Freelance Websites: 11 Platforms We Have Actually Hired

Canada Create hires freelance designers, writers, and developers regularly to supplement our core team, and several members of our own team started as freelancers on the exact platforms in this list before joining full time. This gives us a slightly different vantage point than most “best freelance websites” roundups, we have sat on both sides of these platforms, as the business hiring and as the freelancer bidding on work.

Here is what we have actually observed about the eleven platforms that come up most often, including real fee structures and where each one tends to work or fail.

Platforms We Use to Hire, and What We Have Learned Hiring on Them

1. Upwork

Upwork is where we do most of our freelance hiring for short-term specialist work, technical writers, niche developers, occasional designers. The platform takes a sliding service fee from freelancers, currently 10 percent for most contracts after an initial higher introductory rate, which freelancers factor into their quoted rates, effectively passing some of that cost to clients. As a hiring business, we have found the bidding and review system genuinely useful for vetting quality, but it takes real time to screen proposals properly, often 15 to 20 applications per role before finding someone worth a trial project.

2. Fiverr

Fiverr’s fixed-package model works well for narrowly defined, one-off deliverables, a logo, a short explainer video, a batch of product photos edited to spec, but we do not recommend it for ongoing or complex work, since the platform’s pricing structure incentivizes freelancers toward volume over depth. We have used Fiverr successfully for quick turnaround graphic assets a handful of times, always with a very tightly written brief, because vague briefs on Fiverr tend to produce vague results.

3. Freelancer.com

Freelancer.com operates similarly to Upwork but with a lower average quality bar in our experience, based on hiring attempts for both design and development roles over the years. The bidding wars on this platform tend to be more aggressive on price, which sounds appealing until you realize the lowest bids are frequently from freelancers who will under-deliver or disappear mid-project. We have had mixed enough results here that we now use it rarely.

4. Toptal

Toptal positions itself as a screened, top-tier-only network, and the vetting process is genuinely rigorous, reportedly accepting a small percentage of applicants. The tradeoff is price: Toptal freelancers and small agencies typically charge well above the rates you would see on Upwork or Freelancer.com. We have used Toptal for a handful of specialized development projects where the stakes were high enough to justify the premium, and the quality bar held up both times.

5. PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour has a strong base of UK and European freelancers and works reasonably well for design and marketing tasks, though the volume of quality candidates available to Canadian businesses is smaller than on Upwork. We use it occasionally but it is not our default first stop.

Platforms Better Suited for Freelancers Looking for Work

6. LinkedIn ProFinder and LinkedIn Services

LinkedIn’s freelance marketplace features rely on existing professional networks rather than cold bidding, which tends to produce higher-trust matches for both sides, though volume of opportunities is lower than dedicated freelance marketplaces. We have found it more useful as a freelancer-side discovery tool than as a hiring channel.

7. Fiverr Pro

Fiverr’s Pro tier vets freelancers more heavily than the standard marketplace and charges accordingly. It sits in a middle ground between standard Fiverr and Toptal, useful if you want more assurance than the base Fiverr platform offers without paying full Toptal rates.

8. Guru

Guru has a smaller, older user base than Upwork or Freelancer.com, but it still surfaces solid candidates for longer-term contract work, particularly in software development. Fee structures are comparable to Upwork’s tiered model.

9. 99designs

For logo and brand identity work specifically, 99designs’ contest model produces a genuinely wide range of creative directions quickly, since multiple designers submit concepts before you choose and pay. The downside is that designers are competing speculatively, meaning most of them are not paid for their submitted work, which raises fair questions about the model even though it remains popular with businesses wanting fast visual options.

10. We Work Remotely and Remote-focused Boards

These are job boards rather than bidding marketplaces, better suited to businesses hiring longer-term remote contractors or part-time staff rather than one-off project work. We have sourced two long-term remote team members through boards like this rather than through bid-based platforms.

11. Contra

Contra is a newer, commission-free platform gaining traction with younger creative freelancers, and its no-fee structure is genuinely appealing compared to the 10 to 20 percent cuts on older platforms. The candidate pool is smaller and skews toward design, content, and marketing work rather than development, but for the right project type it is worth checking.

Trying to figure out whether hiring freelance talent or working with an agency like ours makes more sense for your project? Book a call with Canada Create and we will give you an honest comparison based on your specific scope and timeline.

Freelance Platforms Compared

| Platform | Typical Fee (freelancer side) | Best For | Watch Out For |

|—|—|—|—|

| Upwork | ~10% | Specialist short-term hires | Time-intensive screening |

| Fiverr | Package-based, built into price | Narrow, defined deliverables | Weak for complex ongoing work |

| Freelancer.com | Tiered, similar to Upwork | Budget-focused simple tasks | Inconsistent quality at low bids |

| Toptal | Premium built into rate | High-stakes technical work | Higher price point |

| PeoplePerHour | Tiered | Design and marketing, EU talent | Smaller Canadian-relevant pool |

| Contra | 0% | Younger creative freelancers | Smaller candidate pool overall |

What This Means If You Are Hiring, Not Freelancing

If you are a business owner reading this to decide how to staff a project, the real decision usually is not which platform, it is whether the work is a one-off deliverable, ongoing specialist support, or a role that really needs an accountable team rather than an individual contractor. Freelance platforms are excellent for the first two categories. For ongoing marketing execution that needs to stay consistent over months or years, tied to actual business results rather than individual task completion, most businesses eventually find that a small agency relationship outperforms a rotating freelancer roster, mainly because of continuity and accountability.

We have taken over marketing accounts from businesses that were juggling four or five different freelancers across SEO, design, ads, and content, each working in isolation with no shared strategy. Consolidating that into one accountable team consistently produced better results within a few months, not because any individual freelancer had been bad, but because nobody had been responsible for how the pieces fit together.

If your business is at the point where managing multiple freelancers has become its own part-time job, reach out to Canada Create and let us show you what a single accountable team looks like by comparison.

A Quick Note on Vetting, Whichever Route You Choose

Whether you end up hiring a freelancer or an agency, the vetting questions should be roughly the same, and most businesses skip them. Ask for two or three references you can actually call, not just written testimonials. Ask what happens if the person or team you are working with becomes unavailable mid-project, illness, another client emergency, a sudden departure. Ask to see a sample of work in your specific industry rather than a generic portfolio, since a beautiful design portfolio does not guarantee someone understands your customer base or your regulatory constraints if you have any.

We answer all three of those questions for prospective clients as a matter of course, because we would rather lose a deal to a direct question than win one on a vague pitch. Canada Create has 90 Google reviews at a 4.8 average precisely because we treat every engagement as something a future prospective client might ask a past client about, and that keeps us honest about scope and delivery in a way that is easy to promise and harder to actually practice consistently over eighteen years.

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About the author

Amir Vincent, Founder & Principal Strategist at Canada Create, has hired freelance talent across most major platforms since founding the agency in 2008. Before starting the agency, he spent several years bidding for design and web development contracts as a freelancer himself, an experience that shapes how directly this article treats the tradeoffs on both sides of these marketplaces.

Canada Create, 126 Willowdale Ave Suite #3, North York, ON M2N 4Y2. Call 416-273-9030.