Upwork vs. top competitors: Review, alternatives, features & pricing

Upwork is one of the go-to marketplaces for freelancers and clients alike. It is a great platform if you want to hire freelancers for the first time or for short projects.

Being around for decades as a merger of oDesk and Elance, the platform has gained huge traction and connected millions worldwide. However, its established reputation also brought its downsides with issues that bugged its users.

Despite this, you might still find value in hiring and working with teams through Upwork with precaution.

Here’s what you need to know about Upwork, how it fares from its competitors, and what its stakeholders have to say.

About Upwork

Upwork is one of the world’s largest freelancing marketplaces that connects clients with freelancers and agencies. It helps businesses of all sizes bridge talent gaps by giving access to talents in over 180 countries.

Per their website, Upwork primarily creates economic opportunities to uplift talents around the globe and help businesses “accomplish incredible things.”

The platform lists roles with different specializations, including software development, IT, design and creative, and customer service.

Upwork features

Apart from being a marketplace, Upwork makes working with and managing your freelancers in one place easier. It provides a wide range of features, such as the following.

Project Catalog

Project Catalog helps you find ready-to-purchase projects from professionals. From here, you can browse and compare projects to find the right one for your needs.

Talent Scout

If you want more personalized assistance for recruitment without the extra costs of a staffing agency, then Talent Scout is what you need.

Through a talent expert, you can qualify pre-vetted professionals more quickly.

Time tracking

You can track your freelancers’ time and attendance using the platform’s built-in time-tracking app.

From there, your freelancers can bill you according to the hours and services they rendered throughout the project.

Payment protection

Freelancers are covered with payment protection once their clients do not pay them according to their work. At the same time, as a client, you can refund your freelancers’ unlogged and unqualified work hours.

Work diary

Through your freelancer’s work diary, you can see snapshots of your team’s work in progress and confirm them as invoiced to you.

Other features

These are other notable features found on the platform.

• Candidate shortlist
• Proposal review
• Needs analysis
• Chat scheduling
• Mobile access

Upwork pricing

Freelancers and clients can join Upwork for free. However, the following fees and pricing structures apply when working with your freelancers on the platform.

Upwork reviews: Insights from stakeholders

Upwork gets mixed insights from its clients, freelancers, and employees alike. 

With its broad reach, Upwork reviews can be easily found on sites like Trustpilot, Indeed, and Glassdoor. You may see some of the glaring pros and cons of using the platform through its stakeholders below:

Clients

Upwork clients prefer using the site for hiring short-term staffing. The platform makes it easier for clients to look for flexible staffing without the additional need for recruitment teams.

At the same time, they can track attendance, progress, and billing easier since it is automated.

However, their customer support is a glaring downside that clients dislike. Most of them need help reaching out to them, especially when issues on account and billing arise.

Another noticeable issue involves filtering freelancers. Even long-time site users are vulnerable to Upwork scams and still find poor-quality freelancers that can “cheat” the system while producing subpar outputs.

Freelancers

Upwork has undoubtedly helped freelancers worldwide find work and strengthen relationships with clients.

Through the platform, most of them learned how to market themselves so potential employers could notice their profile and get hired.

On the downside, freelancers dislike the high service fees charged for their work. They are charged up to 20% service fee and could experience difficulties highlighting their proposals without boosts.

Like with clients, its customer support discourages them from using the platform. They experience account suspension, scammers, and repeated payment problems while the support does nothing about their issues.

Employees

One of the aspects preferred by employees working with the company is its strong work-life balance. As part of its culture, its staff can enjoy flexible work as needed with generous benefits and time off.

They also enjoy working with their peers. Per Glassdoor reviews, each team member is passionate and driven to achieve the best in their tasks.

Though, like most companies, staff members believe their employer can still improve in terms of their management and package offers.

Upwork vs. competitors: A quick comparison

Aside from Upwork, businesses and freelancers have a variety of freelancing platforms to choose from. Each has distinct features and offerings that can be compared to the site.

Here’s how Upwork fares from its top competitors.

Upwork vs. Toptal

Living up to its name, Toptal hires the top 3% of freelancers in its applicant roster. It is the go-to platform for hiring top freelance developers, designers, project managers, and finance experts in various industries.

Unlike Upwork, Toptal does not have an option for browsing freelancer profiles. They instead match applicants with clients according to their requirements and preferred skillset.

This lessens the probability of hiring poor-quality staff.

See a more in-depth comparison of Upwork and Toptal below.

Upwork vs. Freelancer.com

Freelancer.com is one of the largest freelancing platforms, with around 32 million users worldwide. It works similarly to Upwork, where employers can quickly post jobs, browse profiles, and hire freelancers.

Despite the glaring similarities, Freelancer differs from Upwork in many ways. It allows employers to hire freelancers by location, allowing them to filter their choices to several countries, such as India, Australia, and the Philippines.

Reviews also say the platform offers more competitive rates for clients than Upwork. This allows small businesses with lower budgets to hire freelancers based on their budget.

Here are other comparisons between the two platforms.

Upwork vs. Fiverr

Fiverr is widely known for hiring freelancers for one-time projects. Its glaring distinction from Upwork is the client’s ability to get freelancers for as low as $5.

Depending on the client’s need, freelancers can deliver their outputs as fast as 24 hours.

On the other hand, its advantage also serves as its downside. Fiverr clients are more vulnerable to getting poor outputs or, worse, getting scammed by their staff with its cheap services.

Below is a quick comparison between Upwork and Fiverr.

Upwork vs. FreeUp

FreeUp was built to help businesses get top talent quickly. Compared to Upwork, it functions more as an agency than a simple job board.

The platform finds suitable freelancers based on the employer’s preferred skillset, attitude, and communication. One good thing about their setup is that they can freely communicate and work with freelancers using external tools.

Through FreeUp’s no-turnover guarantee, companies can ensure having a replacement staff at no extra cost in case their existing one resigns.

Below is a detailed comparison of Upwork and FreeUp.

Upwork vs. PeoplePerHour

Lastly, PeoplePerHour combines the features of Upwork and Fiverr with an added layer of security. It is a marketplace that allows clients and freelancers to buy and sell their services to one another.

Lessened freelancer competition is one of the things that make PeoplePerHour different from Upwork. With this, the platform has an abundance of top-tier freelancers ready to be hired whenever needed.

See a further comparison between the two platforms below.

Is Upwork worth the investment?

You can still make your investment worthwhile with Upwork as long as you are careful using the platform.

Upwork provides ease in hiring freelancers, especially for small businesses willing to dip their toes in hiring remote workers. The platform even allows you to streamline your services by tracking attendance, creating billing, and checking their work in one place.

However, its low price also comes with risks in quality and security. You might encounter scams, billing issues, and other downsides in the platform and the freelancers you have hired.

Careful planning, checking, and monitoring is the key to properly hiring freelancers in Upwork. 

Check each review on their profile and ask for a trial as possible to see whether they can reach your expectations.

Another option you can look into is outsourcing.

Compared to freelancing, hiring teams through an outsourcing company gives you more security and guarantees that they get work done.