Whether you are a professional looking for a place to freelance, or you have an idea that you would like to realize but have no appropriate skills, consider below list of the top freelance sites. Some of them allow you to join for free. Others are subscription sites where you pay a recurring monthly/quarterly/yearly fee. Besides, most also charge a transaction fee which is a certain percentage of the project budget. You can find much more freelance sites, but most of them are not as popular as those listed below. GetAFreelancer.com (Sweden, started in February 2004)
For professional programmers, interpreters and graphic designers.
Ability to work independently and choose among hundreds of projects.
Unique feature: freelancers can signup for fully functional debit
MasterCard®, which can be used at ATMs, at stores and online anywhere
around the world. It is like Western Union, but more simple and
flexible. There is a free escrow system for freelancers and buyers.
ScriptLance (Canada, started in 2001)
Provides
a service that helps businesses find freelance programmers and
designers for their projects. Over 100 new projects posted every day,
most of them are web-based. This site has the lowest fees. ScriptLance
provides users with escrow payment options to help projects get
completed smoothly. No recurring fees, no project posting fees.
Webmaster/Programmer will have to pay per project fee at the point of
project acceptance (when webmaster had selected a programmer for the
project and programmer accepted the project). Best if you want really
cheap coding. Join for free and get $1 signup bonus.
eLance (USA, founded in 1998)
One
of the largest freelance site. The best site if you want a large
professional job. However if you are looking at a smaller job or you
cannot afford yourself spending much money you may be better off with
Rent-a-coder or Scriptlance. Elance charges the freelance providers to
just be listed on the site, whereas Rent-a-coder and Scriptlance only
charge the providers once a project has been selected.
Guru.com (USA, started August 2000)
Directly
connects businesses with over 520,000 freelancers who specialize in
over 160 professional categories including: website design,
programming, graphic design, business consulting, and administrative
support. Whatever your specialization, you can be sure that the site
has a wealth of projects in your field.
Rent-a-coder (USA, started in 2001)
The
site has about 20,000 registered buyers. When you get a project done
through Rentacoder you put the entire project fees into an escrow
account. You don't release the fees until the project is complete. This
is good because it gives reassurance to the coder that they are going
to pay you, but it also can be difficult if you have a large project,
because you have to pay the entire amount into an escrow account,
although you can put the project into stages and pay based on each
stage.![]() |
