Intro, there are a million freelancing platforms out there. Some of them are not worth your time whatsoever, and some of them you should be on ASAP. So, let’s find out which is which.
Upwork Overview and Experience
First up in the ring, Upwork, the granddaddy of freelancing platforms. This is the platform that got me started back in 2016 when I had no clue about anything freelancing related, so really I owe it all to Upwork, but I still have super mixed feelings about it, so let’s talk about them.
Upwork Pros and Cons
So, Upwork pros: it’s got a ton of active core clients, 150,000 active core clients means a lot of people who want to give you money potentially. We love that, huge diversity in jobs from thumbnail design for Cat channels, which dreams are off, to full-on lawsuits. They’ve got it all, so if you have some sort of skill, chances are you can find someone hiring for it.
But cons: super competitive, you’re competing for these clients with 18 million other freelancers, it’s like the worst game of musical chairs ever. I was refreshing the jobs every 10 minutes and applying ASAP, like within minutes, that’s the only way I landed my first clients. It’s also kind of a confusing and potentially expensive bidding system, so I spent real money to buy more connects to apply to more jobs, which seems kind of sketch I know.
Upwork Fees and Tier Placement
Now fees: Upwork takes a flat 10% fee on whatever money you make, which is too high in my opinion. So, I’m giving Upwork the day award for more crowded than a can of sardines because it is cramped up on there. Hop on there—Upward? I didn’t even write that. So, Upwork is going into tier three.
Upwork Use and Strategy Preview
I was a beginner when I was on there and it was good for me. Once I was no longer a beginner, it was no longer good for me, that’s just my two cents by the way. At the end of the article, I’ll tell you what my game plan for how to use freelancing platforms properly is because I think it’s very easy to get overwhelmed and lost in all the freelancing platforms. I’ll share that at the end.
PeoplePerHour Background
Next up is PeoplePerHour. This site has been around apparently since 2007, 2007, so it’s actually the super super OG, grade to Grandma of freelancing platforms. Pros: over a million clients, which isn’t too shabby, though I’m not sure that those are all active clients.
PeoplePerHour Cons and Fees
Cons: heavy fees, which I’ll get into in a second, and also about three million freelancers, so still very competitive. I’ve also read that trying to get in touch with customer service is a huge headache, just caution.
Now the fees for PeoplePerHour, okay, are you ready? Because this is so confusing. They’ve got variable fees: 20% on anything below 250 pounds, 7.5% on anything between 250 and 5,000 pounds, then 3.5% of anything over 5,000 pounds, and this is per buyer. That means for every new client you take on, they’ll always start at 20% fees.
PeoplePerHour Fee System Award
So, PeoplePerHour gets the day award for most ridiculous fee system, like what’s even happening? I shouldn’t be forced to do this much math just to figure out how much money you’re taking from me. So, I’m putting PeoplePerHour in tier five: heavy fees plus heavy competition most of the time in my experience ends up with an unhappy freelancer.
Brybe Platform Introduction
Next up is actually a newer platform that I didn’t know before we started researching for this article: Brybe. In addition to freelancers, a BRB also lets you hire or sell services as an influencer. So, the marketplace is kind of set up like Fiverr, where you set a price and clients can kind of browse your services.
Brybe Pros and Cons
So, pros here: serves a relatively untapped market, influencers. It also has a nice UI, it’s very easy to navigate from my experience.
Cons: lack of clients. I couldn’t find hard numbers but just looking at the amount of influencers and freelancers with zero reviews tells me there might not be a lot happening there yet. Also weird fees. So, the fees here are also variable, there are no fees for your first three beerba or for any project under thirty dollars.
Brybe Fees and Pronunciation Confusion
After that, depending on how many beers you’ve sold, it goes from 25% fees down to eight percent. Averibra wins the day award for most confusing to pronounce, so I’m not sure if it’s beerbas or bribie’s or bribes. Oh, oh, I think it’s meant to be bribes also weird. I guess I made that harder, more complicated than it need to be to pronounce.
I’m putting Bribe into your four. Super niche platform, cool concept, and if you’re an influencer definitely check it out, but for a regular freelancer, I think you’ll have better luck going elsewhere.
Fiverr Platform Overview
Next up is Fiverr. Fiverr, oh Fiverr’s such a weird and wonderful platform, like where else on the internet can you go for a custom adult coloring book and to learn how to get better at League of Legends? Nowhere, I swear, nowhere.
Fiverr Pros for Freelancers
Pros: more than 5 million yearly buyers, that’s a huge number. It’s really easy to use, easy for clients to browse your services, which is a huge pro because those are the people that want to spend money, so the easier it is for them to use the platform, the more likely you’ll actually get money in your pocket.
Now the hugest pro in my book is the default setup — it lets you make packages, not hourly rates. This is huge in my opinion for freelancers because as a client hiring a first-time freelancer, I will personally always prefer paying for a small one-off package before committing to hourly or long-term retainers, right? Because I know exactly what I’m gonna get.
It’s not really like I’m paying twenty dollars an hour and I don’t know how much you’re gonna get done. It’s like I’m paying a hundred dollars and I know exactly the deliverable that’s going to be sent to me. I’ve definitely hired a lot on Fiverr for that exact reason.
Fiverr Cons and Fees
Cons: pretty competitive, which means generally low rates because freelancers end up competing on pricing. I will also say that with the name Fiverr, clients definitely have like initial connotations of how much they’re expecting to pay, so they may expect a Picasso for five dollars.
And the hugest, fattest con are the fees. The fees are 20% of everything you make including tips, which is brutal, like that’s truly brutal. So, I’m getting Fiverr the stealth tax office award because with the 20% fees, they’re basically just like the IRS 2.0.
Fiverr Tier Placement and Advice
So, Fiverr is going into tier three. I think it’s a good place to get your feet wet or to passively find some work here and there, but as you level up your skills, you’ll probably want to move on to bigger and better things and kind of go off on your own.
Toptal Platform Introduction
Speaking of Topdoll, Toptal, short for top talent, I learned that today, and they want to be the premier platform for freelancers. Pros: buyer rates according to this review we found the rates are on average eighty dollars an hour, amazing.
High quality clients, they require a 500 deposit from clients, I love that because that means that clients tend to be more serious and are ready to pay bigger bucks if they’re putting down a 500 deposit.
Toptal Cons and Fees
Cons: exclusive, so this could be a pro too I guess, it’s a pro if you get accepted and con if you’re not because they only accept three percent of the people who apply to be a freelancer on their site.
Another con: they have pretty limited job types, they’re mostly focused on business, design, and tech right now.
Fees: none, Toptal adds their cut on top of your rate and the client only ever sees the combined rate, so basically the client is paying Toptal, you’re not.
Toptal Reputation and Tier Placement
Amazing Toptal, I’d love to see it, right? Toptal gets the day award for coolest party I wasn’t invited to because 97% of us will have to be content with watching through the windows.
Toptal goes into, I think, tier two, good for seasoned vets. If you can get into the Toptal party, totally try to do it, um, but if you can’t, don’t worry, the rest of us are out here too.
Freelancer.com Overview and Features
All right, next is Freelancer.com. It is as little as it gets, 67 million users and 22 million jobs. With all those jobs, it must be amazing, right?
So, the pros here: lots of jobs and clients, lots of diversity of job types.
Freelancer.com Cons and Contests
Cons: heavy competition and interestingly I found contests while we were doing our research, a very unique con.
This is a special category where clients can essentially create a hunger game style contest for their project and freelancers submit finished work to try and win the contest and only one person gets paid for the work they do, and that is truly bizarre to me.
Freelancer.com Fees and Tier Placement
Fees: 10%, but there are a lot of variables depending on job type, so honestly you’re better off reading through the guidelines for yourself because I couldn’t figure it out.
Freelancer.com wins the day award for most 1998 website name. You may have been founded in 2009 but deep down we both know you’re still getting over Y2K and you got hella lucky with that domain buy.
And I’m putting Freelancer.com into tier three. I would say good for beginners.
I can maybe understand that taking on a contest or two is a good way for beginners to get practice and learn without the pressure of getting paid, but if you’re at all established in any way you need to be getting paid a hundred percent of the time.
And by established I mean you’re a freelancer. If you say you’re a freelancer, you’re established, you need to be getting paid 100% of the time.
Really, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be getting paid unless you’re doing it strategically.
Guru Platform Overview
Alright, now with one and a half million freelancers and 800,000 clients, Guru is in kind of the middle of the pack when it comes to how active it is compared to the others on this list.
Pros: better freelancer job ratio than some of the other platforms.
Guru Cons and Fees
Now cons: it has a subscription model, so you can use the site for free sure, but they’re gatekeeping simple features like asking the client questions about the job.
Who needs to ask questions before taking a job? Everyone! I mean this feels a little predatory to me and oh my God, terrible user interface as well.
So, fees start at 9% but go down to 5% if you have the most expensive subscription.
Yes, you heard that right, not only do you have to pay a subscription, you also pay a commission.
They’re like subscription or commission based, why not both?
Guru Award and Tier Placement
So, Guru wins the day award for worst aesthetics, so congrats Guru, there was stiff competition but you managed to pull it.
This is like turning into a roast, I don’t know, but I will say the freelance job ratio is better but I’m not actually sure it’s translating to better jobs or higher rates.
So still, I have to put Guru into tier five. Don’t use this.
I mean subscription and commission, okay, that’s like actually wild.
Ripple Platform Introduction
Now Ripple is a newer platform, mostly focused on marketing clients.
Based on what I read though, they also have some other types of jobs as well.
Pros here: no fees, yeah I will repeat it again, no fees, and less competition because you have to apply to the platform.
They have vetted clients, so they write on their website that Ripple’s private marketplace only includes qualified project opportunities sourced by our team with top brands and agencies, cool.
Ripple Cons and Tier Placement
Cons: fewer clients, it’s exclusive, you have to apply to be on the platform, so you might not make it on the platform.
Fees again, for the people in the back, none, so cool.
I’m giving Ripple the day award for at least favoriting nothing personal, I just don’t like saying it or even really, it makes me uncomfortable.
It’s going to tier four.
Super niche platform, if you’re semi-experienced and you have marketing skills, I think it’s definitely worth checking out but I’m not sure how useful it is right now for everyone else.
My view as I film this article, it’s Elite.
Contra Platform Overview
Contra is up next.
If you watch my channel then you know I act like I’m sponsored by Contra but I’m really not, that’s how much I like their platform.
This is a rare gem, a freelancer-first platform, who would have thought it was possible?
Contra Pros and Protections
Pros: no fees, so you heard that right again, no commissions for freelancers, such a big pro.
They have freelancer protections, so for example, they have a dispute system where if the client wants a refund, it’s overseen by an actual human being.
They don’t just automatically side with a client and refund the client, which some people do.
They also have a great community in Slack, I’m in there and I saw they even review portfolios there, what?
And higher rates, so Contra actually insists on minimum 25 an hour rates and flat rates of minimum 250 dollars for jobs, so I think this helps get rid of a lot of clients that are just hunting for, you know, bargains and cheaper like five dollar an hour ridiculous.
Contra Cons and Future Outlook
Cons: it’s new, because it’s fresher, more exclusive, it doesn’t have the numbers of some of these other platforms, but honestly based on how it’s going, I feel like all the best freelancers are going to end up on Contra, and when all of the best talent is somewhere, the best clients hiring the best talent are going to be on that platform as well.
So I think give it some time.
Again, not sponsored, just acting like I am.
Contra Fees and Membership Options
Fees: none technically, I want to be upfront, so they run on a subscription model where you can optionally pay 12 dollars a month to set up like a really fancy portfolio site but the free membership gives you a personal page with your services and example projects listed already.
Now what I really like about this is you don’t have to pay for any essential features, everything you need is free, but if you want a little fancy cute little boost, then you can but you don’t have to and I think that’s totally fair, right?
Contra Award and Tier Placement
So, Contra gets the cover today award for most likely to bail you out of prison because I just feel like they have my back, I just get that vibe.
All right, so draw moral fees, I’m putting Contra into tier one.
Tier one, everyone sign up immediately, like seriously there’s no downsides, just do it, do it right after you’ve finished watching this article and leaving me a comment about how helpful this article was.
Right after that comment has been published, then you sign up to Contra, that’s perfect.
FlexJobs Platform Overview
Now on to our final platform, FlexJobs.
FlexJobs, bros, lots of job diversity and human vetted job postings, which is really cool if you think about it.
Cons: not as many freelance jobs and no free version, they’ve got a subscription model.
FlexJobs Fees and Tier Placement
The fees here are, are you ready? The subscription starts at ten dollars per week, that’s wild.
FlexJobs gets the day award for get in and get out quick because at ten dollars per week you best get out quick, right?
This platform was kind of hard to place because if you’re looking for a full-time or remote like part-time remote position, I think it could actually be worth the cost if you use it right and quite intensively, however, for general freelancers I will say I’m gonna put it into tier five because yeah, I just don’t think it’s worth it if you’re constantly looking for clients to pay ten dollars a week for a subscription.
Final Tier List and Strategy
So here’s the final tier list in all its glory and the pros and cons and fees in a quick snapshot for you.
So here’s my freelancing platform strategy because I know this can be overwhelming: pick maximum two platforms and create a weekly system for how many jobs you want to apply to, how many outreaches you want to do per week, something you can realistically commit to, so don’t overcommit and do it for at least two to three months if you want to see results.
Personal Experience and Advice
So that’s my strategy, that’s what worked for me as well when I started using Upwork and then slowly as I transitioned and was able to transition off of Upwork.
So that’s what I recommend.
Now if you want to hear some hot tips on how to best use Upwork or really any freelancing platforms, then check out this article next where I talk through exactly what to do on Upwork as an example.
And as always, thanks so much for reading and I’ll hopefully catch you in the next one, okay, bye!
