Today, we will analyze the most powerful freelancer platforms for offering your professional services to companies of all kinds. Each of them has its own characteristics and commissions that it is essential for you to know before joining them, so we will examine them in detail. Working from home was never easier.
These are the 10 best pltaforms to work as a freelancer:
In addition to being able to publish samples of your work and act as an online portfolio, it also allows you to search for full-time jobs and freelance projects.
Founded in 2009, Dribbble specializes in design professionals, boasting 6 million active users and over 3 million registered users. In 2020, it acquired Creative Market, adding up to a total of 12 million monthly active users. To access freelance offers, you must pay a monthly subscription fee of $8.
It is one of the fastest-growing freelancer platforms. Of Israeli origin, it was founded in 2010 and has since experienced continuous growth, reaching more than 4 million users working as a freelancer.
Users can showcase samples of their work and offer their professional services in various categories (such as graphic design, digital advertising, writing, video and animation, photography, etc.), setting their own prices for their services. The platform recommends adding a 20% provision to cover the 20% that Fiverr deducts for promoting your service, creating invoices, using the platform, and more.
There are no membership or subscription fees to join Fiverr. You keep 80% of each completed transaction. Once you deliver the order and the buyer accepts it, your 80% share is transferred to your account and can be viewed on the earnings page. After 1 to 2 weeks, you can withdraw your earnings through PayPal, bank transfer, or Fiverr Revenue Card.
Fiverr also has its own learning platform where it offers specialized courses in different fields.
More than 55 million users from 247 countries make it the largest freelancer platform in the world. Companies post projects they need assistance with, and users bid to undertake them. This platform is also characterized by the diversity of areas covered by the offers, with over 1,800 categories (including software development, writing, engineering, design, marketing, sciences, or legal services, among others).
There are different types of subscriptions, as well as the possibility to add extra features or include customization options. However, the platform does not have access fees, mandatory subscriptions, monthly fees, or annual fees. There are no fees for posting a project or setting up a user account.
For fixed-price projects, the platform charges a fee based on the value of the selected bid. If the employer subsequently pays more than the original bid amount, a fee is also charged on the excess. For hourly projects, the fee is applied to each payment made by the employer. The fee for fixed-price projects is 10% or $5, whichever is greater, and 10% for hourly projects.
User accounts that have not been logged in for six months will be subject to a maintenance fee of up to $14 per month until the account is canceled or reactivated. This is due to the costs of storage, bandwidth, support, and hosting profile management, portfolio storage, directory listings, file storage, and message storage. The money can be refunded upon the user’s request upon later reactivation.
Guru was founded in 1998 and boasts 2 million experts across various categories. Like Freelancer.com, it operates on a bidding and subscription system.
The commission for freelancers ranges from 5% to 9% depending on the type of subscription (between $12 and $50 per month). The maximum number of bids allowed per month is set at 50 with any paid plan, except for the free plan, which limits bids to 10 per month.
To sell your work through the platform, you simply need to register, describe the services you offer, attach examples of your work, explore offers or receive recommendations based on your skills with Top Match and Good Match jobs, choose from Guru’s four payment conditions (fixed price, hourly, task-based, or recurring payments), and send the quote to the client.
This English platform founded in 2007 has 1 million companies and 3 million freelancers. The first step to using PeoplePerHour as a freelancer is to complete your application to join their community, and once your profile has been validated, you can access a multitude of projects from different countries.
Users can bid for free on 15 projects each month, although if they wish to make more bids, they can purchase additional credit. The platform has an artificial intelligence system that assigns you the most suitable projects based on your profile and skills. However, you can also manually search for projects or save automatic searches to be notified about new projects.
When a project catches your eye, you simply complete a proposal and send it to the client. Once the project is completed, the same system generates invoices that are completed automatically, the client receives an instant notification, and once they authorize the payment, the funds are transferred from the project’s protected escrow account to your PeoplePerHour account.
Currency conversion fees are also charged when withdrawing earnings from the account.
Homerun, also called ProntoPro in some countries, is an Italian-origin platform founded in 2015 where you can find freelancers from various sectors, some related to marketing and others quite different such as nutritionists, psychologists, dermatologists, and many more. In total, there are 600 trades covered throughout Spain.
Recently, the company joined forces with Armut, Turkey’s number one freelancer offering, and closed a €15 million investment round, increasing the number of operational countries to 14 in the EMEA region. They are one of the most important companies in the sector in Italy, Turkey, Romania, and Egypt.
You can create an account for free, explore verified job offers, and only quote for those that interest you. You will receive emails with offers related to your services. If you are interested, you must submit a quote. The system automatically closes the request after a maximum of 4 service providers submit their quotes.
The platform does not provide exact figures on commissions or intermediary costs. In that sense, it is the least transparent. It also does not manage payments; in fact, it recommends that freelancers formalize agreements in writing to avoid future non-payments.
Registration on this frelancers platform is free for all users, both freelancers and clients. When creating an account as a freelancer, you can build a portfolio, upload your resume, and gain access to all projects published by clients to choose the one that best suits you.
Posting new projects is free. These projects will be available for 30 days during which you can receive proposals and select the one that suits you best. Client payments are received through PayPal or AirTM.
The free account, or “Scout account,” allows you to apply to one project per day, and the commission applied to paid projects will be 20%. If you want to reduce that commission to 10% and gain advantages such as unlimited portfolio, increased visibility in searches, greater visibility in your applications to offers, the ability to attach files to your offers, etc., you can do so by subscribing to the “Elite account” for $7.99 per month.
This platform is only available in Spain and some latinoamerican countries such as Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, and Chile.
Toptal is one of the most exclusive freelancer networks in this ranking; after all, its name comes from the merger of the words “top talent.” It focuses on quality rather than quantity, offering access to the best freelancers (software developers, designers, finance experts, product managers, and project managers) which is why they only accept 3% or fewer of all registration requests they receive.
To register on the platform, one must go through a thorough and rigorous registration and skills validation process, which can take 2 to 5 weeks, all to ensure that only the best freelance professionals are admitted.
It is no surprise that some of the people who work as a freelancer via Toptal have experience with some of the world’s most valuable companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, etc., have been founders of successful startups, or are renowned authors and researchers.
The prices paid per project completed are generally much higher than those on other platforms precisely because of the profile of the participating freelancers and companies.
It is one of the most well-known freelancer platforms with around 12 million registered users, offering and hiring all kinds of services. Development, IT, design, creativity, sales, marketing, writing, translation, administration, customer service, accounting, or finance, among many others.
The prices and quality of the work performed are generally higher than those on other platforms like Fiverr. This is because to join, you must get your profile approved, favoring agencies and experienced professionals during registration.
As a freelancer, you will pay a service fee of 10% on the income you generate from all your contracts with a client, whether they are hourly, fixed-price, or a project from the Project Catalog. You can choose to be paid via direct deposit, PayPal, Payoneer, and bank transfer, among other options.
If you have created a direct contract with a client who does not have an Upwork account but pays you through Upwork, you will pay a processing fee of 3.4%, but you will not have to pay any service fees.
You can also opt for the Freelancer Plus membership, for $20 per month, which offers additional services such as: promoting your work, seeing your competitors’ bids to gain a winning advantage, accessing an AI application that helps you start and complete your work faster.
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Source: These are the best platforms to work as a freelancer
