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8 July 2023
8 MIN READ 
BY
Satya Madhavi Mukku
Digital businesses need high-quality mobile apps, products, and solutions with faster time-to-market. This equips them to stay ahead of the competition and deliver a great customer experience (CX). For businesses to get high-quality products should adopt effective software testing or quality assurance practices within their agile and DevOps processes. Today’s digital businesses should leverage the services of credible software testing service providers to get seamless, fully functional products. This also helps them to stay ahead of the competition. Interestingly, there are many independent software testing companies and also freelancer platforms like Upwork that provide quality assurance services to businesses across different industries. Upwork and Testing Company Comparison in detail provides useful information for opting the best.
Businesses can leverage the services of both freelancer platforms and independent testing companies to meet their quality assurance and software testing needs. Digital businesses should typically consider five factors before choosing between a freelancer group and a testing company.
It is important to know the years of experience of the freelancer or the testing company much earlier. Typically, it is important to know the fact that testing companies have an established market presence with a proven client list to showcase their experience across projects. Businesses should also get first-hand information about the range of testing services enabled for various clients across industries to go ahead before choosing either a freelancer or a testing company as a partner. Testing companies enabling QA services with more years of experience definitely can solve complex QA problems. This also helps them to deliver quality products.
It is evident that software testing companies are founded by thought leaders with years of IT industry experience. This thought leadership enables teams to work in seamless coordination. This also helps with funding for enabling new AI-based testing innovations such as frameworks and accelerators. This brings faster testing outcomes for clients. If you select freelance groups, the scope of thought leadership will be to a limited extent. This might cause some hardships to businesses leveraging their services.
Businesses need to consider the freelancer network or the testing services company’s relevant credibility in the market before choosing them. Essentially, you should perform proper research before actually choosing between them. Then only it is advised to take up the partnership or sign a project.
Digital businesses should have an understanding of the actual range of testing services offered by both the freelancer groups and also the testing company or QA services provider. We know that software testing companies offer both functional and non-functional testing services. They have access to numerous commercial tools while the scope of testing and tools access will be much less for the freelance groups.
Businesses should truly understand and choose between a freelance partner or a software testing company based on their QA services quotes and relevant charges. They should choose a partner who provides best-in-class services at comparatively cheaper costs. Digital businesses must focus more on the quality of the deliverables rather than on the cost factor.
Let us have an overview of the freelancer platforms like Upwork and independent testing services companies.
Upwork Platform: It is one of the largest global platforms that connect various businesses with freelance talent (QA or developer) for different technologies and works on various types of projects. Various freelancers maintain their profiles and prospective clients hire and work with them on a need basis for accomplishing their project needs.
Testing Company: Independent testing or QA companies are established to serve or help clients exclusively for accomplishing their testing needs for various projects. These testing companies have a great QA pool of experts. This enables them to perform different types of testing services. Also, it can be for various domains across industries of healthcare, BFSI, logistics, and eCommerce, to name a few. These companies have established testing guidelines and policies with which the teams work through seamless collaboration. This helps them to deliver high-quality products to clients adopting the latest testing methods, tools, and technologies. The thought leadership of these companies is the backbone for these companies. It helps them to leap ahead with deep innovation to develop new tools, frameworks, and accelerators. This enables them to deliver faster testing outcomes to clients.
| No | Facts of Comparison | Upwork | Testing Company |
| 1 |
Range of Service Offerings |
In this freelancer platform, there are many freelancers (Developers, Testers, others) available. They collaborate with clients to work on different projects (development, testing, or any other project requirement). Clients usually hire them on an hourly basis. | A software testing company specializes in enabling comprehensive testing services including both functional and non-functional testing services along with manual and automated testing to deliver superior and accurate testing outcomes to clients. Clients usually hire them on a project basis. |
| 2 |
SLAs and NDA (Agreements and Policies) |
Freelancers are hired through the Upwork platform and work dedicatedly for the project as per certain guidelines. Some of the freelancers may not work with Service level agreements (SLAs) and they may not be associated with Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) while some freelancers sign contracts | Software testing companies have project-specific SLAs and NDAs that will be signed before the start of any project. These documents have all clarifications regarding the project and ensure close collaboration between the testing company and the client. |
| 3 |
Talent Availability Across Skill Sets (Expertise) |
The Upwork platform has varied professionals ranging from Developers, Testers, Data Scientists, Architects, etc.. These freelancers are chosen based on their experience and skill set by the client to work on projects to essentially deliver high-quality outcomes | The testing companies have professional and experienced testers and QA experts with specialized knowledge in various testing methodologies (shift-left within DevOps & Agile), technologies (AI, ML, RPA, Blockchain), and tools (AI, ML, RPA & more). They deliver faster and more accurate testing outcomes to clients |
| 4 |
Team Coordination & Scalability (Across Projects) |
Freelancers work on their own and don’t have any teams as they are hired by clients to work on specific projects. They work only for the project signed and cannot scale in case of client need. | The testing company has a good number of QA and testing experts available to work with different clients. The testing company can scale these teams up/down based on the need to meet the client’s requirements. |
| 5 |
QA Process Adoption (Organization Standard Policies & Procedures & Accelerator Frameworks) |
Freelancers have varied experience across tools and technologies. The quality assurance processes they follow vary from individual to individual based on the years of their experience. | A software testing company has well-defined and established quality assurance processes and testing frameworks to ensure consistent, accurate, and reliable testing results. |
| 6 |
Usage of Right Tools, Devices, and Infrastructure (Availability) |
Each freelancer works with their clients and may not have a wide range of tools or physical devices (handsets) available to test or work with them. These freelancers work independently and may or may not have experience developing frameworks. | A software testing company has the right set of tools, devices, and state-of-the-art infrastructure to deliver greater testing outcomes to clients. In-house teams also develop some innovation-based testing frameworks to deliver faster testing outcomes to clients essentially. |
| 7 |
Adoption of Regulatory & Compliance (Requirements ) |
The freelancer should uphold the regulatory and compliance requirements based on the project need. | Well-defined procedures within the testing process help to uphold various regulatory and compliance requirements such as GDPA or any other compliance requirements. |
| 8 |
Faster Testing Quality Outcomes (Assurance) |
Freelancers work on dedicated projects to deliver effective testing outcomes. But, the testing quality depends on the freelancer’s years of experience. It also depends on the availability of proper tools, frameworks, and processes they follow. | The testing company has well-defined processes and procedures along with AI frameworks and RPA testing tools. Testing teams use these tools and frameworks to deliver faster and higher quality testing outcomes. |
| 9 |
Cost-effectiveness (Pricing Structure -QA Cost per Hour) |
The pricing structure varies from individual freelancer to another based on their years of experience and their hands-on expertise. There will be no standard pricing available. The cost per hour they charge also varies from one freelancer to another. | The pricing is usually project-based and has defined pricing options to serve clients in the most cost-effective ways. The in-house team of QA professionals has good industry experience to deliver superior testing outcomes to clients. Further, the client can choose a single resource on an hourly basis or a QA team of 3-4 resources based on the project need. |
| 10 |
24×7 Client support (Availability) |
As freelancers work on individual projects, the extent of client support is limited to only the project. Typically, the existence of a continued partnership between a freelancer and the client is not visible. | The software testing companies have dedicated teams available 24×7 to support the client for any need. Effectively, the partnership with clients is beyond the project. Their coordination and association with clients continues for any future requirements also. |
Today’s digital businesses need quality apps, products, and solutions to go to market and beat the competition. Businesses should adopt effective software testing methods to get apps and products of high-quality and high performance. Further, businesses should understand the points of difference between a freelancer platform and a software testing services company. Then only decision to partner should be made. As stated above in this blog, leveraging the services of a testing services company offers numerous benefits. Thus, businesses should prefer and leverage a reputed, experienced, and credible software testing services company rather than a freelance platform to get their apps and products tested. Thus, outsourcing QA to a testing services company than to Upwork will deliver a lot of benefits to businesses. This will capacitate them to deliver high quality products.
An experienced Technical Content Writer and Content Strategist with over a decade of experience in Content Writing. My work experience spans in different domains like core technology blogs, articles, White Papers, eBooks, Case studies, and Web page content for industries.
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