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Upwork is still one of the most favorite freelancing worldwide. Starting the journey in 1998 Elance was founded by MIT graduate Beerud Sheth and Wall Street veteran Srini Anumolu. The first product of Elance was Elance’s small business marketplace.

Then oDesk came into existence in 2003 by two friends, Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis. They both wanted to work together but one of them was in the U.S and the other one was in Greece. Eventually, they founded this staffing agency.

In 2013 Elance and oDesk merged and rebranded themselves as the company known today as Upwork. Upwork is such a platform that lets users hire freelancers and freelance agencies by either inviting a freelancer or agency to work on their project. Post a job with requirements and criteria that need to be fulfilled, and let freelancers or agencies apply formally to take the job.

That is the background of the platform, let’s talk about how users can better utilize this platform to finish their respected projects in a better and optimized way.

Well, if you use Upwork to hire people, then you have two options in hand. You can either hire a freelancer or you can hire an agency to work on your behalf. Now the question is which option is better? The thing is there’s no right or wrong answer. This totally depends on your perspective, the quality of work that you’re looking for, the size of your project, and so on and so forth.

If your project is really small then hiring a freelancer is probably the most suitable decision that you can make on the other hand if you’re project massive, for example building a web application or a bit less severe form example making a well-optimized website for your company, than working with an agency can be a better option. But then again it depends on your perspective because at the end of the day you’re the one to make that call.

But if you are thinking of hiring people from Upwork for your projects, then here are some advantages of working with an agency that you can leverage.

1. Upwork agencies are well-coordinated teams in most cases and you’re pretty much free from handpicking candidates from all the applicants with similar skill sets and capabilities.
2. You’re working with a team, not an individual, and if you’re a true believer in saying “team play is the best play” then you already know that working with teams will definitely be better for your projects.
3. Access to a large pool of talents. The people that’ll work on your project may or may not have all the necessary skills that are needed to be successful at the role. But when working with a team, however, that’s not the case. No one is perfect one candidate may lack one specific skill set that is needed in your project but is pretty good with all the other requirements. And in most cases that’ll be the case, so rather than going through the hassle of hiring one freelancer for another you can just hire an agency and be completely free from it.
4. Agencies are more likely to be involved with your project on a deeper level, & align their vision with yours because of the corporate culture that they stick to.
5. In some cases where a project is totally foreign and new to you, agencies can help you determine the requirements and scope of the project.
6. They also assist you to scale the project better as they’ve already worked with various other clients just like you in the field of their expertise.
7. You get to manage freelancers to carry out your projects. Agencies are likely to come with a dedicated account and project manager who has better knowledge of every team member’s skill set, experience, and how to manage them better.
8. Fewer communication barriers, as there is a division of responsibilities within an agency, and communication is most likely smoother with an agency rather than with a freelancer.
9. The services and knowledge provided by agencies are likely to be continuous. The team could easily add another member if a team member leaves during the project, saving you from the trouble of looking for other freelancers to keep your project going.
10. Payroll is also easier when working with agencies as all you gotta do is pay the agency and the agency will pay the individual team members.

As these are some of the main advantages of working with an agency, there are plenty of working with a freelancer as well. Both have their own pros & cons, your job here is to be a good judge. 

The conclusion is, the matter of whether hiring an agency or a freelancer depends on many things, and again at the end of this totally depends on you the “Client” and your judgment.