You will find that there are a number of articles out there that praise online freelancing as the be all in making a living online. I’m here to tell you they’re lying to you. There are very few people able to make a sustainable living online as freelancers. Let me make it clear that it is very possible to make an online living via freelancing, but there are just as many thorns as there are roses. Most of them are deal breakers for many. Don’t believe me? Well I’ve made a list of reasons why online freelancing will make you cry for the days of brick and mortar businesses, stuffy suits, mediocre raises, and sudden overtime.

You will bid and advertise more then you actually work. That’s right. As an online freelancer you will spend more of your time searching and bidding on work then you will actually spend doing work. Bidding on projects online is ruthless. You will find yourself constantly cruising the freelancing and want ads bidding against thousands of other people just like you. You’ll find work, don’t get me wrong. There will be work and money to be made, but you will have to spend a great deal of energy to finding it.

You will make less money per project online then you will ever make using the same skills at a brick and mortar office. Why? Well it’s actually pretty simple. When bidding for projects online you’ll be bidding against thousands of other people in other countries that will most likely make far less of a wage then you do. So, in order to be competitive you will constantly have to lower your bids to match other users to win bids, even if your more qualified to do the work. As a US citizen, and even with our current exchange rate, I could make more money working fast food part time then some other countries middle class citizens make in a year. Many of these people are trained as well if not better then myself. Most of them will also market themselves heavily online, because there is not much of a market in their own countries also.

There are no benefits for freelancers. Take my benefits for example. My current full time position pays for my families health care, retirement, disability, workman’s compensation, etc. The plain and simple truth is that this equates to around $1000 – $1300 dollars per month if I were putting the money away myself. So in order for me to make close to the equivalent of what I do professionally, as a full time freelancer, I would have to put this money aside above and beyond my current gross. Beyond that I would also have to compensate for taxes on several of these items, retirement savings and personal health products are good examples, that are negated by plans provided by my employer.

Materials are not free. As a freelancer you must provide your own materials as well. Some of these are tax deductible, some are not. In the end you will always pay more for materials regardless of what uncle Sam wishes to help you out with. We’re talking computers, printers, office space, furniture, transportation, paper, ink, power, Internet service, etc. These are not provided for you, and although most people don’t completely consider them, they exist and haunt your bottom line. Not to mention that if you are a serious full time freelancer, you will usually have working backups of most of these items in case one goes down while working on a big job for a good paying client.

Dry spells will send you reeling. Dry spells are unavoidable, and as with any job, freelancers experience dry spells where work just doesn’t come dispite your efforts. It could last days, weeks, or even months. Dry spells will bleed your accounts dry, and make you aware of those wonderful credit card percentages you’ve been paying. They come to everyone, and force the smart freelancers into to putting away a considerable, but easily accessible, stash of money for the next dry spell.

Say goodbye to nights and weekends. Many freelancers will try to make you believe that they only work a few hours a day, and make tons of cash doing it. Let it be known that you can make some good money in a few hours if you are good and quick at what you do. You can even get enough work to fill out a normal day without trashing your schedule. Here though is where the misconceptions start. Sure you will make a decent wage for a solid days work, but what about tomorrow? What about the supplies you’ll have to leave your home office for? What about searching and bidding for other jobs? What happens when one of your main client needs something out Monday that you only find out about Friday afternoon? You will spend a number of your waking hours, and a vast majority of them at that, hunting, posting, working, and discussing your jobs. Good freelancers live for their work. They are workaholics, and most of them like it that way. If your not prepared for this you will not make it as a full time freelancer plain and simple.

Bad clients. As a freelancer you will get bad clients. This is a fact that even the most upbeat and established freelancer will admit. There will be those clients that will contact you constantly about issues you have no control over. They will call you to make free changes, ask annoying questions, compare your work to completely unrelated work done by others, or they could be just down right picky. There’s nothing like underbidding a project to make a few extra bucks, and finding one of these clients on the other side of your emails or phone calls. There are signs you can look for when bidding or first contacting a client, but everything is up for chance in the end. I have known freelancers, myself included, that have practiced counter measures for bad clients, but sometimes food is more important then a testy client.

In the end I just want those of you who think you will make millions freelancing in your spare time, or are looking to make a full time run of it, think about the downsides to the field. You can make a decent living freelancing, but there are times when you have to wonder if it’s all worth the time and energy you have involved. There are many of us out there that have made good money doing odd jobs online, but it should be known that almost 90% of the people that try freelancing give up shortly after starting because they don’t consider the time, resources, or just plain work involved in making it as a freelancer.

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