Thanks to the pandemic the slow march of the gig economy has turned into a stampede. Freelancing has just hit the mainstream.
Look at these figures: over 50% of full-time gig workers felt more financially secure than those with traditional jobs. This was in 2019.
Over 70% of freelancers said they had better work-life balance. And finally, at least 65% of regular employees intend to leave their full-time jobs for a gig (MetLife).
What this means for small business owners, like you and me, is that:
- there are more skilled and talented freelancers available;
- there are websites to help businesses find success in hiring freelancers; and
- the chance to operate a business at a much lower cost than ever before.
A freelancer gets paid for services rendered to a company on a short-term, per-hour, or per contract basis.
The freelancer is not part of the company’s regular payroll. He is a contractor. Multiple clients or contracts are commonly taken on by the freelancer.
Freelancers pay income taxes, health insurance, and social security benefits on their own.
As you may have guessed, there are several benefits for small businesses in hiring a freelancer.
- You don’t have to pay them if there is no work unlike with regular staff.
- Freelancers pay for their own training to remain competitive. While companies have to shoulder the training of their employees. It is possible that these workers will get poached by the competition.
- There are HR issues with regular staff. You have to mentor, coach, and motivate your workers. No need to do that with a freelancer. Keeping your business is usually motivation enough for them.
- No office politics, fights, and romantic relationships to deal with freelancers.
- Freelancers pay their own taxes, health insurance, and social security.
- They work remotely so that’s less cost for you on hardware, software, office space, and utilities.
- Working with freelancers allows you to be a digital nomad while managing your business.
Where can you find the best freelancers for your small business? There are established outsourcing platforms for every job in all types of industries.
There are those who offer a wide range of services from simple data entry to full-blown accounting services. There are also niche sites that offer more specialized skills such as software development.
We already did the homework for you, listed in no particular order:
| Website | # of freelancers | # of completed jobs | How you pay | Good for | Payment protection | |
| 1. | Upwork | 12 million | 5 million | Per hour or fixed rate based on milestones | Wide range of freelancer skills | Yes |
| 2. | Fiverr | 830k | 50 million | Min payment is $5 while max is $500 | Wide range of skills. Good for finding low value such as data entry | |
| 3. | People per hour | undisclosed | 1 million | Per hour or fixed rate | You can hire freelancers to work on-site | Yes |
| 4. | Freelancer | 30 million | 20 million | Fixed rate or per hour | Wide array of freelancers to suit your need. | Yes |
| 5. | Freeup | undisclosed | 20k | $5 to $75 an hour | Provides support when choosing your freelancer and guidance for a project | Yes |
| 6. | Crowdspring | undisclosed | undisclosed | Starting at $299 up to $1199. | Design projects. Designers compete by submitting studies you only pay for what you choose. | Yes |
| 7. | 99designs | undisclosed | 1 million | Fix rate starts at $299 up to $1,299 | Graphics designers for logos, banners, websites | Yes |
| 8. | Guru | 1.5 million | 1 million | All major credit cards and Paypal. 2.9% handling fee for every transaction. | Mostly US-based programmers & software engineers. | Yes |
| 9. | Gun.io | 25k | undisclosed | Quote-based pricing starting at $80 per hour | Software professionals | Yes |
| 10. | Toptal | undisclosed | undisclosed | Initial deposit of $500 refundable. Pay per hour of fixed weekly | Programming developers | Yes |
| 11. | Lemon.io | undisclosed | undisclosed | $35 to $55 hourly rates | Developers and programmers for startups | Yes |
| 12. | Contently | 160k | undisclosed | undisclosed | content such as blogs, infographics & videos | undisclosed |
| 13. | WriterAccess | 15k | undisclosed | Monthly platform fee starting at $39 plus pay per word for articles w/ rates based on the rating of the writer. | content such as blogs, infographics & videos | Yes |
The first five sites in this; Upwork, Fiverr, PeoplePerHour, Freelancer, and Freeup; offer a wide range of services. You can find gig workers for data entry, transcriptions, IT, accounting, legal services, and a whole lot more.
Whatever you need, there is someone who can do the work for you. One downside is that the quality can be across the board. This is expected for sites that have millions of freelancers.
Also, watch out for scammers. The more popular a site is, the more it attracts bad guys. So do your homework, and never go all-in if you are just working with a freelancer for the first time.
Most companies outsource jobs for creatives such as logos, graphics designs, and videos. CrowdSpring and 99designs are platforms that are popular with creative people, artists, filmographers, photographers, and designers.
It’s better to use milestone-based payment with creatives. This is fair to both you and the artist. The freelancer can get paid as the work progresses and you get to move the project forward.
The next group of four sites: Guru, Gun.io, Toptal, and Lemon.io; are sites where you find good programmers, software engineers, developers, coders, security experts, and all things techie.
These sites are very strict with their screening process for freelancers. You can post a project and you should get a match within 24 hours. Premium users are also assigned an account manager to help you with project management.
Be sure to review the payment options since it is different for each site. Software development or IT projects are usually costed on a per hour basis.
The freelancer will give you an estimate of how many hours it will take to finish the work and the cost per hour. Fintech companies find a lot of success with freelance coders from these sites.
Our last couple of platforms is Contently and WriterAccess. These two sites serve companies that need help with their content production and publishing.
Blogs, infographics, videos, news releases, annual reports, and brand identity manuals are some of the gigs you will find here. If you need content for your site, then try out these two. Both platforms charge a user fee for clients.
These are not the only outsourcing platforms you can find.
But I want to make it easy for you to look into those you should consider first. Platforms that hide their numbers, policies, and costs did not make this list.
If you are looking for a couple of known outsourcing sites that are not here, sorry, they didn’t want to share information.
Conclusion
Outsourcing to freelancers has become a good options for companies.
Startups can quickly scale up their business. Wanting to cut costs is also a valid reason to hire gig workers for more established firms.
You can avoid a lot of headaches in running a team if you outsource. Finding the right balance that works for your business is the key.
Some businesses are just built right for outsourcing. Others, may only need a few freelancers every now and then. Take it slow and easy. Study if a job requires you to hire a full-time employee or a freelancer may be better.
Is it seasonal work or all year round? You will never know if you don’t test the waters. You may yet find out that it’s something you should have done yesterday.