Been using Elance/Upwork for about 15 years and Fiverr for a few years. Made the awful mistake of placing a couple of orders on People Per Hour. Spent more than $1200. Not one order was successful. PPH charged me a 10 % refund fee for these orders. Officially you dont pay for orders that seller cant fulfill, but they automatically categorize all refunds as buyer initiated unless you raise a stink. This also protects the worst sellers who dont deliver.
Worst of all, you cannot leave feedback for a seller that doesnt deliver. Only “completed” transactions are eligible for feedback.
Fiverr is horrible for content ($5 doesnt get you great writing) but is awesome for a lot of other stuff. I frequently order headlines for my blog posts there. For 5 bucks I got five article ideas and headlines for them. Win for everyone.
Fiverr really performs well for a buyer. They have robust systems in place.If an order is late, they automatically flag it and contact buyer and seller.
If you use Fiverr for a while, you will see why it performs so well. Some gigs arent that great quality but they are delivered timely and Fiverr has robust systems to deal with any issues and ensure seller performance.
People Per Hour really does not monitor the performance of their sellers. Many of their “hourlies” are outright fraudulent.
Most disturbingly, People Per Hour has issues with Paypal. So disputing or even contacting paypal will cause them to immediately close your account.
In sum, Fiverr has some amazing gigs and a well established professional marketplace. People Per Hour is like using Silk Road or a filthy flea market. Fiver and Upwork is the Amazon and eBay of Freelancers. You can feel confident that most likely there wont be a problem but if there is, they will take care of you.
There is absolutely no reason for anyone to use People Per Hour. You may get lucky and not have any issues with your first “hourlie” but if you hire freelancers regularly, you will quickly discover that PeoplePerHour isnt worth the hassle. Other marketplaces are much smoother.