Rent A Coder

A friend pointed out to me that I should have mentioned the online labor marketplace Rent A Coder in my Wired article. Rent A Coder is exactly what it sounds like, a service that allows programmers from around the world to bid on any bit of high-tech piecework posted on the company’s site. It’s also an excellent example of how effective crowdsourcing networks are in tech fields, where people can work – indeed flourish – outside the framework of the firm or academic institution.

According to the company’s own data, over 140,000 programmers and 55,000 buyers use the service, and roughly 11,000 projects are completed every month. Payment is held in escrow until the client is happy with the product. Most of the jobs presumably consist of rote programming tasks, but any way you cut it this represents a considerable volume of commissions that otherwise would have gone to professional firms through traditional channels.

So can Rent A Coder produce quality equaling what a professional might deliver? The answer could well be no. The next question – raised by an article in British newspaper The Independent – is "Does that matter?" In the piece, by Clint Witchalls, the author used Rent A Coder to find someone to design his Web site. He received 63 bids before settling on a coder named Luke in New Mexico that completed the job for $60, and even through in a tutorial to boot.

Witchalls then went to a London-based Web design agency to see what they charge to create a comparable Web site. “’The simplicity of the site’s design and functionality suggests that it was delivered on a very small budget,’” the agency’s marketing manager sniffed. “Our author clients generally invest between pounds 1,000 and pounds 5,000 [roughly $2,000 to $10,000] for … their personal Websites.”

Witchalls spent about $150 for the development and hosting of his site, which is a little less than 2 percent of the larger figure quoted by the London firm. His site won’t win any Webbies, he concedes, but it suits his purposes just fine. That disparity in cost is about as pronounced as that between iStockPhoto’s licenses and that offered by traditional stock houses, and it’s not too off from the difference between producing a half-hour of scripted network TV and producing 30 minutes of VH1’s Web Junk 20. I’m hoping to use this site to gather more examples, and eventually tease out the common elements among these otherwise disparate cases.

Comments

[kamen 123]

Well Kamran please do not be evil. Just see in the examples in my blog how rentacoder staff can not understand PERFECT EXPLICIT documentation(of IIS/ASP from Microsoft) during YEARS.

Do you think that 89,809 employees in Microsoft are stupid?

Every reasonable man will agree that is much more possible 4-5 employees in rentacoder staff to be STUPID LIARS (dummies)

:-)

[dudepac]

From my personal experience RAC is a very risky place to work in. I bid an extremely low price for a big project hoping to get a good rating and more subsequent projects. However, the way that it turned out was that the buyer kept on expanding the scope of the project and it would never end. Frustrated I put the project into arbitration, but lost because of some feature that I tried to do but was not able to do completely. Overall, I lost about a months effort to nothing and most probably the buyer got a lot more than the initial project work for free.

On RAC, you need to be very careful about clueless buyers who will make completing projects a pain.

I would advise coders to stick with an hourly payment cycle on something like odesk.com and stay away from RAC.

[kamen 123]

Well dudepac my recommendation is simpler: if you wish to make serious projects stay far away from rentacoder because you will stumble in the incredible stupidity of rentacoder staff

[Brian Cassingena]

I agree with Kamran, the folks who get into trouble and try to blame their way out will never succeed. Check out my rentacoder resume:

http://www.cassingenacopy.com/myresume

If you're wondering if anyone actually makes money on RAC, then check out the fees I've been paid for each project, they're all there.

Rentacoder isn't perfect, but they're here to stay because of the money they make, unlike some of those other links on this page which are now dead. Best of all you can register at the site, post projects, do everything for free and only pay a fee if you get paid for a project. You can't lose.

[Samuel]

I have already tried to work on RAC during some years but then I start working at http://www.getacoder.com because they have better projects posted and the support staff is fine. It seems GAC is on the market long time than RAC and the buyers with whom I worked there were very professional and always paid me on time, while on RAC I had troubles not only with buyers (some crooks that want the job done but don't want to pay) but with RAC to send me the payment. So I gave up from RAC and now I prefer to spend my time working on GAC and creating a better portfolio there. I suggest you to try it and compare them.

[Rob Wells]

I have used Rent a Coder on more than 300 projects. There has been some pain, but over time you find a good set of developers, graphic designers, and testers. It's up to me to set the standards that must be followed, and to manage the project. But if I do my job correctly, then I get great results.

I've worked in the IT industry for 20 years, and some of the coders on Rent a Coder are every bit as good as anyone I've worked with at any firm.

If you are a firm charging $10,000 for a basic website, then Rent a Coder should worry you - and you should probably bash them any chance you get - because they are taking your business and making you look bad.

[Luis Lazo]

I own a website that teaches people how to succeed in Rent a Coder both as a buyer and as a coder. I have tons of free gifts!, check it out!:

http://www.racsuccess.com

[T. Hill]

Rent-A-Coder is a platform that allows for businessmen and entrepreneurs to connect with coders from all over the world. Whether you are a college student in Vermont or a full-time coder in the Ukraine, you will be able to compete for the projects listed on Rent-A-Coder.

[Sam Ray]

RentACoder is very seller-oriented but I must admit that programmers are in abundance.

I do however think that they take advantage of programmers. The most serious problem is the Expert thing, where the programmer must spend money just to bid on something. I think that is taking unfair advantage of programmers.

Another major problem is that RentACoder does not make enough effort to ensure that a project is clearly defined. They do somewhat, but not enough.

Another major problem is that buyers can cancel a project if they are unreasonable in their request and then submit it again in such as manner that the programmer does not know the past history. I once declined a project because I knew it would take much longer than the person wanted the project to be done in, so the project was submitted again and the developer that got the project did indeed take more time and therefore got a poor rating. The developer that got the project was not able to see that the project was previously declined.

[D'Wyld]

Never, every every use Rent a Coder. It has nothing to do with the coders, it has to do with the arbitration process in case the coder doesn't finish. We hired a coder and by the deadline he was not finished, we agreed to extend it. He still never finished it by the second deadline so we put it into arbitration because by the deadline you could not even upload photos to a "photo contest script". The arbitrator, after weeks has YET to decide if uploading photos was in the contract (yes, it was, the VERY FIRST LINE) and IF it was, should it be considered a cosmetic issue or not (if cosmetic, they will rule with the coder). Alrighty then, how can you have a photo contest WITHOUT PHOTOS?

Yesterday the coder went on an on in a lengthy post about us, how we (disappeared for 2 days of a 4 week project) and attacking us on and on. The arbitrator, warned me not ONCE but TWICE today that I can ONLY answer the questions he asks, yet said nothing to the coder.

So don't go there, the arbitration that they promise is there to protect you, well I bet 90% of buyers just walk away without their money back because it is time consuming (spent about 25 hours on posts at least so far) and they told me today on the phone that arbitration can go on for a YEAR? Who the heck wants that?

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The company initially used its tournaments to turn hackers into celebrities and then building a community and a rating system around it.

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I own a website that teaches both buyers and coders how to succeed in Rent a Coder with videos 100% free. I also created a software application called the RACsuccess package which teaches both buyers and coders how to succeed in Rent A Coder.

Rent A Coder is for professional people. If you are a programmer, having the necessary technical skills isn't enough for you to succeed in Rent A Coder. You need to understand how to work in Rent A Coder to take the best out of Rent A Coder and that's why I created the RACsuccess package which is available for sale on my website!

[Louis Vuitton Outlet]

Yes, but it has always been possible to get poorly designed websites created for a few dollars. Nothing new here.

My own website creates my brand, and my business. It cost the equivalent of $10,000 as I built it myself and this is what the equivalent amount of my time would cost. Was my time worth it? Every penny. Customers and other designers compliment the design, and people think, having seen it, that I am far more established in my business than I actually am.

Could I have done this with a $64, $1000, $4000 website. Not on your life.

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they can not understand perfect explicit documentation of IIS/ASS from Microsoft during YEARS.

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Mistakes are an essential part of education. (Bertrand Russell, British philosopher)

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man, rent a coder, elance, freelance and all the other such programs are just great for students or freelancers. it's great not to depend so much on others.

[Calgary Web Design]

In the increasing competitive industry a fine design can make your site look different and give you comparative advantage.

[Shannon]

RAC banned our business after 8 years of loyal service because of a coder's mistake. One coder never finished the job for us so we hired another coder to do the exact same job coder #1 didn't do. Coder #2 uploaded the work, marked it complete and we paid him. All of a sudden coder #1 says we had some of his same code still live and being used. I didn't believe it. I fought it, even offered to just pay coder #1 off to end it and they refused. Lost my account. Thank god for Guru.com we now have another service and many more to turn to.

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