Have you decided to close your Freelancer.com account? You’ve come to the right place. On June 3, 2020, I closed my account for good. Here are the steps I took.

Deciding to Close Freelancer.com Account

Whatever your reasons are, you have to make a conscious effort to close an account. Personally, I hesitated about two years too long, using rationalizations. Perhaps you’ve considered some of them:

• The membership is not that expensive
• Maybe this year, I’ll make some real money
• I went through a lot of hoops to get verified
• Seems a shame to abandon my profile and rating
• I’ll lose my links!

Eventually, the futility of holding on to this useless account overcame all of my rationalizations. So, before I could change my mind again, I firmly decided to close my account.

Backing Up Account Data

One way to appease the rationalization about my profile and rating was to export relevant parts of the account. Starting from the dashboard, I visited the following pages:

View Profile

You may want to preserve your introduction. If it is still relevant, you can blend it into your other profiles. Of course, if you no longer do some of the things you’ve listed, just ignore them.

Notice the Verifications on the far right? I made a mental note to update my Facebook connections, if necessary. As a matter of fact, make sure you go through your website and other social media profiles and remove any links to your Freelancer.com profile.

Portfolio Items

Save any images and other items you may want to keep.

Project Descriptions

When you click on each item, you’ll have a chance to copy and paste the descriptions. Be sure to click Read More, so you don’t miss any text.

Reviews

Some of the reviews can be used as testimonials. Hopefully, you did this when the project was completed, including getting a link from your client. If not, you can still quote any reviews of which you’re particularly proud.

Résumé

You’ll definitely want to copy and paste your Experience, Education, Qualifications and Publications. This is a good time to think about updating them across your other platforms.

Transaction History

This is your last chance to download a record of income and expenses. Crunch the numbers and pat yourself on the back for making a sound financial decision to close this dog.

Financial Dashboard

If you haven’t already done so, download snapshots of your financials. Switch to Yearly period type and start from your first year. Later, you can put them all into a spreadsheet and analyze your performance.

Saying Good-bye

With your account data safely backed up or ignored, it’s time to officially close your Freelancer.com account!

Manage Account

Click the Manage Account link, as shown above. Do not click Manage Membership , as that takes you to a page where you can upgrade or downgrade your current membership.

Close Account

You can leave feedback. Or not. But, whatever you do, don’t cop out now. You’re nearly done! Click the Close my account button. A spinner will display …

Error Closing Freelancer.com Account

I am not sure what happened here. If this happens to you, you may confirm that the account is closed by trying to contact support, as suggested. When you do, you may not be able to log in. That was good enough for me!

Final Thoughts

My word of the year is focus. Although I needed six months, I finally concluded that I was not going to spend another year for a membership on a platform that has not been profitable for me since 2015. I’ve made more money on Upwork.com in two years than I did in seven years on Freelancer.com.

Freelancer.com is frequently the target of complaints. If you really want to read what the naysayers have written, just Google

is freelancer.com a scam?

I also have read many positive reviews. My own experience is mostly positive. Motivated by what I consider to be the vast potential of this site, I took the time to figure out how to deal with the negative aspects of the site.

Spammers

Problem: Browsing projects on the website is already cumbersome. Wading through the garbage to find gems is time-consuming. From spammers to lazy students to outright fraudsters, there is no shortage of bogus project listings.

My solution: I set up a feed reader to monitor relevant feeds from this freelancer.com feed list.

Now, instead of waiting for page loads and fumbling with fiddly JavaScript collapsing sections, I just zip through the announcements when they pop up. On average, ten to fifteen announcements come at the same time.

After the feeds began sending project announcements, I added filters to the feed reader. These filters are supposed to prevent listings from appearing. They’re not perfect, but I spend much less time keeping up with the latest projects.

Limited Proposal Capabilities

Problem: Compared to other freelance sites, Freelancer.com’s support for proposals is anemic. I can’t attach my detailed proposal document, I can’t link to my portfolio and I can’t share images from similar projects in order to enhance my bid.

Ironically, most of these are available in my Freelancer.com profile but, first impressions shouldn’t require extra work on the part of the prospective employer.

My solution: I did the best that I could to make my profile stand out, just in case the employer does check. Beyond that, I use good old-fashioned copywriting to piqué interest.

If the employer does initiate contact, I can then freely send attachments, but I still am not allowed to link to anything that may give the employer a way to contact me directly.

Winning a Project Can Be Costly!

Problem: Frankly, this is my biggest gripe about Freelancer.com. As soon as I accept a project, 10% of the total value is deducted from my account!

My solution: I have to make sure that the employer funds the project. Other than keeping a bit of a reserve in my Freelancer.com cash account, there is nothing I can do to mitigate the hit.

Freelancer.com has changed its membership offerings, again. As of May 1, 2016, all fees are 10% pre-paid, except for members in the Preferred Freelancer Program who accept Recruiter projects. The fee is 15% and is not charged until the employer pays.

Freelancer.com Fees and Charges

Verdict

Like anything else, you get out of Freelancer.com what you put in. If you work hard at it, you will get out more than you put in. Don’t worry about competition, lowball bidders or scammers. Be aware of them and move on. I’ve met many wonderful professionals on Freelancer.com!