More than 1 million members.
More than 1,5 million jobs completed.
More than $200 MILLION paid to their members.
Is Guru a scam or a reliable way to hire freelancers or work as a freelancer? Read our honest review to find out!
Guru Freelance Review
Name: Guru
Website: www.Guru.com
Founded: 1997
Field: Freelancing Websites
Overall Rank: 20 Out of 100 (Check Out My #1 Recommendation, 98 Out of 100)
What Is Guru Freelance?
Guru is a website where you can find & hire freelancers from all around the world. The service is already founded in 1997 so they have been in the industry for a respectable 20 years!
In Guru you can find freelancers to work for you for almost anything:
- Design, Art & Multimedia
- Web, Software & IT
- Sales & Marketing
- Engineering & Architecture
- Writing & Translation
- And more
On the other hand, if you are a freelancer, you could use it as a way of finding new clients.
BUT.
After reading and researching about Guru.com, I can’t recommend it for my visitors. There are way too many negative reviews and bad experiences. I will explain more thoroughly when you read further.
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How Does Guru Work?
The idea of Guru is to connect freelancers and small business owners. Others are looking for freelancing job while others are looking for talented people to do the work for them. The platform is a connector between those two parties.
So, the idea is the same like in Fiverr, HireWriters, Upwork, and Freelancer. However, the execution doesn’t work so well in Guru.
As a freelancer, you can post jobs to show what kind of work you can do for other people. Let me show an example:
Then as a buyer, you can publish a job that freelancers can see. You describe what kind of work you need to get done, give a few details and a category.
Freelancers can start bidding and you will choose the best one. Then you will start the cooperation and things go happily ever after. Or maybe not… Have a look what kind of reviews ex-members are writing of Guru.
Guru Reviews
There are hundreds of reviews of Guru all around on the Internet. Some of them are positive but the majority of people were greatly unsatisfied with their service. Let’s take a look what kind of average rating Guru gets from different review sites.
- Sitejabber Rating: 1,8 out of 5 – 56 reviews
- FitSmallBusiness Rating: Less than 2 out of 5 – 24 reviews.
- TrustPilot Rating: 3,6 out of 10 – 12 reviews
What do you think about those numbers? They look somehow similar to the other scammy freelancing website called Freelancer. On the other hand, Fiverr for example has achieved much better ratings.
It’s interesting that almost anywhere you look, you find mostly negative reviews of Guru. In Sitejabber there were 56 reviews in total. Guess how many of them gave the worst rating 1 out of 5? 48 people. And only one person gave 5 out of 5. Probably he was someone from Guru staff? 😉
Guru Complaints
Now you may be wondering what kind of complaints people have about Guru.
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You can find tens of similar reviews what Ian has written above. He warns you of fraudulent “gurus” on that website. Then he also mentions that Guru support will not help you and you will lose money when a problem arises.
It seems that if a freelancer steals your money, Guru support will just say something like, “Please, contact your freelancer and try to negotiate with him. (Read: this is not our business).” It’s devastating how bad service they have.
Let’s have a look at another complaint.
Jorge pointed out that Guru.com is a safe haven for fraudulent freelancers. The problem is that you need to pay them in advance before they have even started working. Then they can just say, “I have started working and I will deliver you the work ASAP.” When a deadline comes near they say, “I am almost ready, just wait a second.”
Then deadline passes and they just disappear with your money. What can you do then? Contact Guru support. They ask you to contact the freelancer. But how can you contact the freelancer if he has disappeared like a fart in the Sahara desert?
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- The idea of connecting freelancers and small business owners is great
Cons:
- Tons of negative reviews on the Internet
- You need to pay freelancers in advance. => They get your money even though they wouldn’t finish the work
- There are many better alternatives out there.
- Many freelancers in Guru are highly skilled in scamming buyers
Conclusion – Is Guru a Scam?
Guru itself may not be a scam but at least their website is full of scam artists. I don’t recommend trying their services. You will just save money and time by staying far away from Guru.
If you are looking for great freelancing site, have a look at Fiverr, HireWriters (for writing) or Toptal (for top-class freelancing).
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If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave them below.
Guru at a Glance…
Name: Guru
Website: www.Guru.com
Founded: 1997
Field: Freelancing Websites
Overall Rank: 20 Out of 100
Do you have experiences of Guru or other freelancing websites?
What is your favorite way of earning money online?
Let me know in the comments below! 🙂
It always enriches the website and the discussion when you share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you. I promise to reply personally to every single comment that I get from you.
Many years ago, I created an account on Guru. I bid on a writing job. The contractor asked me to do a free test article on a certain topic. I gave him links to my published articles on the topic. he insisted to do a test article for the job. He said the test article was necessary to review my skills.
I told him he can check my online articles to learn how good or bad writer I am. I already had 100 articles published on sites like Hubpages, Squidoo, Helium.Even though I sent him links to review my work, he insisted on doing test article to review my skills. I smelled rat and did not communicate further. After that experience, I never checked guru again.
Yeah, sounds a bit shady client.
The bad sides of joining the Guru Freelance is one that will make me have doubts about registering on such site since I’m just starting out as a young freelancer. But what I’m confused about the reason the freelancing site with up to 20 years of existence has not addressed the numerous issues that come up between the buyers and the sellers on the site.
I do not think it would be worth my time to start up on the freelancing site since there are other alternatives such as iwrtier to join and make my earnings as a writer.
Yeah, I was also pretty surprised about numerous complaints regarding their website. It’s a bit strange that they haven’t solved these issues. Anyhow, why don’t you start the training in Wealthy Affiliate to make a living online? It works and you’ll succeed if you keep learning and doing new things.
Hi RKiuttu,
I have not heard of Guru before but, after reading this review of it, I KNOW I will never go near them.
This is a valuable post for those that are considering wasting their time with Guru.
Thank you kindly for the information for the more we expose the scammers the more the real opportunities can shine thruogh.
All the best.
Hi Philip,
you are right Philip. There are some positive sides in Guru but the fact that there are so HUGE amount of complaints all over the Internet, makes it pretty suspicious.
It’s proven that many scam artists are operating within the platform trying to take your money. Better to stay away.
There are many better alternatives out there.
-Roope
Thanks for this great review. I have never used Guru and I’ll be sure to stay away from it. What IS the best service provider of freelancers in your opinion? As for Wealthy Affiliate, I cannot agree with you more. It is by far the best training program and community ever!
Hi Ayako,
I am glad to hear that you are enjoying the training and the community inside Wealthy Affiliate.
It depends a little bit on your needs but I have enjoyed Fiverr. I know that FIverr has received lots of criticism because there are so many cheap freelancers.
However, Fiverr is also full of high-quality freelancers and the price/quality ratio is often great. Sometimes you just need to use a little bit of time for finding the right freelancer for you.
Cheers,
Roope
There is no where in the review that will encourage a reader to have a second look at Guru.my first reaction was to look at the ratio of members to pay-outs. The system of paying in advance is like buying a pig in a bag; I am not surprised that the reviews are not positive.
The operating formula seem to invites scammers.I am prejudice when it comes to Wealthy Affiliate and would support membership any day. Have you ever had feedback from Guru? Good luck
Hi Courtney,
I saw that you have already joined Wealthy Affiliate and involved in the community. I believe you enjoy the training and making money online.
I don’t really need feedback from Guru because I’ll just stay away from their service. There are better options on the Internet 🙂
Cheers,
Roope