As a business owner, there is only so much you can get done with the time you have. At some point, you need to bring more hands on deck.
With an ever-growing number of challenges and operations to cover, finding time to do it all can seem like an uphill struggle.
Fortunately, we live in the age of the gig economy and freelance work. “Gig economy” refers to hiring outsourced workers on an hourly or short-term basis. Around 36% of US workers are now involved in the gig economy alone. What was once exclusive to the likes of Uber, Lyft, and AirBnB now extends to talent—freelancers for hire—experts with niche skill sets that can help you push your business to the next level.
Freelancers are productive, highly-skilled ‘hired guns’ that you can tap into as and when you need them. By choosing the right talent for your various projects or initiatives, you will earn an excellent return on investment (ROI) without having the financial burden of maintaining a large team of full-time employees.
But, where do you find quality freelance talent? Through freelance talent platforms, of course!
As mentioned, we’re living in the age of the gig economy—a time where you can login to a freelance talent platform and connect with a wealth of professionals for all of your business-boosting needs.
Here we’re going to tell you how to choose the right freelance talent for your business while reviewing six of today’s most essential freelancer talent platforms.
Contents
How to choose the right freelancer for your business
There are plenty of avenues you can explore when choosing a freelancer for a specific job, campaign or project.
Whether you’re looking for a content writer, a graphic designer, web developer, SEO expert, social media specialist—or anything else for that matter—the platform you’re using should help you connect with relevant talent using minimal effort.
You should be able to search for what you’re looking for with ease while applying effective filters that allow you to create a shortlist of potential candidates.
When you’re looking at potential freelancers for a specific job or project, here are some key things to consider:
- Consider the skills and attributes you need to tackle the task at hand with success.
- Set a deadline and a budget to give you direction and guidance when vetting potential candidates.
- Look at your potential freelancers’ stats, reviews, and level of experience to give you the greatest chance of hiring success.
- Use a platform that offers a solid pool of freelance talent for the task or project (e.g. writers, graphic designers, technical developers, etc.)
Upwork review
Upwork is the world’s biggest freelance talent platform, offering a marketplace with access to digital talent in just about every field imaginable. With an intuitive interface, a secure payment & invoicing system, and an ever-growing pool of well-priced talent to choose from, Upwork is popular with business clients across industries.
Features
The platform offers a range of reporting & tracking features to help you keep on top of your projects’ progress in addition to a simple messaging system for staying in touch with your hires and sharing briefs, documents or information. You can also create tasks, raise project milestones, and make invoicing payments through one secure and simple in-built system.
Pros
- Extensive pool of freelance talent
- Great for finding and screening freelancers
- Easy to manage multiple projects at once
- Excellent support, communication & payment features
Cons
- The mobile app can be sluggish or unreliable at times
- Upwork takes a 10% commission fee which can prove costly for larger projects
- It’s not possible to share folders directly though the platform, only single files
Upwork pricing
Upwork recommendation
If you’re looking to build long-lasting relationships with high-quality freelancers and recruit specialists in a broad range of areas, Upwork is a solid choice. Upwork’s free plan offers a wealth of amenable features for finding and vetting potential freelancers but those 10% commission fees can prove costly if you don’t have a healthy budget.
Fiverr review
Fiverr is a thriving freelance marketplace trusted by notable business clients including Unilever, L’Oreal, and ByteDance. Its streamlined freelance sourcing process and ‘value for money’ talent pool have driven the platform’s recent success in fields including photography, graphic design, copywriting, web design, and user testing.
Fiverr’s features
The platform’s interface is equipped with functionality that makes setting up a gig and finding freelancers swift and simple. Fiverr’s main features include multi-currency support, secure payment gateways, a private candidate communication platform, and a curated freelance talent catalog creation tool.
Pros
- A free one-year platform trial (or ‘first year off)
- Attractive & easy to use interface
- Affordable access to a wealth of freelance talent
Cons
- An enormous pool of freelancers can make the selection process quite long
- Scammers have been known to operate on Fiverr, so you must be careful when screening candidates
- Sometimes freelancers can oversell themselves on Fiverr
Fiverr pricing
Fiverr recommendation
If you’re a budding online business owner that is new to the world of freelance recruitment, Fiverr is an excellent platform to ‘dip your toes in’ and find talent for your first ever outsourced project. The platform is easy to navigate and many freelancers on Fiverr are affordable for newer businesses with a slightly smaller budget.
Toptal review
Toptal is a slick freelance talent matching platform with stringent freelance acceptance criteria. The platform feels exclusive and advertises the fact that it offers excellent pairings with the top 3% of talent in the fields of software development, design, finance, management consultancy.
Toptal features
The platform’s project dashboarding features provides a detailed data-driven overview of project success rates, candidate stats, and job description information. Toptal also offers seamless customer support tools, an interactive project management calendar, and autonomous candidate matching functionality.
Pros
- Access to a tight-knit pool of very skilled freelancers
- Swift project turnaround times
- A detailed UI and an attractive, seamless interface
- Flexible invoicing
Cons
- Doesn’t cover as many niches as other freelance platforms
- With a deposit of $500 to invest and high hourly fees, Toptal can prove costly upfront
Toptal pricing
Toptal recommendation
If you have a healthy budget and you’re looking for freelancers with incredibly niche skills in the fields of software development, management consultancy, finance or design, Toptal will offer a wealth of business-boosting rewards. Toptal is particularly valuable for business owners looking to make freelancers ongoing extensions of their existing team.
Freelancer.com Review
Freelancer.com is an online talent platform founded in Australia in 2009. As one of the world’s largest, and original, freelance talent marketplaces, Freelancer.com has a long standing track record—and as such, it’s been used by the likes of Amazon, NASA, Facebook, and IBM.
Freelancer.com features
While the platform used to be somewhat limited, a fairly recent site overhaul has streamlined its job creation processes significantly. Now you can type in a few details about your proposed project, upload a supporting file, and post a project or create a freelancer contest with ease. Other notable features include live chat support and dynamic job progress tracker tools.
Pros
- You can create jobs and connect with freelancers within minutes
- It’s possible vet and screen freelancers with competency tests
- The platform has a host of excellent communication and support options
Cons
- The mobile app sometimes experiences lag and can be unreliable
- Some aspects of the interface are a little confusing or complicated
- Doesn’t offer a dedicated mobile app
Freelancer.com pricing
Freelancer.com recommendation
If you’re a business owner juggling multiple hats and you’re looking for swift access to a pool of generally solid and reliable freelancer talent (typically at short notice), Freelancer.com’s cost-effective corporate membership is a worthwhile investment.
Behance Review
Behance is a forward-thinking creative talent platform from Adobe. It gives skilled visual freelancers in UX design, graphic design, photography, art, and illustration, an intuitive outlet for showcasing their best work. The platform also offers business owners the chance to discover potential talent for their visual or design-related projects.
Behance’s features
The Behance platform is equipped with a visually-striking grid-style creative display as well as profile discovery tools that help business owners connect with the right talent for their forthcoming projects. Behance’s simple job spec creation board is flexible and allows advertisers to share both short-term and long term opportunities that freelancers can apply for—a traditional recruitment model in modern casing.
Pros
- Effective talent recruitment and screening tools
- A engaging visual format and interface
- Access to a wealth of exceptional visual and design talent
Cons
- Some aspects of the platform are a little complicated and difficult to navigate
- The recruitment process isn’t as streamlined as similar talent platforms
- High price points
Behance pricing
Behance recommendation
If you’re on the lookout for hired guns with incredibly specialist and innovative visual talent for your business’s branding, landing pages, marketing campaign assets or mobile app, you will find some of the very best talent here. For businesses looking for a lot of visual collaborations, Behance will offer a solid return on investment.
99designs Review
99designs is a Melbourne-based graphic-design dedicated graphic design freelancer platform from Vistaprint. The platform’s global community of screened graphic design experts are equipped to deliver a range of bespoke graphic design services for business across industries.
99designs features
As a leading graphic design-based freelance talent platform, the website’s look and feel is how you might expect—seamless. 99designs’ ‘create a brief, connect & collaborate’ model makes it easy to set out your project requirements and connect with the best talent within a matter of hours. Additional features include access to professional design consultants and a library of graphics-based tutorial content.
Pros
- Excellent results and design quality
- Quick project turnaround times
- Money-back guarantee
Cons
- High price points and large freelancer fees
- Limited in scope if you need a variety of different projects covered
99designs pricing
99designs recommendation
If you’re looking to refine your branding or invest in a striking design for a major marketing campaign, 99designs is worth the high price points. The platform is also effective for established businesses looking for a consistent stream of high-quality graphic work.