bidding categories are permitted and if required these can be changed once per month.
• Reduced Service Fee of 5.5% including VAT,
• Reduced minimum service fee to £10.00 (instead of £15.00)

The subscription fee is taken on a monthly basis on the first of each month and the payment methods are Credit/Debit card or Paypal.

The Platinum membership costs £14.95 per month and comes with the following Monthly Usage Plan

• 80 bid credits (one credit is used to make one bid)
• Unlimited bidding categories (you can bid for any project)
• Reduced service fee of 4.5%
• Reduced minimum service fee to £10.00  (instead of £15.00)

The subscription fee is taken on a monthly basis on the first of each month and the payment methods are Credit/Debit card or Paypal.

If you have any concerns regarding your Gold or Platinum account please Contact Us to let us know, we encourage you to give us feedback to ensure your experience using PeoplePerHour.com is trouble free. However, If you wish to cancel your Gold or Platinum membership here are the steps you need to take:

Paypal Subscribers
Login to your Paypal account and request to cancel the subscription, your membership will remain until the end of that month and on the 1st of the next month your account will revert to a Standard account.

Credit/Debit Card Subscribers
If you wish to cancel your Gold or Platinum subscription please Contact Us including your name and email address in the comments box, your membership cancellation will then be processed and an email notification sent to you. Your membership will remain until the end of that month and on the 1st of the next month your account will revert to a Standard account.

A bid proposal should go into detail about how you will go about completing the project: the time it will take you, your previous experience in this field and addressing the projects requirements.

Bid descriptions such as 'I can do this' will generally be looked over by the Buyer in favour of more detailed bids.

We do not interfere with the pricing of your work. What you quote for is completely up to you. However bear in mind that:

1. The cheapest bid does not always win. Often the Buyer chooses the most comprehensive quote that gives them the confidence in your services.
2. You can get an idea of market rates by looking at the “recently awarded” projects under the “Find Projects” section of the site. Make sure you look at the relevant category.
3. The Bid price is what the Buyer sees and it includes the PPH Service Fee: for example if you are a Standard member and you bid £200.00 for a project then the PPH Fee will be £20.00 (10% of the bid amount). You will receive £180.00.
4. The buyers budget is not necessarily a fixed budget: it is more like a desired / approximate budget. There are often cases where a project is awarded to a Provider who bid above the budget, most likely because they placed a comprehensive well-structured bid.

As long as your bid hasn't been accepted you can amend the bid details and bid/deposit amount. When a bid is amended the Buyer is made aware there has been a change by the amended details in your bid displaying with a red 'recently amended' comment.

If you would like to amend a bid you have made login to your account and in the summary screen click 'My Bids', now click the 'Amend Bid' link and make the required changes.

When a bid is placed the Buyer receives a notification a new bid has been made. Once they have reviewed your bid they may choose to either accept it, come back to it at a later date, request further information from you or reject it.

There are a number of reasons why a bid might be rejected, the Buyer has the option to leave you feedback and has a choice of the following options:

• The Bid amount is too high
• The Bid amount is too low
• The Bid is unrealistic
• Not enough information in the Bid details
• Provider doesn't have the necessary skills/experience
• A local Provider is required
• Different design/style is required
• Other (Buyer promoted to add details)

The reason will be displayed to you in your bidding screen.

The 'My Bids' page has a drop down box which displays your bids in the following areas:

My Open Bids
This screen displays bids you have made where the project status is still open for bidding.

My Open Projects
This screen displays bids you have made which have been accepted by the Buyer.

My Completed Projects
This screen displays projects you have completed.

My Expired Bids
This screen displays bids for projects which have now expired, keep in mind a Buyer can still accept a bid on an expired project.

My Archived Bids
This screen displays bids which have been archived.

My Invitations to Bid
This screen displays projects that you have been invited to bid on.

Team Bids
This screen displays team bids made by yourself (as a team manager) or manager of a team you are a member of.

The deposit requirement is something you specify as part of your Bid. This is the minimum amount you require the Buyer to have in their Escrow account (i.e. held in Trust by us on your behalf until the work is Invoiced) so that you can safely commence work.

Bid credits are applied to your account at the beginning of each month. The number you receive depends on your membership type.

Standard Account: 10 Bid Credits per month
Gold Account: 40 Bid Credits per month
Platinum Account: 80 Bid credits per month

One Bid Credit is used to make a bid on a project. If you find that your account is running low on credits additional credits can be purchased for a small fee. For Standard Members an extra 10 credits costs £5.95 and for Gold/Platinum members an extra 10 credits costs £4.95.

Standard and Gold Members should consider upgrading their account if they are using all their Bid Credits within one month. A Standard Member paying £5.95 for an extra 10 credits could instead upgrade to a Gold Membership for just £7.95 per month and receive 40 Bid Credits, an extra category , a larger portfolio and pay less commission!

Bid credits are replaced on the 1st of each month, the number of credits you receive will depend on your account type:

Standard Account: 10 Credits
Gold Account: 40 Credits
Platinum: 80 Credits

For Standard accounts, if you find you are using all your bid credits before the month end please consider upgrading to one of the subscription accounts which come with more credits, bidding categories and benefits. Subscription accounts are priced at £7.95 per month (Gold) and £14.95 per month (Platinum). See account comparison table.

If you use all your bid credits before the month end, additional bundles of credits (10 per bundle) can be purchased for a small fee. The price for a bundle depends on your account type. To purchase additional credits login to your account and on the 'Account Summary' screen click 'View Usage Plan' under the 'My PPH Subscriptions' heading, scroll down the 'Purchase Credits and enter the number of bundles you require, choose the payment option and click 'Continue' to complete the transaction.

Once you have completed the work agreed with the Buyer you will need to Create an Invoice. To do this you will need to log in your account and click on Create Invoice. If you haven’t raised an invoice before you will need to create your invoice template.

Once the invoice is raised, the Buyer will need to release the funds that are in deposit to pay for the invoice.

Once that’s done your PPH account will be credited with the amount of the invoice. You can then make a withdrawal of funds

Once your PPH account has been credited with the funds as above, you can make a withdrawal.  You can view your  PPH account balance buy clicking on ‘My Balance’ in the dashboard when you log in under the ‘My Payments’ section.  Your balance will be shown as follows:

To make a withdrawal you will need to click on the 'Request Withdrawal' button shown above.
You can make withdrawals as frequently or infrequently as you like, your funds will be kept in your account.

Enter in the amount you would like to withdraw and ensure your preferred method of payment (either Bank Transfer or Paypal) is up to date and then press submit.

Your withdrawal request will be received by our team who will process it.

Please note: we process payments in batches at the end of the week (on Friday) so once we have received a withdrawal request it may take upto 8 working days for the payment to clear depending on when in the week you’ve made the withdrawal and what payment method you selected.

There are two payment methods available to Providers within the UK which are Paypal and Bank Transfer.

If you would like to amend your preferred method of payment please login to your account, in the summary screen scroll down to the 'My Settings' heading and click 'My Payment Details'. Enter your new details and click the 'Update' button at the bottom of the page.

There are two payment methods available to Providers outside the UK which are Paypal and International Bank Payments.

To see the list of available countries please login to your account and in the summary screen select “My Payment Details”, if you scroll down the screen to “Payment by Bank Transfer (International)” there is a drop down list of the available countries.

To receive an international bank transfer you will need to list your Bank Identifier Code (BIC) and IBAN / Account Number, if you are not sure where to find these please ask at your bank.

International Bank Transfers will incur a £20.00 processing fee which will be deducted from your PeoplePerHour.com account prior to any amount being transferred.

The £20.00 Fee will be displayed in your transaction history as a separate item.

You only charge VAT if you are a UK VAT registered company. You will be required to quote your VAT number on the invoice in such cases. The VAT rate is 15%. 

Exemptions:
If the Buyer is a company based in the EEC with an equivalent VAT number, then you do not charge VAT, as long as you quote their EEC VAT number on the invoice.

In some instances you may need to invoice for less than the bid amount. This could be because you have bid for an hourly job and the number of hours you worked is less than the number of hours in your bid.

 This will not be applicable for all projects as the minimum commission amount will still apply.

For example, a Standard Member that has bid £100.00 for a porject and invoices for £50.00 will not be able to request a reduction in commission as the minimum commission amount for Standard Members of £15.00 applies to all bids under £150.00.

A Standard member who bids £500.00 and invoices for £300.00 will be able to request a reductuion in commission, they will initially pay £50.00 in commission which will be reduced to £30.00 after the reduction request has been processed.

How to request a commission reduction:

You will need to raise the invoice in the normal way (see How do I get paid) and then once the invoice has been paid click the 'My Payment' tab in the account summary and then the link 'View All Transactions'. Now click the link 'Request Commission Reduction' and complete the required fields.

Once the fields are complete click submit and your request will be sent for approval, please allow up to 3 working days for the request to be processed.

Please note that requests for commission reduction that are made more than 3 months from the date the project was accepted will not be approved. Once your bid has been accepted for a project, it is your responsibility to let us know in a timely manner (and within 3 months max) if your initial price estimate was too high so that we can adjust the initial commission you have been charged accordingly. 

The Provider Profiles are ranked according to our proprietary Scoring system.

Each Provider has a unique score which is a function of a) rating received from Buyers and b) Earnings through the site. The exact formula is the following:

Score = Sum [Invoice Amount * Overall Feedback Rating (1-5)

Rating: when you complete a project the Buyer will rate you on a scale of 1 – 5 or the work you’ve done (with 5 being the highest) . You’re rating for the project is an average of 5 ratings on the following metrics

Score: your score is a weighted average of the rating you got for every project you completed and the value of that project as shown by the formula above. Your score is an aggregate value of all the activity you’ve done on the site and is used to rank you vis-à-vis other Providers

Feedback: when you complete a project the Buyer will also provide qualitative feedback which is equally important to future employers

Your score will help you rank higher in searches and bids therefore helping you win more business.  The score is completely meritocratic so the more work you do and the better you do it the higher you rank.

You will only be able to build your score if you bill the work you’ve done through the site, so make sure you do so. The  benefit you will receive in terms of future business will far outweigh the Service Fee you are charges by PPH on success.

If you are new to the site you can Import Feedback from past employers to enable you to compete on a level playing field. We reference this feedback to ensure that it is genuine. You can only receive a maximum of 1000 score points through the import feedback function: this is to protect those who’ve consistently built their score through the site from newcomers overtaking them. Click here to find out how import feedback works

Importing feedback is a way to get referred by clients that you have worked for outside PeoplePerHour.com. Referrals will improve your feedback ratings on PPH and will make it easier for you to win work.

To submit a referral login to your account and click the 'Get Referred Now' button on your summary page. You will need to input details such as the name and email of the client and a description of the work completed. An email is then sent to the client for approval. Once approved it is checked by a member of our team before being approved and added to your feedback profile.

Once the client has approved and returned the feedback to PeoplePerHour it can take up to 3 working days for the feedback to appear on your profile.

Imported feedback is displayed separately on the site as shown below, and it bears a cap of 1000 points. The purpose of the `import Feedback function is to enable you to start winning work if you’re  new to the site by incorporating past references essentially in the sites scoring system. The cap is enforced to prevent it being abused as an alternative means of building score points with activity unrelated to the site which would undermine the other providers on the site. 

If you would like to respond to some feedback you have received you can do this by logging in to your account and clicking the 'My Feedback link form the menu, scroll down to 'Feedback you have received' and you will see the comment/s left for you.

If you would like to respond to these click the 'Respond' link and add your comments. These comments can be seen by other Buyers.

The ‘My Network’ section of the site is our a collection of professional networking and community features that allows you to engage with others like yourself , share experiences, discuss and share knowledge and collaborate with one another on projects.

Groups are places for like minded Providers to start conversations, build connections and share interests.

Here are a few tips for starting your PeoplePerHour Group

1. Define Your Goals - Before you create your group decide on what your goals for the group are. This might include sharing and gaining knowledge, meeting like minded freelancers, discussing latest technology.

2. Build Your Network - Initially the group may take a little time to build up, you can click the "Invite People to Join" link in your group and then search for connections. e.g. If your group is about Web Design you can do a search for "Web Designer" and invite those who appear on the results to join your group.

3. Keep The Group Active - Keep active in your own PeoplePerHour group. Your group could be a great way for others to find out about specific issues/comments people are having with software, projects or services.

Creating Groups

To create your own group login to your Provider account and click the "My Network" tab.

Click on "Groups" in the menu on the left and then click the "Create New Group" button. Enter a name and a description for the group and add any recent news if available.

Choose the Group Type:

Open - Group available to anyone
Closed - Group only available to those you invite

Upload a picture which will be displayed on your group.

Now click "Create Group"

You can edit the group details such as the picture, description and details at any time. 

You can send invitations to make professional contacts by entering data in the search field in the My Network menu. You can search by name or by keyword contained in the job title. For example if you would like to connect to some 'PHP' developers enter 'PHP' in the search field and all those Providers with 'PHP' in their job title will be displayed.

You can either choose to send them a message by clicking the 'Send Message' link or click the 'Connect' link to invite them to join your list of professional contacts

Teams allow multiple Providers to jointly bid on and win work on PeoplePerHour.com. Some projects may require a number of skills for example a large web project may require a web designer, a database designer and a logo/graphic designer.

Teams allows you to complement your skills by finding people who complement them and working with them to complete more complex / larger projects. A team bid will fare better than an individual bid on a project by bringing together a collection of skills and experiences

Creating a team

To create a new team by clicking the My Network tab when you've logged into your account, click the 'Teams' link in the left hand menu and then the 'Create New Team' button. Enter a Team Name and a description of the type of work you do.

To change your Privacy Settings login to your account and click the "My Network" tab and then the "Preferences" link in the left hand menu.

The privacy options for your profile are the same for your Connections, Groups, Status and News Feed. Status and News Feed are automatically defaulted so that only your connections can view them.

Your default settings and are as below. To change them just select another option from the dropdown

The Escrow Payment System is devised to protect both parties. Before you start working, you can view whether the Buyer has enough funds in their account or not. This can be viewed in your Account login by clicking on the “My Projects” link. 

You will also be notified of accounts that are below the deposit requirement in your Summary page once you Login.

If the funds for a project are above the deposit you specified, then you know that you are protected for that amount of work.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you do not conduct any work unless the Buyer’s account is appropriately funded. If you choose to conduct work for projects where the available funds are below the deposit then you do so at your won risk, as per our Terms of Business.  We provide you with a system to protect yourself – we recommend you use it! 

If you would like to stop your profile appearing in search engine listings login to your account and click 'My Settings' from the menu bar, under the heading 'Profile Search Engine Settings' select 'Hide my profile from search engines'.

Once your request has been processed it can take up to 10 days for your profile to be removed from search listings.

Your project notification settings are chosen during registration. If you would like to amend these settings login to your account and in the 'Account Summary' screen click on the 'My Settings' tab.

Your 'Project Notification Settings' will be displayed at the top of the page, you can choose from the following options:

1) I'd like to be notified about new projects posted in the categories I have in my profile
2) I'd like to receive email notifications for all new projects
3) I'd prefer not to receive any email notifications

If option 1 or 2 is selected you can choose to receive either individual emails or a daily summary.

We’ve found in the past that people have requested deactivation for the same reasons which we address below:

1) I am receiving too many emails

If you are receiving too many emails from PeoplePerHour.com your settings can be amended to reduce the project notifications to a daily summary instead of a notification for each project. Login to your account and click 'My Settings' from the menu bar, in the 'Project Notification Settings' select the option 'Send me a daily email summary'.

2) My profile appears in search engine listings (Google) and I don’t want it to

If you would like to stop your profile appearing in search engine listings login to your account and click 'My Settings' from the menu bar, under the heading 'Profile Search Engine Settings' select 'Hide my profile from search engines'.

Once your request has been processed it can take up to 10 days for your profile to be removed from search listings.

3) My employment status has changed

Many of our providers use our site as a means of earning money when they are inbetween jobs.  To avoid cancelling a profile and recreating it later you have an option simply switch off your notifications and switch them back on again when you want to be active. 

If you still want to deactivate your account To deactivate your account login and in the 'Summary' page scroll down to 'My Settings' and click 'Deactivate My Account'. Select a reason and give some feedback for your deactivation reason and 'Submit'.

Please allow two working days for your request to be processed, once your account has been deactivated you will receive an email notification. If you wish to reactivate your account at any time please 'Contact Us' quoting your name and email address.

If you have previously deactivated your account and would like to now reactivate it, enter your login details and you will be notified that your account is currently deactivated. Click the 'Reactivate' button and your account will be reactivated.

Importing feedback is a way to get referred by clients that you have worked for outside PeoplePerHour.com. Referrals will improve your feedback ratings on PPH and will make it easier for you to win work.

To submit a referral login to your account and click the 'Get Referred Now' button on your summary page. You will need to input details such as the name and email of the client and a description of the work completed. An email is then sent to the client for approval. Once approved it is checked by a member of PeoplePerHour before being approved and added to your feedback profile.

Once the client has approved and returned the feedback to PeoplePerHour it can take up to 3 working days for the feedback to appear on your profile.

Once you have completed the work agreed with the Buyer you will need to Create an Invoice. To do this you will need to log in your account and click on Create Invoice. If you haven’t raised an invoice before you will need to create your invoice template.