5 Best Websites to Hire Freelancers for 2023

Registering on Upwork as an employer is free, and you pay freelancers based on rates you negotiate when you post a job. Once a job is completed, Upwork charges business clients a 5% transaction fee on each invoice. This is higher than Freelancer.com but includes advanced tools that previously required a monthly subscription. If you are in the US and use a valid checking account, the rate decreases to 3%.

For larger businesses wanting to manage a regular freelance workforce, Upwork Enterprise offers dedicated hiring support, a company-specific pool of freelancers, compliance support, program managers, and even the option to use Upwork Payroll. Contact Upwork for pricing.

You have three ways to find talent in Upwork. (Source: Upwork)

• Job Management Tools: Upwork excels in its behind-the-scenes tools, which include multiple payment methods, advanced reporting, coworker permissions, and even activity codes for tracking multiple freelancers and projects.
• Payroll and Employer of Record (EoR): For additional fees, you can let Upwork handle payroll and even act as EoR. None of the others on our list offer this, although Giggrabbers has Enterprise-level plans for specific tools, where it works with the freelancers and promises deliverables.
• Talent Sourcing: Upwork Talent Sourcing can pick vetted professionals for your job—individuals with 10+ years of work history and great reviews. Upwork interviews them via video to ensure they’re a good fit for your project. This saves you time and avoids your having to deal with inexperienced or misleading freelancers who might bid on your project. Others may offer this, but Upwork is the only one that does it for free.
• Escrow Account: Like with most freelance hiring websites, your funds are held in an escrow account. However, Upwork lets you set milestones and release funds as each is met. For example, if you hire someone to build your website for $2,000, you may pay 25%, or $500, once they set up the server and domain name. Then perhaps you’d release another 25% of the payment after the logo and theme are uploaded and visible on your website.
• Mobile App: Upwork provides a free mobile app that lets you stay in touch with your freelancer using text chat or video. In addition, you’ll be able to send/receive documents in a secure environment. For convenience, freelance contractors can use the mobile app to track their time with Upwork’s Work Diary. They can also use the mobile app to document milestone completion for your approval.
• Live Customer Support: Upwork has the best customer service out of the top freelance websites we reviewed. Unlike the others on our list, its support team can be contacted 24/7 by phone, live chat, and email. In fact, it is the only freelance website reviewed that publishes its customer service phone number online. In addition, Upwork has a robust online community with advice and tips from other users.
• Dispute Resolution: Upwork prefers to be contacted via email “ticket” for dispute resolution. On Upwork, disputes are handled in two ways based on how your work is set up:
  • For hourly work: You can dispute the hours worked but not the quality of the work; however, you can terminate the contract if their work isn’t satisfactory.
  • For fixed-price projects: You can only dispute money in the escrow account for project milestones that have not yet been approved.

Upwork earns top marks as a website for hiring freelancers. Users like how easy it is to connect and communicate with freelancers, as well as the built-in tools that help them track time worked and project milestones. As a bonus, Upwork manages gig workers’ 1099 tax forms, so you don’t have to.

One of the site’s biggest complaints is the number of unvetted freelancers, making it difficult to ensure candidates are qualified to perform the job. Additionally, although Upwork is the only site on our list that offers 24/7 live phone support, users have encountered slow response times, poor customer service, and an inability to handle complex issues.

It’s free to post a job on Freelancer.com. In addition to paying the worker your negotiated rate, it charges 3% or $3 per project, whichever is greater. Hourly projects are charged 3%.

Like Upwork, you can hire a recruiter who will vet your project and recommend freelancers. Freelancer.com charges $11.99 for this service. Besides that, it offers the most pay-for options of those on our list. Like many, you can feature your job for $9.99—but you can also keep your project confidential for $21.99 (meaning it won’t be visible to website search engines). It lets you give freelancers skills tests ($5–$15) and offers non-disclosure agreements at $21.99. If you find a full-time freelancer through Freelancer.com, there’s an additional $229.99. You can find all of its rates by checking out its fees page.

Freelancer.com can take on full administration of your project through its Technical Co-pilot(TM) program. For an additional $35 per hour, a project manager oversees your idea from design to completion, from hiring to final approval.

Freelancer.com lets you hire based on a project or find a qualified freelancer manually. (Source: Freelancer.com)

• Hiring Options: Freelancer.com features three kinds of gig-worker hiring options: 1) Projects, such as building a website or translating a document; 2) Contests, like creating a logo or designing graphics for a package label, which allow you to see how a freelancer completes a small assignment before you commit to hiring them for a larger assignment; and 3) Local Jobs, like handing out flyers, running local errands, or deliveries.
• Freelancer Tests: In addition to the standard evaluation features found on most freelance hiring websites, Freelancer.com allows you to test your prospective freelancers before hiring them. This is a great way to make sure their skills match their bids and profiles.
• Milestone Payments: Freelancer.com offers an escrow service called Milestone Payments. Similar to Upwork and Fiverr, it holds client funds until either a service/project is done or a dispute resolution has been decided. However, unlike Fiverr, you can pay out in installments as milestones are reached.
• Time Tracker: If you pay your freelancer hourly, there is a built-in time-tracking tool so you can monitor hours and pay accordingly. If you set up a weekly billing cycle, Freelancer.com will automatically pay the correct amount each week.
• Mobile App: Like Upwork, Freelancer.com has mobile apps for iOS and Android that can be used to organize projects and communicate with your contract worker via text chat.
• Live Customer Support: Freelancer.com offers 24/7 live chat and email support and provides online support with step-by-step guides, which are categorized into easy-to-find topics like “payments” or “contests.” However, it has no phone support, whereas, with Upwork, you can contact support live via phone, chat, and email.

Freelancer.com attracts polarized reviews—people love or hate the platform. Those that recommend it cite excellent customer service and ease of use. Meanwhile, those that dislike it say they were scammed, and that Freelancer.com locked their accounts so they could not get the money they earned or the money they were refunded. On Trustpilot, Freelancer.com responded to negative reviews with promises to investigate.

With $5 projects, called “gigs,” Fiverr has the lowest entry point of all the freelance websites. However, you can hire for a large project like website development, for as much as $15,000. Fiverr Business freelancers are usually more expensive. Similar to Upwork, freelancer hourly rates are posted and often negotiable.

In addition, you pay a 5.5% client fee, which is nearly double of that charged by Upwork. On top of that, if you order $50 or less of work, the fee is an additional fee of $2. So expect to pay at least $7.28 for that $5 project.

Fiverr has a huge variety of gigs and extensive tools to find exactly what you need. (Source: Fiverr)

• Job Variety: Almost any kind of service you want can be found on Fiverr, from software programming to pranks. No other site offers such variety. On the business side, you can find almost anything you might need, be it website design, photography, voiceovers, data entry, and more.
• Advanced Search Features: Its interface makes it easy to find someone who can do the work you need at your price point. Fiverr uses an eBay-style rating system, which includes a numeric and star rating of each freelancer along with the number of clients they’ve served. Simply search for the kind of work you want done and then view the list of freelancers who claim to have expertise in that area.
• Project Tracking: Fiverr offers business tools that let you track your freelancers, manage active orders, view completed projects, and manage your billing preferences. Like Upwork, this makes tracking your projects easy.
• Escrow Account: Fiverr has an escrow account option, like the other freelance websites. Once a buyer makes a payment (which can be done using PayPal), the money goes into an escrow account until work is completed. On Fiverr, orders must be paid for in advance.
• Mobile App: Like Upwork and Freelancer, you can get the Fiverr mobile app for iOS and Android to help you stay in touch with your freelance worker using messaging tools.
• Customer Support and Dispute Resolution: Fiverr offers support through its user forum and via a request from its website. While this service is available 24/7, it is much slower than Upwork and Freelancer, which offer live support. Fiverr handles disputes as cancellation requests, which can be done if a project is late or if it is unsatisfactory. You get a refund to your Fiverr account and the opportunity to hire someone else.

Fiverr earns solid reviews on third-party websites such as Capterra. Most praise the ease of use and variety of services but warn against scammers in the Marketplace. For vetted freelancers, use Fiverr Business.

Toptal was the worst for finding pricing. While it mentions the $500 deposit and a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with your freelancer, it does not mention its own processing fees. In fact, other third-party reviews contradicted each other on how Toptal charged, with some saying there are no fees and others stating that the fees are handled by the freelancer.

Toptal’s help section denies taking anything from freelancers and says it charges a $0 recruiting fee. However, Toptal has to make money somewhere. You can assume that it does charge a processing fee and simply adds it to the freelancer fee. It may be a percentage of their rates, but it may also have another means of measurement, like the length of the contract. Be sure to talk with your talent representative when looking to hire.

Toptal leads you through a questionnaire to determine your needs and match you to a freelancer. (Source: Toptal)

• Highly vetted freelancers: Toptal has an in-depth screening process that considers language skills and personality, technical know-how, problem-solving, experience, and creativity. They are then given test projects that take one-to-three weeks to ensure they have real-world capabilities. As a result, only the top 3% of candidates make it to Toptal’s freelance pool.
• High-level professionals: Unlike Fiverr, which has people willing to do everything from web design to singing telegrams, Toptal focuses on high-level professionals in their field. You can find engineers, designers, finance experts—including freelance CFOs—project managers, and more.
• AI-matching, plus in-person talent scouting: While all the others on our list start with project posting or manual talent search, Toptal does the searching for you. You begin with an in-depth questionnaire about your company and general expectations for your freelancer. Toptal then finds you talent. After that, you register and speak with a Toptal talent scout to find the best match. It generally finds you a match within 24 hours.
• Money-back guarantee: Unlike others that hold your money in escrow, Toptal starts with a $500 deposit. If, after a two-week trial period, you are not satisfied with your freelancer, you can get a refund or choose a different one. You can even keep the work completed during the trial.
• International reach, fluent English: Toptal has qualified freelancers in over 100 countries, allowing you to find talent where you need it or take advantage of remote talent. However, all Toptal freelancers are vetted for their ability to speak English, including through personal interviews.
• Mobile app: While Toptal has a mobile app, it’s for its freelancers rather than clients.
• In-office help: In addition to having access to local or remote talent, Toptal freelancers are often willing to relocate for the duration of the contract. Toptal says they can get a freelancer to your office in less than a week.

Toptal was the only website for hiring freelancers on our list that earned a perfect score for popularity. Its average user review score was 4.79 out of 5—compare this to the next highest, Freelancer.com, which was 4.4 out of 5. Clients praised Toptal for its speed, ease of use, and quality of freelancer. Many freelancers were called out by name for their excellent work. The primary complaint was that the service is expensive.

Giggrabbers is free to you as the employer since the freelancer is the one who has to pay to use the service (there is a 9.5% service fee for freelancers). In addition, you can get a project boost for $4.99 that optimizes your ad, sends personal invites to some of Giggrabbers’ favorite freelancers, and comes with a money-back guarantee.

If you would like to outsource some of your marketing work and don’t want to deal with working with individual freelancers, Giggrabbers has several Enterprise-level plans to handle the majority of the work for you, from finding freelancers to delivering finished works:

• Bronze ($1,999/month): Three freelancers to provide five designs for brochures, ads, and marketing; SEO optimization; social media plans and execution, daily content creation, ad management
• Silver ($2,499/month): Four freelancers to provide everything in Bronze plus five research-based blogs on topics of your choice
• Gold ($2,999/month): Five freelancers to provide everything in Silver plus four photoshoots per year with editing and retouching
• Platinum ($3,499/month): Seven freelancers to provide everything in Gold plus one video project per year and one website design and monthly post-development support during active billing months.

Giggrabbers lets you create crowdfunding campaigns for your projects. (Source: Giggrabbers)

• Crowdfunding: Only Giggrabbers offer the opportunity to set up crowdfunding right within the project. Once you create a project, it leads you through a crowdfunding campaign you can set up and then share with friends, family, and fans via social media. This funding is only for paying freelancers on the platform, however.
• Hiring Options: On Giggrabbers, like most of the other sites, you post a job and then sort through the qualified freelancers. It also offers a contest option, but it’s limited only to web design contests, whereas Freelancer.com’s contests can be for any kind of work product or deliverable.
• Project Management Tools: While most of the websites have a project tracking option to view individual project stages and key dates, Giggrabbers adds a project management tool that gives you a visual look at all your projects at once.
• Enterprise Plans: Unlike others on our list, Giggrabbers offers project-based enterprise solutions that focus primarily on marketing and SEO optimization. Depending on the plan, you get marketing material design, social media posting, SEO optimization, photos, videos, and website design. It includes three to seven freelancers.
• Dispute Resolution: It provides a dispute center through which you can submit a dispute with details directly from the website. The procedure is typical of freelance sites and takes five to seven business days for resolution.

Giggrabbers does not have many reviews, and those we found were from 2021 and earlier. If these reviews are still accurate, you can expect to find a freelancer with ease, but need to be careful about deposits, as Giggrabbers can make it difficult to get refunds.