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Before I go on to explain the risks that are involved in working with freelancers, let me first talk about the reasons why people choose to work with them in the first place.

Lowest Cost

In comparison to working with the structured organizations, freelancers may charge lower fees for doing the same work. Moreover, most freelancers work through bidding portals like rentacoder.com and the price wars works out in your favor.

Working with a Specialist

Freelancers work in their specialized area on which they have knowledge and experience. This generates a sense of working with a specialist.

Availability

A freelancer will bid on your project only when they are ready to take up additional work. This means they are ready to start immediately and you can start seeing progress from the next day of awarding the contract.

Greater control

Another factor that comes into the mind is that freelancers are individual which is reassuring to know specially if you are scared of contracts and hierarchy.

So, where is the risk? Let me explain:

Project Matters!

Working with a freelancer is suited on projects that require only one set of skill that the freelancer can has and can provide. However, a typical project often requires different skill-sets for example designing database, writing codes, designing interfaces, testing etc. Thus, even if you freelancer scores high on one of these areas, he will score low on all other. Eventually, the average quality of output turns out to be low. Thus, if you have anything more a simple script written or a layout to be done, working with a freelancer is not such a good idea!