Best Places to Find Freelance Work Online

Upwork is one of the largest freelance marketplaces around, with freelancers bringing in over $2 billion in revenue in 2020 alone. Upwork started in 2015 as the merger between freelance marketplaces Elance and O-Desk. With millions of freelancers and clients on the website, Upwork is the largest freelance marketplace in the world.

Upwork has freelance jobs for almost every industry, including finance, IT, design and creative, sales and marketing, writing, translation services, and more. Upwork works with some of the top companies in the world including Microsoft, Airbnb, and GoDaddy.

Upwork offers many types of jobs such as one-time, fixed-payment projects, hourly projects, and ongoing engagements. Billing and payments are handled on your Upwork dashboard, making it easy to get paid. Upwork also offers payment protection, with hours logged in your dashboard for hourly work, and fixed-fee jobs paid within 14 days if the client does not approve or request an update on work submitted.

To get started with Upwork, you'll sign up for a free account, fill out your profile, upload a resume and some samples of your work, and start browsing for jobs. You can quickly apply for jobs within the platform and track them through your dashboard.

Upwork makes it easy to find work but it may be difficult for beginners to land their first gig. With a large number of freelancers competing, standing out may be a challenge, especially if you don’t have prior experience and are still building out your portfolio.

Upwork charges hefty fees especially when you haven't worked a lot for the client in question. The fees are taken directly from the money earned and are based on lifetime earnings from the particular client:

• $0–$500: 20%
• $500.01–$10,000: 10%
• $10,000.01 or more: 5%

Despite the higher fees, Upwork makes it easy to get started and has a huge selection of jobs to choose from. It’s the one-stop-shop of freelance jobs sites, with access to almost every type of freelance gig imaginable.

99designs is a competition-based freelance design marketplace where clients create an online design contest, allowing freelance designers to submit a design for review. Submissions are reviewed by the 99designs client who is holding the design contest, and after the contest has ended, the client picks a winner and awards the designer with payment for the design. 99designs offers 1:1 client design work as well, matching clients with more complex projects with designers.

99designs is best-suited for graphic and web designers that have experience building websites, logos, clothing, and other marketing designs. Contest-based designs are a quick way to compete for a job, but may not get you paid. 

Working 1:1 with a client guarantees payment, but may come with a few hefty fees, specifically a client introductory fee of up to $100 and up to a 15% platform fee taken from your project revenue. Fees are taken directly from the revenue earned and are based on your design tier on a sliding scale:

• Entry: 15% platform fee
• Mid: 10% platform fee
• Top: 5% platform fee

99designs offers payment protection by collecting payment for any projects before the contest or 1:1 work has started. The payments are held in escrow and funds are released to the designer after project work is completed. If the client becomes unresponsive after work is complete, the designer can request payment, and will automatically receive project funds after a five-day waiting period if the client does not respond.

Billing and payments are handled on your 99designs dashboard, but payments are only available through PayPal and Payoneer. These platforms will take additional fees from your earnings.

To get started with 99designs, you can sign up for a free designer account, fill out your profile, upload a resume and some samples of your work, and start browsing for jobs. You can choose to enter a design contest or look for 1:1 client work as well.

Flexjobs is an online job board for remote workers with a steady stream of freelance IT work available in multiple industries. Founded in 2007 to help workers find better work-from-home jobs, it has grown into one of the top marketplaces for remote work.

FlexJobs offers access to traditional full-time jobs but with a few clicks, you can quickly filter to search only for freelance jobs. While FlexJobs covers a huge variety of job categories (including finance, design, writing, and more), it has several hundred job listings specifically for freelance work in computer and IT jobs. FlexJobs prides itself on its vetting process, only listing highly-qualified jobs to avoid low-paying gigs and scams. In fact, FlexJobs spends over 200 hours a day vetting jobs, researching companies, and ensuring that scammy jobs do not show up in its listings.

FlexJobs is more of a job search website than a freelance marketplace platform so the cost to users is structured differently. Instead of charging a per-job fee like most freelance marketplaces, FlexJobs charges a subscription fee for access to job listings. The subscription options are as follows:

• One-week trial: $9.95
• One month: $24.95
• Three months: $39.95
• One year: $59.95

Since FlexJobs does not manage the freelance job for you, payment details are all negotiated directly with the client, including the total amount to be paid and payment method.

If you are an IT professional looking for freelance remote work, you can sign up for a FlexJobs account and begin building your profile and applying for jobs right away.

Freelance Writing Gigs started as a blog for writer Deb Ng and expanded to include a writing job board. Job posters pay a fee to list their jobs, but freelance writers can browse and apply to the jobs for free. Writing gigs include blogging, copywriting, editing, and other writing tasks.

Freelance Writing Gigs vets the jobs posted and keeps the quality of the listings high by requiring jobs to meet certain criteria. However, this means there are very few to select from. There will generally be fewer jobs here than the other sites on our list. They also have a daily list of curated jobs to help you find the best new options. The website includes helpful content about building a freelance writing career, including how to land jobs, build a portfolio, and raise your rates.

Since Freelance Writing Jobs does not manage the freelance job for you, payment details are all negotiated directly with the client including the total amount to be paid and payment method.

Craigslist was founded in 1995 and has grown into one of the largest online marketplaces in the world. While many know it for buying and selling items, Craigslist has a large job board where users can find remote work and freelance jobs. There are no fees to browse Craigslist for jobs and apply for them.

Craigslist is available in over 70 countries and has jobs posted in over 30 industries. As one of the most visited websites in the U.S, Craigslist boasts high visibility for job postings. Craigslist is designed to show users hyper-local job listings and freelancers can quickly browse a large range of freelance jobs in their local area.

Craigslist charges clients to post job ads but does not charge anything for browsing. However, job postings are not well-vetted, and Craigslist is known for scams so make sure you do your research before agreeing to work with a client or sending any personal information.

Craigslist does not require any kind of membership. Remember, Craigslist is hyper-local and will automatically show you jobs in your area. If you want to cast a wider net for remote work, you will need to browse other cities for freelance remote work.

Fiverr was founded in 2010 as a place for freelancers to sell their services for as little as $5. It has grown into a huge online marketplace that boasts over 50 million transactions, with a job bought every four seconds.

Fiverr is a great platform for beginners to build a portfolio of work. Signing up is simple, and freelancers can quickly build a profile and add portfolio work to impress future clients. You can post your “gigs,” which are the services you offer, with several price points for each. Fiverr also boasts the ability to create service packages, bundling your individual services together for a higher price point, increasing your revenue potential. 

Fiverr handles all payments but takes a sizable 20% cut of all your earnings. This is on the higher side of freelance platforms, but for beginners, it may be worth it for the visibility that Fiverr offers. Fiverr also offers basic payment protection, refunding any payments that were subjected to chargeback fraud.

To get started with Fiverr, you can sign up for a free account, fill out your profile, upload a resume, and provide some work samples. You can then put together a list of gigs for clients to choose from and start booking freelance work.