Whether you’re looking for another way to pay the bills, seeking more professional development opportunities or just love the freedom that freelancing offers, there’s no question that millions of people have discovered the benefits of professional freelancing. As trends like the digital nomad lifestyle grow in popularity, the number of freelance resources out there has increased as well.
Related: Everything You Need to Know About Hiring a Freelancer
There are plenty of guides for striking out on your own, but as a freelancer, getting higher-paying gigs isn’t just a matter of signing up on popular platforms. You’ll have to branch out, establish a great portfolio of past work and maybe even prove yourself through tests that showcase your skills. Here’s a list of the 15 best sites to find work as a freelancer.
Upwork
Upwork is the giant of the freelance industry and is the largest network by a long stretch. Formed out of the merger of two large freelance job sites, oDesk and Elance, Upwork currently has 9 million freelances in its network and 1.5 million clients. The service covers a wide range of freelance jobs that can be done remotely, including everything from virtual assistants to paralegal work. Upwork offers hourly and fixed price projects, but they provide no vetting or screening for clients. Instead, they leave the interview process and technical assessment to the clients, who can then bid on the freelancers they want to hire. In 2014, two leading freelance networks, Elance and oDesk, merged to form Upwork, which is now the largest network for freelancers by a long shot. With more than 10 million registered users, four million clients, and three million jobs posted every year, Upwork has something to offer for everyone from writers and architects to legal aides and photographers.Toptal
Toptal is a freelance network of elite software engineers and digital designers from over 100 countries around the world. The company’s screening process weeds out all but the top 3 percent of talent in multiple categories, which means that once accepted, you’ll join an exclusive community of experts. Toptal lets you decide if you want to work hourly, part-time or full time, and you set your own rates so you’ll never be stuck in a bidding war. What’s perhaps best for freelancers is that Toptal also screens clients — and works with top companies like AirBnB, IDEO and JP Morgan — so you’ll always have a steady supply of interesting projects and clients who appreciate the value of your work. Toptal connects clients with a network of freelance developers and designers from more than 100 countries around the world. The service only works on technical projects, but Toptal does those well. The company rigorously screens its freelancers for personality, English-speaking, technical knowledge and skill. Ultimately, only 3 percent of applicants are accepted into Toptal’s network. This service offers account teams to help clients find the best match. Interestingly, they are also an entirely remote company and don’t have an office anywhere in the world. Go figure.Elance
Elance removes a lot of the hassle that comes with freelancing. You’ll be able to make a profile right away without jumping through any hoops, enjoy payment protection to ensure you’re always paid for the hours you work and more.
Editor’s note: Elance has joined Upwork since the publish date of this article.
Related: Hacking Elance: How to Make Money Freelancing
Freelancer
Unlike most other platforms, in addition to offering millions of projects, Freelancer allows you to compete with other freelancers in contests to prove your skills. If you’re competitive and confident in your expertise, it’s a great way to showcase your abilities and attract more clients. Freelancer boasts 17 million registered users, but not all of them are active. Regardless, what separates it from other job sites is its competitive edge. Freelancer regularly hosts contests in which employers post a project with a money prize, and freelancers bid on the project with their submissions. This serves as a way for freelancers to showcase their talent and hone their skills and makes the hiring process easier for employers as they can see different takes on their project. It should be noted that this process may not be very conducive to people just trying out freelancing or who are unsure of their skills.FlexJobs
FlexJobs stands out as a freelance job site by vetting jobs, not freelancers. Instead, freelancers are the ones who pay for the platform. In return, FlexJobs provides a list of jobs, currently just under 30,000 in number, that the platform has vetted as legitimate. Freelancers can then apply to those jobs through the contact information provided by FlexJobs. The service also provides skill testing, job search tips, and special members-only discounts through site partners to create loyalty among its freelance network and provide them added benefits.Craigslist
Although most people see Craigslist as just a platform for buying and selling miscellaneous things, it’s actually a great source of freelance jobs. You can easily browse for local offerings if you prefer something in-office, or you can search by major cities if you prefer working remotely. Craigslist is not a dedicated freelance site, but due to its sheer size, contractors can always find jobs here by searching the classifieds for work. Although the process is simple and cost-effective, Craigslist lacks many of the services usually available on true freelancing sites.Guru
This site lets you easily showcase your past work experience and offers a daily job-matching feature to make sure you don’t miss out on any good opportunities. The Guru Work Room lets you easily manage all your work. Since its inception in 2001, Guru has completed 1 million jobs and received $200 million in payout. Today, Guru has 1.5 million freelancers on its platform. In order to look through such a large number of freelancers effectively, clients can look through freelancer portfolios that include previous earnings and client reviews as well as skills and experience. Freelancers in turn can get an idea of whether a client’s job is viable by looking at how much they have spent on freelancers in the past.99designs
A platform for freelance designers, 99designs lets you compete in design contests and get feedback as clients choose the best ones. It’s a great way for talented designers to prove their talents. I’ve had friends who’ve been using this one for years here in the Bay Area, it’s based in Oakland, and Tim Ferris mentions them all the time on his podcast, so I can’t escape this company. 99Designs is exclusively for designers, but it puts a cool spin on the freelance platform. Rather than let clients scroll through freelance profiles, clients crowdsource their projects. Clients first fill out a brief detailing their project, and then designers can submit work based on that brief. Clients pick the best submission, and the winning designer gets the money. If they so choose, clients can then continue to work with that designer to design a fully-fledged version of what they did for the contest. 99Designs has over a million designers in its network and has completed over $100 million in transactions between clients and designers, so the unusual business model is clearly working well for the company.Crowded
A self-described “marketplace for on-demand workers,” Crowded aims to fix the supply and demand problem with freelance job opportunities: how do freelancers find job opportunities, and where do companies hire effective freelancers? Crowded pulls freelance job postings from several on-demand platforms and makes them available to its network of freelancers. The company was just founded in 2015, and even with its soft launch, the platform already has over 11,000 freelancers and 400 platform partners. Don’t be surprised if this freelance site becomes much bigger in 2016, just based on the growth we’ve seen so far.
- Peopleperhour
PeoplePerHour is a freelance site for all skills related to web projects, including web developers, designers, and SEO experts and marketers. Aiming to be a one-stop shop, PeoplePerHour wants to make your web building experience as streamlined as possible through their platform. To simplify the process even more, PeoplePerHour offers a tool called WorkStream, in which management, payment, and communication between employers and freelancers is all handled in one location.
11.LinkedIn Profinder
With over 420 million members in over 200 countries, LinkedIn is indisputably the go-to place for learning about all things job-related. Recently, LinkedIn decided to begin its foray into the freelance economy by quietly launching LinkedIn Profinder, which is helping freelance professionals find their next job. Because of its enormous amount of user data, LinkedIn is able to quickly connect freelancers with strong leads based on their keyword searches and companies followed. Profinder is a great option for expert professionals in countless fields
- Behance
Behance isn’t normally thought of as a hiring platform, as it is also a showcase platform for designers, but it is quite an effective site for hiring those designers. Not only can clients look through designers’ portfolios and see examples of their work, but clients can see how other people have reacted to that work as well. Clients pay a fee to post jobs on the site, but in return they get custom hiring recommendations for their project as well as access to Behance’s network of 5 million creatives. This is a very active network that isn’t leaving the freelance market any time soon.
Freelance Writing Gigs
Freelance Writing Gigs is a job board that is updated daily with fresh freelance writing and blogging jobs. The offerings vary from technical writing positions to writing about recipes, photography and healthcare, making it a great site for writers interested in testing their hand at different types of professional writing..Staff.com
While it focuses on long-term hires, Staff.com is also used by many freelancers, and for many people it’s a good alternative to larger freelance networks. In short, Staff.com gives freelancers an opportunity to find steady work when they need it.Demand Media
Demand Media is a platform for creative types, including writers, filmmakers, producers, photographers and more. You work with the site to create unique content, engage audiences and promote your talents. Demand Media Studios is unique in that its freelancers (mostly creative types such as filmmakers, photographers, etc.) work together to create high-quality content together as a team. It’s an excellent place to for these types of freelancers to grow their audience and for clients to find proven creative people.College Recruiter
As the name might suggest, College Recruiter is for college students or recent graduates looking for freelance jobs of any type. In addition to being a source for part-time work, it can be a great way to jumpstart your career. As the name suggests, College Recruiter is a platform for college students (and fresh graduates), so it’s good for smaller projects that can be handled by young freelancers who don’t have a lot of experience. The upside is that students can gain valuable experience and employers can access fresh talent, while at the same time providing students with a new source of income.GetACoder
This site is for freelance writers, web designers and programmers — exactly what small businesses need to get a website idea off the ground. GetACoder offers millions of smaller-scale projects to choose from. Just as you’d expect, GetACoder caters to coders, but also carries a number of different jobs for other professionals, like writers and designers. The focus is on small-scale projects, so the platform is ideally suited to small businesses or freelancers who don’t want to be swamped with 3- or 6-month projects.iFreelance
This platform accommodates some of the usual suspects of the freelancing world (writers, editors, coders, etc.) but also features freelance marketers as well. Unlike other sites, iFreelance lets you keep 100 percent of your earnings. iFreelance is similar to a lot of other freelance platforms out there, but it tries to differentiate by allowing freelancers to keep 100 percent of their earnings. You can post projects for free and can communicate on-site or off-site, a deviation from most freelance platforms.Project4hire
With hundreds of project categories, Project4hire makes it easy to identify jobs that suit your skillset, without scanning through large volumes of posts. It’s great for coders, consultants, designers and more.StackExchange
Like Craigslist and LinkedIn, this is not a dedicated freelancing platform. However, StackExchange is a very popular Q&A forum and can be used to connect with freelancers and employers. It may involve a bit more engagement on your part, but an open discussion may help you choose the right person for the job, or to find the right job for yourself.SimplyHired
Simply Hired has a wider range than most freelance job sites because this particular website isn’t focused on freelance work only. It’s a job directory, offering 6 million jobs in 974 occupations through 700 thousand unique employers in 24 different countries. The site has a large following, supporting 30 million unique monthly visitors and in a year those visitors make roughly one billion searches. While not exclusively for freelance work, Simply Hired is simply too big to be ignored by this list.
Whether you’re a programmer, designer, expert, college student or something in between, there’s a freelance platform out there for you. Check out the sites above to get started today!