Upwork is one of the online platforms where you can get jobs as a freelancer, in fact it is one of the top choices for getting freelance jobs done. However, recent development has been it a bit challenging to earn from the platform.

Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel announced plans to charge the platform’s 14 million freelance users to bid on — or in Upwork lingo, “Connect” with — projects and jobs. Freelance membership fees will also increase.

By the end of Summer 2019, freelancers had to buy “Connects” to express interest in job listings. Connects must be purchased in batches of 10 or more, and each one costs 15 cents.

The business that creates the job listing determines how many Connects it costs freelancers to apply, ranging from one to six — or in other words 15 cents to 90 cents.

Using Connects on any given listing is no guarantee of getting the job or project. This feature only shows the business that you’re interested. Connects also expire at the end of the month and must be repurchased, again, in batches of at least 10.

Additionally, Freelance Plus monthly memberships, which include 70 Connects, increased 50%, from $10 a month to $15. Upwork did not announce the membership price increase in the email from Kasriel, and did not respond to a request for comment from The Penny Hoarder.

Upwork also charges freelancers a 20% service fee for all completed projects. These fees are not affected.

All of it adds to the mountain of expenses freelancers already face, including steep quarterly tax considerations and a lack of benefits. The added costs to apply to Upwork gigs, plus the platform’s 20% cut off the top have some freelancers searching for alternatives.

But how did freelancers respond to this announcement and increase in Upwork fees?

Following the announcement, Upwork freelancers took to Facebook advice groups to discuss the fee changes. And, generally speaking, they’re not happy.

Kayleigh Fossett, an administrative assistant based out of Lakeland, Florida, is new to Upwork and freelancing. She’s discouraged by the changes.

“I feel like I haven’t even got my foot in the door, and there’s already another obstacle,” she says.

So far, Fossett has completed three jobs on Upwork. Getting those three jobs took her 22 proposals or 44 Connects. Under the announced changes, it would cost Fossett  $6.60 to land those projects.

“Plus, they take the additional 20% when you do complete a job,” she says. “It is not worth it. I will be looking elsewhere for work.”

Some proponents of the changes argue that the additional costs to apply to gigs will lessen the competition.

Freelance platforms like Upwork make it easier for freelancers to find clients. And that’s a big pain point for most new freelancers, says Laura Poole, a North Carolina-based freelance business owner.

Poole is a non-fiction editor with more than two decades of full-time freelance experience. She trains other freelancers to “be bold and make your own opportunities” at conferences and workshops across the nation.

“[Upwork] should be a launch point,” Poole says. “But you don’t have to be locked into it forever.”

This challenges has made it necessary for freelancer to look for alternative to help them get jobs. We will now look at some of these options.

• Which Freelancing Site Are Alternatives to Upwork?
• What is The Easiest Freelance Job?

Which Freelancing Site Are Alternatives to Upwork?

Freelancing is a big part of the US economy with a total income of nearly $1 trillion. This amounts to 4.8% of the total GDP of the country, making it on par with major industries.

It pulls numbers similar to mining (1.6%) and transportation and warehousing (3.2%) combined. Additionally, it just trails the percentage of information industry’s GDP contribution by only 0.7 percentage points (5.5%).

Read Also: Make Money Online With Freelance Article Writing

Also, the number of freelancers is rising. among the ranks of the US labor force. Today, we have about 57 million freelancers in America, 4 million stronger than in 2014.

These numbers seem to be set to increase further considering that younger generations appear to be more inclined to take freelancing jobs than older generations. Only 29% of boomers and 31% of Gen X take on freelance work, while freelancing is the norm for 40% of Millennials and 53% of Gen Z. 

Additionally, experts predict that the number of mobile employees will increase by 50% in 2021. Should this trend continue to increase, we should be able to see freelance jobs going more mainstream. Not surprisingly, we see more freelance platforms rolling out unabated.

If you haven’t explored the possibility of using such a system, now would be a good time to start doing so as the stats favor freelance work. In any case, getting off on the right foot means using any or some of these top freelance websites.

1. Hubstaff Talent

Hubstaff Talent connects freelance professionals and clients with efficiency and finesse.

This free platform displays a freelancer’s hourly rate, skills, experience, availability, résumé, and languages spoken. Freelancers also have the option to add a short description to provide more information on themselves. Profiles can be filtered by skill, availability, years of experience, or country. You can also run a search for keywords or phrases.

In order for business owners to find freelancers and agencies, they simply have to browse the profiles on Hubstaff Talent, contact their chosen freelancers directly, decide on work terms, and get started.

Agencies can start a profile and add team members in order to be found by business owners. Freelancers only need to start a profile, get found, contacted, and then hit the ground running.

Here’s what makes Hubstaff Talent different as an Upwork competitor.

• It’s a free directory for companies looking for remote talent across the globe.
• There are no markups and no fees on either side (freelancer or business owner). That means freelancers get exactly what their client pays them.
• Because there are no fees, Hubstaff Talent takes a very small role in the pairing and agreements client and talent work out.
• There are no fees levied on projects or hourly work.
• Employers are free to reach out to freelancers, interview them and hire them at no charge.
• To complement the free directory, Hubstaff’s project management software, Hubstaff Tasks can be used for an additional monthly fee.
• You can also add Hubstaff time tracking software, which comes with invoicing and payroll options via PayPal, Bitwage and Payoneer
• Hubstaff plans start at $5 for a single user per month.

Hubstaff Talent is the best of the Upwork alternatives. Because we built it to the best of the Upwork alternatives. And, like we said, it’s totally free to get started.

2. Fiverr

Fiverr bills itself as the world’s largest online marketplace for freelance services on demand. They originally offered $5 services. However, that has since changed. You can find just about any kind of service you want for five bucks and more,, including folks who will design a t-shirt, prank call someone, beatbox your name, and lots of other wild services.

What makes it different from Upwork?

• You have the option to post a project or browse through gig offers to find something that fits your requirements.
• Fiverr is best used for specific gigs with predetermined outcomes.
• High rated sellers and Pro-level providers charge way more than just $5. Expect to get what you pay for.
• Creating an account is free and you can communicate with the freelancer prior to placing an order with them to ensure outcomes will be delivered in the manner and time frame you need.
• Fiverr is better suited for people who want a gig completed quickly and within a small budget.
• Like we mentioned above, it covers a wide range of services and is less focused than other platforms.

As you might suspect, Fiverr isn’t as likely to yield a high-quality outcome for you or your business compared to competitors. Buyers’ options are limited, and most of the power is in the seller’s hands. If you’re looking to accomplish a quick, clear-cut job that you know is easy to hand off, it might be worth looking at Fiverr.

Of the sites like Upwork, this one is more unique. Though it is an Upwork competitor, it has a very different business model, and it’s good for different types of projects you would not normally use Upwork for.

3. Freelancer

With more than 9 million projects posted and more than 17 million users, Freelancer is a massive and constantly growing Upwork alternative that offers similar benefits without all the downfalls.

For employers and small businesses, signing up and getting started on Freelancer is quick and easy. You post a project to get started, filling out project details, skills you want applicants to have, pricing options, and project files for applicants to peruse.

Alternatively, employers can reach out directly to a freelancer they find attractive for the job.

Once you submit your job, freelancers will bid on your project. You can review their portfolios, history of work, qualifications, and other details.

While Freelancer offers time tracking tools, they’re not free, and your freelancer is incentivized to bill as many hours as possible if your project is being paid by the hour. Once the project is completed, businesses have the option to rate and review their freelancer.

Freelancer.com and Upwork are very similar in their offerings. The only major difference being pricing, access to tools for the subscription level and quality of the tools they provide.

Here are some key differences to note with this Upwork competitor.

• Pricing on Freelancer.com varies from $3 to 3% of the project cost, depending on which is greater. Upgrades can be purchased at an extra cost for things like priority, full-time work, NDA, etc. Compare this to Upwork’s base plan, which is charged at 2.75% of the project cost.
• Contests are another option on Freelancer.com. This allows you to get freelancers to apply for your contest while you get to pick the winner, who will ultimately be assigned the prize. While it is free to post a contest, you will need to provide funds equivalent to the contest prize. You can also add upgrades to extend the contest, assign priority, NDA etc. One big downside of hosting a contest is that many freelancers don’t enter because they don’t want to create spec work (where they don’t get paid). So, running a contest might not return the quality you’re looking for and may take more time than simply hiring one freelancer for your project.
• Don’t wish to manage your projects? You can consider adding a project manager to your project. However, fees will differ depending on the size of the project.

4. Outsourcely

Outsourcely was actually born from the limitations and costs of using platforms like Odesk, Elance, and Freelancer for many years. The main frustrations the founders of Outsourcely wanted to solve were the difficulty of finding reliable freelancers, high payment processing fees, and not being able to hire directly.

It is in solving these differences that Outsourcely stands out as an Upwork alternative. Here is how it is different.

• The talent on Outsourcely is by and large looking for long-term remote work opportunities.
• Outsourcely allows employers to interview and hire talent directly without any involvement from Outsourcely.
• Employers can pay talent directly without extra fees being levied.
• Prospective employers can interview and hire talent with real-time communication tools built into the platform, including real-time private chat, browser-to-browser video and voice calling, video and voice messaging, or direct email. This makes the hiring process much quicker and easier.
• Like Upwork, you can find a freelancer through a skills search or by posting a remote job.
• Employers have the option of managing their remote team via the Outsourcely Team Workplace platform, or even inviting their existing staff to Outsourcely in order to use a single management tool.

Employer plans start at $19 per month. This plan comes with limited contact options.

Outsourcely does offer the ability to create a free job post to get a taste of the platform. They also offer a 30-day money back guarantee if you think it is not a good fit.

5. Workhoppers

Workhoppers is the anti-thesis of  Upwork-type freelance sites and was designed for companies to find and hire professionals in their own city.

How is Workhopper different from Upwork?

• No commissions are paid. Just a monthly plan fee that is as low as $19 per month.
• Can find freelancers who work in your local area for full-time, part-time or contract roles.
• A matching algorithm provides a curated list of potential candidates, as opposed to having people apply or having to hunt them down.
• You save time by contacting candidates directly and immediately.
• You get to negotiate terms with the candidate, saving time and money.

With Workhoppers, there are no bidding or complicated processes to estimate the cost of a project.

Workhoppers believes in the advantages of working face-to-face, even if it’s just once a month over a coffee. Companies and “workhoppers” can communicate directly and agree together on the terms of the contract. It uses a powerful matching algorithm to highlight the most qualified freelancers. That means you don’t have to go through the sorting process.

Once the job is completed, businesses have the opportunity to review their freelancer. All companies and jobs are vetted before they can post on the site. The intent of the site is to encourage companies to hire and meet with freelancers in their community. This focus on long-term relationships is better for everyone.

The obvious downside of Workhoppers is that, depending on where you live, the cost of a local freelancer could be higher. Our 2017 Global Freelancing Trends survey showed that freelancers in places with higher costs of living charge more.

You can specify that you are seeking a freelancer in another city but, since there is no escrow payment processing, you need to establish trust. The site is a great option for projects that require meeting face-to-face.

6. PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour is similar to Upwork in that it also offers a trusted dynamic platform where you can post a job and have freelancers apply for it. However, it also offers popular requests at a fixed price. Freelancers get to define these requests, known as hourlies, and the price for it.

In what other ways does PeoplePerHour differ as an Upwork competitor?

• It is free to set up an account.
• There are no fees involved in hiring a freelancer but payment processing fees when using a credit/debit card or PayPal will be passed on to you.
• Posting a Job on PPH is free. If you want to feature your job listing there is a fee.
• You can browse “Hourlies,” which are fixed price offers which freelancers can start on immediately.
• Alternatively you could post a job and let freelancers in the PeoplePerHour community find you.
• Another way to get started is to search profiles of freelancers, and get in contact with them directly.
• The “WorkStream” in your PeoplePerHour account is a single dashboard that enables you to track activity, communicate, and manage payments.
• PeoplePerHour also offers buyer protection. In other words, it holds funds for the service you purchase in escrow until it has been delivered.

7. Freeeup

Freeeup was created by Nathan Hirsch out of the challenge of getting access to top talent quickly. Nathan initially started out vetting freelancers for eCommerce businesses like his, and then branched out into other skill sets as demand grew for the service.

How is Freeeup different from Upwork?

• First off, it is not a job board.
• The candidates available possess a wide variety of skill sets, not limited to one focus area.
• As part of building their talent pool, Freeeup vets candidates for you based on skills, attitude, and communication. They only allow the top 1% into the network.
• They offer one to three pre-vetted candidates that are handpicked for you based on your work request. Usually within 24 hours.
• In instances where candidates require specific knowledge or software expertise, Freeeup will recruit and interview for you outside of their marketplace at no cost to you.
• Once introductions to potential candidates have been made, you can communicate with them via email, Skype or phone.
• Freeeup handles payment for freelancers every week via credit card, PayPal retainer and ACH for U.S. clients.
• Freeeup also offers a no-turnover guarantee. So even if your freelancer quits for some reason, they cover all retraining, replacement costs and provide a new person right away.
• There are no sign-up fees or monthly fees. They make money off the difference in the hourly rate.

The ability to pay your freelancers directly, again, can save you thousands of dollars. All work by freelancers you hire is only undertaken after the number of hours has been approved.

When candidates are suggested, you are under no obligation to hire them and can instead provide feedback to Freeeup to help find candidates that would best suit your project or work requirements.

8. Textbroker

If you’re looking for high-quality freelance writing services, Textbroker could work for you. Like Fiverr, this site is an Upwork alternative, but it runs things differently.

Textbroker guarantees your work will be done, even if your writer gets sick, can’t complete the job, and even if they just decide not to. Basically, if you have a project, it will get done.

How does Textbroker compare as an alternative to Upwork? Here are a few differences.

• This site focuses purely on freelance writing services.
• You create an account and get to select your order type, quality level and set up instructions.
• You get access to 1000’s of writers from all over the world at different skill levels, as per their star rating.
• You can then deposit funds to place the order.
• You get to decide who writes the article and delivery dates.
• Alternatively, you can use the managed service option which starts at $2500, where a team handles the entire process for you.
• Textbroker’s API makes integration with your CRM or CMS easy.

Buyers post a request for content, and the site matches the request to one of its thousands of writers. Writers are categorized by skill level, and the pricing matches, so buyers chose what quality level they want from their writer and move forward. If the writer you chose is unable to complete your assignment, it’s automatically re-assigned, which is a neat feature.

The downside to Textbroker is that communication with your freelancer is limited. And, again, you get what you pay for, so if you chose a lower-quality content writer to complete your task, you’re likely to get low-quality work.

While the site does boast some high-quality writers, you may be better off forming more personable relationships with writers directly, especially since content is such a nebulous field with a lot of gray areas.

9. Credo

One of the biggest problems with freelance marketplaces is that you just have to trust a freelancer who says they’re good at what they do. You can check their portfolios, but that’s not always a great indication of the quality of their work. Credo aims to solve that issue by vetting all of their providers before listing them on the site.

Unlike many freelance marketplaces, Credo specializes in a very narrow field: SEO and marketing. When you land on the site, you can choose from a list of services you’re interested in including:

• SEO consulting (which include local SEO, travel SEO, real estate SEO, ecommerce SEO, lawyer SEO and international SEO)
• SEO site audits
• Content marketing
• Inbound marketing
• Link building
• Facebook ads
• PPC
• Paid social ads
• Online reputation management
• WordPress development

Once you’ve done that, you’ll see a list of providers that you can choose from. And because those providers have been closely vetted by the founder of Credo, you can be confident that you’re getting absolutely top-notch talent for your project.

How does Credo compare to Upwork?

• The Credo process is more like a concierge service that guides you throughout your project.
• They vet every agency and consultant in their network.
• The Credo team gets on the phone with you to make the right recommendations and introductions in under 24 hours.
• Credo reaches out to potential agencies and freelancers who are the best fit. When they accept, you are introduced.
• Credo helps with project proposal reviews and clarifications, and then checks in from time to time to ensure the project is moving along well.

What is The Easiest Freelance Job?

1. Social Media Guru

Believe it or not, your time on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites can actually pay off.

Offer your services to businesses as a social media expert — assuming you are one and understand the types of social media out there – you can write blog posts, Facebook posts, Tweets and other messages for companies that don’t have time to keep up with their social media platforms.

Check out just what you need to be a social media guru here. A social media guru can charge per post or per month, often as much as $150 per brand per month.

2. Teach

Can you play the piano? Knit? Take brilliant pictures? Offer classes. Talk with someone at your local library or community center and set up class times. Piano or other music lessons are frequently about $20 per half hour. If you’re not sure what to charge, look up similar classes in a nearby town.

3. Tutoring

Were you a math whiz in high school? Do you understand the intricacies of chemistry? Many students could use a helping hand in a lot of these subjects and you might be just the person to help them out. You could make $10 or so an hour and be a real boon to a student who is struggling.

4. Videographer/Photographer

Have a flair with a camera? From weddings to parties to receptions of all sorts, many organizations need someone to photo or video their events. Become familiar with your equipment and offer to do the first one or two jobs for the cost of gas and you will have a portfolio upon which you can build.

5. Babysit

Parents always need extra help in this department. If you have some time available in your day or night, you could offer babysitting services for local families.

Make sure you are familiar with first aid and CPR first and then hang out your shingle. If you want to do something more permanent or long-term, check with your state about laws for child care.

Read Also: 7 creative ways to find Freelance Writing gigs

Babysitters make different amounts in different areas but can charge between $5 and $10 an hour depending on where you live and how many kids you are watching at once.

6. Yard Work

Post a sign on the board at the grocery store, post in groups on Facebook and let everyone know that you can weed, mow, weed whack or whatever. Those who do yard work for a job often charge by the job, so call around and find out what others in your area are charging and adjust your prices accordingly.

7. Trash to Treasure

Do you have a flair for turning something old into something new? Start refurbishing old furniture and other items. Add knobs to old dressers, paint them bright colors and resell them for a profit.

You’d be amazed at how much you can make at a local flea market doing something like this. An old dresser you buy for $20 at a yard sale can turn into a $200 item.

8. Petsitting/Walking

Dogwalking is a great service to offer those who are away for a long time during the day. It’s also a great way to stay in shape. You can also add petsitting services and if you’re not squeamish, dog poop scooping services.

Dog walkers frequently get about $20 per hour, depending on location. Petsitters often charge per visit – usually about $20 per day depending on what your duties will be.

9. Running errands

Moms, seniors, folks that work out of town often, frequently need someone to help them get those little things done. You could drive senior citizens to appointments or go shopping for or with them.

You could pick up someone else’s dry cleaning while you drop off someone else’s prescriptions. Put up flyers, post on Facebook and Craigslist.

You’d be amazed at how much people are willing to pay for an extra hand now and again. Start by charging a basic rate – $5 per errand, for example, depending on the errand – or $20 for an hour of shopping plus delivery. Adjust your rates as you run more errands and find more need for your services.

Bottom line

Whichever alternative to Upwork you choose to work with, remember that you need a reliable solution to manage your team of freelancers and/or remote workers.

Many of the platforms outlined above will try to rope you in, but remember that you have the freedom to choose another solution that makes more sense for your business.