Hi. First post here but I thought I would chip in as I have been selling on fiverr, PPH, Elance and Fivesquids for about a year now and I've realised that each site has its pros and cons. For background, I work full-time in a day job and use these sites to bring in a few extra pounds and pennies - utilising the skills of my day job. My comments are as a seller and not a buyer...
fiverr. You get the most jobs through this site. However in my experience it also pays the least. By the time fiverr take their 20% fee (yes, really!), plus you allow for $ to £ conversion and then PayPal fees on top, you actually make about £2.30 from each gig. For me personally, that's fine if it's a 15 minute job or less in my spare time - BUT for some reason fiverr attracts a large number of 'amateur' buyers who don't provide a clear brief, who don't fully read or understand what services you are offering and because of these reasons, they end up asking for work to be revised. There are of course many good buyers but beware the high number of idiots who end up costing you far more time than the £2.30 reward is actually worth!
PPH. Although in my opinion this site has gone downhill in recent months (the model has been revised from it's original concept), it still allows you to make a decent amount of money. It attracts a far better class of buyer with many professional organisations and individuals buying services on it. As a result, they are prepared to pay much closer to the 'going rate' and they are far, far less likely to ask for work to be revised. On the downside, there is a fair amount of competition from fellow sellers and PPH also take 20% of your earnings. On the plus side, payment is usually in £s.
Elance. Potentially this site could be a goldmine for some sellers as it has a huge number of jobs that allow you to pick and choose the best for you. However, this site by far attracts the highest amount of competition from fellow sellers. It is not unusual for me to bid for a job that eventually attracts around 20-30 other people who also want the work. As a result you can spend a lot of time bidding for work that more often than not you don't win. Okay, that's the way of the world(!) but when you do win the work, Elance's fee is only 10%. Most (but not all) of the jobs are paid in $ so again, be prepared to incur a conversion fee.
Fivesquids. This appears to be a UK based site and jobs are paid in £. However, activity on this site appears to be very slow. In comparison with the above sites, Fivesquids has by far the smallest community and I've only ever had a couple of small jobs from this site in the space of a year. Feel free to give it a go, but in my opinion it really isn't worth the effort. Shame really, as it actually looks like a well laid out site but for some reason it hasn't taken off like the others.
One other thought that applies to all these sites - they work on a feedback rating system. Stars / percentages, etc. Thankfully I've not had anyone hold a gun to my head and threaten bad feedback but there are loads of horror stories online from sellers about their bad experiences. I mention this because as a seller you want to keep a high feedback score and as a result you can be over eager to please some buyers in order to avoid a low feedback score or rating. This can mean spending too long on a job that pays too little when you work out an hourly rate.
Thanks for a great thread