Grace B.

Hello, I have been a voice artist for over 6 years. I have been on Upwork for over a year now and like it in some ways, but have issues in other ways. Generally speaking it is a legitimate place for people to collaborate and hire contractors, etc.
I enjoy:
1- Some of their tools such as being able to skype/message/phone, etc.
2- I love that once the job starts there are a lot of ways to communicate and get things done.
3- I enjoy being able to see how many people have applied for a job so I know if it is a waste of time to also apply.
4- I love that we have control over the price we want, etc when we submit to a job.
5- That you can report a job if it seems illegal, illegitimate, etc.
6- There have been some great people I have worked with on Upwork, and enjoy a lot of the professionals that I have worked with on the site.
7- I love that companies can send invitations to interview to me so I don't have to pay money to audition for a job a company wants me to interview for. Fabulous policy.
Things I don't like:
1- This is a place where companies come to get slave labor. Some of the jobs listed literally are paying much less than minimum wage, sometimes even as low as $2-$3 an hour. They don't say it that way. They just ask for a huge amount of work for $30, and people applying don't realize that the job would take almost 10 hours to do.
2- When I report these jobs Upwork does nothing about it.
3- Upwork sends out emails with these horrible jobs included, thus supporting and encouraging slave labor.
4- So Upwork is not looking out and making sure legitimate jobs with decent pay are on the site. I feel like they are not protecting and caring for the voice artists, and that new voice artists will be taken advantage of on this site. I feel like they are more interested in making money and will recommend any job they get paid to recommend.
5- The amount of legitimate work for voice artists could be improved.
6. Sometimes people who want to set up a job though Upwork find it hard at first and ask me to set up the job. But I am not able to set up an initial job for someone. I can only make offers to those who I have already had a job with. I wish there was some way for people to approve getting offers from others so that the hiring process could go more smoothly.
7. There is no way for me as a person accepting or rejecting an offer to provide adjustments. This should be a negotiation process. Maybe I need a little more time than they put on the proposal, etc. But they have to redo the proposal on their end and that can be hard for some to figure out. So the proposal process should be more flexible.
8. Upwork should provide some guidance for those who are new at posting a job for a voice artist. Many of the job descriptions are so vague that I don't apply because it costs money to apply. If some sort of form or list of suggested details to post was provided it could improve the amount of successful jobs on Upwork.

On the whole I feel that Upwork has potential as a site for voice artists but that Upwork needs to do a better job at protecting those on the site from scammers and those insisting on slave labor. When I see these types of jobs it turns me off from the site and makes me constantly reconsider if this is a site for professionals or not.

I am a voice artist and have been on fiverr for over 6 years now. I have completed over a thousand voice overs during that time and have excellent reviews and am highly rated. When I was just starting out in voice over I had experience with theatre, teaching, training, etc. So even though I was new to the voice over business I had background experience and training. Fiverr was a great place to get my feet wet, to gain experience in the field even though I was getting paid a very small amount. However over the past couple years fiverr has changed in that regard. They have so many people registered there that it is completely saturated with talent. Fiverr expects those on the site to advertise on their own and bring clients to fiverr even though we get paid much less than we would on any other site. If I am going to advertise I will be sending people to a site where I actually make decent money. So even though I get a lot of return customers on fiverr, there are seldom new ones that I get because I am not advertising and the site is too saturated. A lot of good talent are starting to leaving because of this. I am considering it myself. Another couple of issues is that being on fiverr means you will deal with people who want to rip you off, pay you next to nothing and expect you to do things that any professional who knows anything about voice over would not expect. Some of these people will even threaten to leave bad reviews if you do not do extra work for them. Fiverr needs to do better on protecting their people on the site. Also, the automatic way they evaluate some of the metrics is not always accurate. I cannot count how many times they have lowered my status due to inaccurate calculations. And of course they can't or won't correct the problem until the next month. So I have just learned to ignore my status and know that those who have used me for projects in the past know my quality of work and will use me again. So Fiverr was a somewhat okay place to work a few years ago, even with the sucky customer service, but starting a profile now is not a good idea because the site is too saturated with talent already. I have also hired services on fiverr and feel that what I get for the money is a great deal! It requires you to do a little searching before hiring and willingness to communicate with the person you hired. They cannot read your mind. If you are not willing to do that, then don't bother people on fiverr. They are getting paid next to nothing to help with your project. Please make it easy for them to understand what you want, and most of the time things will end up good. The value you will get for your money will be great. And if you want stellar quality, pay someone who charges more money and has more reviews. Yes, there are some scammers on there, just like any site. I suggest you do a smaller paying job with someone first to see if you are a good fit before hiring for someone for a bigger more important project. Also, the prices on fiverr are so much lower than what should be charged. Please do not ask to have an even larger discount. It really is insulting.

I started on voices.com around 5 years ago. It's a great place to practice auditioning, and you will audition a lot. Problem is:
1- Many who post a job there do not hire anyone there.
2- The site lets anyone who is willing to pay their fee become a voice artist.
3- This makes it so some jobs will get over a hundred auditions and they might not even listen to yours.
4- You are competing for the job based on your guess of what the client really wants to pay. So people are getting voice overs for very little from those who lowball their price. So someone could get a lowball offer of $300 when they really should be paying over $600. And they just got over a hundred auditions because voice artists thought they would pay a reasonable price for the work.
5- When the client forgets to release funds you can't do anything about it. I had one job that still hasn't released funds and it has almost been a year. Customer service basically wants you to take care of any issues.
6- So at that point I stopped auditioning because I wasn't getting paid and I wasted almost an entire year subscription (hundreds of dollars).

So for voice artists there may be a lot of jobs posted, but there are a lot of people auditioning. I have found the amount of time I spent on voices.com versus the compensation to be far less than other sites I am on. Clients don't realize the time it takes to audition and how many auditions you do in order to get a job. They just think they are being ripped off because they have to pay more than $100. They never consider that they got 40 auditions which took 6-10 minutes each (that's around 8 hours of work done by others just so you can chose one person to record). Then when you take into account the work they do on the actual voice over it ends up that most people are making less than minimum wage. Of course, some are fortunate and get repeat customers. Almost a year ago they were promising big changes, and really they've just made the site look prettier - no real change to solve the problems. For those people looking for a voice artist and can pay more than $100 then you get to listen to a lot of auditions and choose who you like. You'll get the inexperienced with the more experienced, but if you want the best be willing to fork out more than $100. For those voice artists considering get a yearly membership, think twice. Sure you get the chance to audition for a lot of jobs, but only the lucky actually make much money. Plus you pay hundreds of dollars to audition.