9 Sites Similar to Upwork [ Low competition ]

Are you starting as a Freelancer and looking for Sites similar to Upwork to avoid competition.
Upwork is a populist sign that is huge. I believe it’s when public on 3 October 2018, and it’s been around for more than ten years so that you can imagine this mill and load of Freelancer.

Posing a job on Upwork can be a hassle; when you post jobs, that bunch of applications. Some application is good, but the lot of them are not good because some of the Freelancer don’t even read your job Application.

Upwork has a rating system for Freelancer, and the system benefits those who stay on the platform longer. For those who just started now, it will be difficult for you to find the first client. Since the site is a popular client, expect freelancers to have experience and a good amount o ratings and reviews so they can check your profile.

However, they do take a large portion out of their paycheck. So if you go wanna deal with any of these, that is always alternatives or even better.

What is Upwork?

Upwork is a global elancing platform where businesses and freelancers worldwide connect and collaborate on specific jobs.
Here the vision of the website or company is to connect businesses with great talent to work without limits. We can therefore conclude that there is no regional, national, international boundary at all. Suppose a company from an African company can post a specific job for a USA citizen without going to the USA or the same for the entire globe.

With this platform, you can show your talent and earn significant income as well as experience too.
These are generally used by the agencies, professionals, and the freelancer’s.

Pros and cons of using Upwork:

Pros:

• Here, Upwork is quite a good platform for finding clients and companies looking for freelancers to complete their work.
• No boundaries can stop you from working.
• The companies do not have to hire employees, and they do not have to pay a fixed salary or increment.
• If you want to hire an employee,
• Then you need to invest time in interviews and mark his previous work experience and qualifications, so Upwork saves your time.
• It gives you the ability to get any workload on yourself.
• The Upwork takes regular screenshots after a continuous period of 10 minutes for the client so that they can feel confident in that his work is being made or not.
• Upwork’s messaging feature gives you a chance to make your old connection with you all the time.

Cons:

• Upwork is costly since it takes a commission of 10% of every transaction of a freelancer.
• Sometimes the website lags due to too many people are working on it.
• Being a premium member is too pricey.
• Since it has no limitation of boundaries,
• So it has to sync with different time zones, so it may be confusing for a client or a freelancer to get the time track and the deadline.
• Sometimes, the website is quite laggy since there are more than 13 million users on this platform.
• If you are doing anything against the norms prescribed by Upwork, there is a chance of getting your account banned.

Importance of Upwork

There are lots of importance of Upwork like you can get income by freelancing, you can create or post a job that other people see and collaborate with you to work.

Working principle of Upwork
Upwork allows clients to hire for work with freelancers and freelancing agencies around the world.

Whenever the client posts a job giving an accurate job description,
the Upwork notifies the freelancer of that category;
for example, a company is searching for a graphic designer to upload a post mentioning the job in his budget. All so, now the Upwork will boost your post.

Freelancers in this category will get the notification that the respective client has posted a job and offered this much. If the freelancer is interested in doing that job, he will contact the client or company. They will make a contract between them, and the freelancer will complete the work and hand it over to his client and give and get his earning as per the contract.

Sites similar to Upwork

1. Fiverr

Fiverr is also a freelancing marketplace for users. It is an Israeli-based company.
Micha Kaufman & Shai Winiger are the founder of Fiverr. They founded it in the year 2010.

Pros and cons of Fiverr

Pros:

• While using working on Fiverr, you can make extra money.
• It has secure payment options as compared to others.
• Fiverr supports multiple currencies that are pretty good for freelancers, so they don’t have to calculate. There will be no currency exchange cost.
• Fiverr provides jobs in multiple categories.
• It is a private communication platform.
• After every work, you can give seller ratings and feedback too.
• It provides you with custom offers from time to time.

Cons:

• While using Fiverr for enough time compared to the other freelancing websites, so we can see that Fiverr is demanding a much expensive cost for its best quality service.
• In Fiverr, the clients, will make you frustrated due to the short time and deadlines.
• You can also find unverified or fraud sellers here, so maybe they got cheated while taking service.
• It charges you a pretty much amount of cost.
• It may be rather difficult for beginners or new users.
• Making constant money is relatively much more complicated than that of others.
• If you are doing anything against the norms of Fiverr, there is a chance of getting your account banned.

2. Freelancer

Freelancer is one of the online marketplace place sites similar to Upwork, Fiverr, and many more.
It is an Australian-based company founded in the year 2009. The headquarter is in Sydney, Australia.

Pros and Cons of Freelancer

Pros:

• It finds you, freelancers, within a couple of minutes.
• Offering secure methods of payments, which makes you feel free to surf no matter you are a freelancer or an employer.
• It is pretty straightforward to use for the new users
• Problems can get solved within seconds.
• An excellent source to find creative and technical talent.

Cons:

• Sometimes, you may get fake projects and deals.
• The chances of getting scams are much more here.
• Due to automated bids, it isn’t easy to find out if the freelancer can do your work or not.
• Mobile app lags too much and may give you technical glitches, so it will be better to prefer the web version instead of the mobile app.
• Fees are too high for small-budget freelancers.

3. PeoplePerHour

People Per Hour is a UK-based company that is also as common as Fiverr, Upwork, freelancers.com, etc. PeoplePerHour was established in 2007 by Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kris.
The headquarter of this website is in London and also in Athens.

Pros and Cons people per Hour:

Pros:

• Freelancer can choose their rate suitable for themselves.
• You can do balanced work according to your lifestyle
• It increases the need for a genuine freelancer
• Becoming a freelancer and using the website is relatively easier

Cons:

• Since it has a freedom of choice rate by the freelancer, that’s why there is a huge competition, so you have less guarantee to get the same client twice.

4. Guru.com

It is one of the many freelance marketplace sites similar to upwork that, makes you find freelancers for your work. Established in the year 1998 in Pittsburgh as eMoonlighter.com.

Pros and Cons of Guru:

Pros:

• It charges significantly less an affordable commission charge, i.e., 9% of your earning, so we can say it is better than Upwork in setting a commission.
• Guru has multiple payments methods that it can make your payment more manageable.
• This website also gives you easy hiring options.
• Guru Provides a long-term partnership to the freelancers.
• This website provides a long-termed collaboration with the freelancer.

Cons:

• If we go through the consumer rating of guru, we can find that it has only 1.47 stars from 121 reviews, so it proves that most consumers are dissatisfied with that.
• Reviews of freelancers are not accurate, so sometimes there is a chance for the clients to get scammed by the freelancer.
• Making your reputation as a good and genuine freelancer is quite hard since this website has fake freelancers reviews.

5. FlexJobs

An online employment website that gives you the opportunity to flexible jobs according to your time, such as part-time jobs, telecommuting jobs, etc.

Pros and Cons of flexJobs:

Pros:

• While using this website, you can find it ad-free, so there are pretty few chances of getting scammed
• You can get flexible jobs in your field.
• More ways to support your carrier.
• Plans are good enough and affordable.

Cons:

• Flexjobs is not free of cost, so you have to pay a certain amount for getting an account or getting.
• It has all types of work from the home feature as that we are in the condition of a pandemic.

6. Bark.com

Bark.com is an internet-based marketplace that matches service buyers, i.e., freelancers, to a suitable service provider, i.e., employers or clients.

Pros and Cons of Bark.com:

Pros:

• It has a good support team that gives you a fast response to your post, and if you are a freelancer, it is well developing for you.
• The overall mobile app rating is 4.7 out of 5 {according to a survey done on 1st October 2021} which is quite suitable for a freelancing app or any other mobile-based application.

Cons:

• As like as other websites, bark.com has cons, too, as with customer feedback.
• Since its name is bark, so there are few mobile applications available with similar names. It may create a problem for many people to have installed another app instead of installing bark.com’s app.

7. TaskRabbit

An American online marketplace founded in the year 2008 by Leah Busque. Headquarters is situated in San Francisco and also in California.
It works the same as Upwork, Fiverr, and the rest of the other freelancing websites do.

Pros and Cons of TaskRabbit:

Pros:

• Provides jobs as per the time suitable to the freelancer
• Allows selecting your rate for the preferred work or the project given by the client.

Cons:

• Payment is not too high as compared to other sites
• Too many complaints regarding the customer’s service and feedback.

8. Workhoppers

It is a Canada-based online website that finds you the matches the clients with the freelancer.

Pros and Cons of worshippers:

Pros:

• Workhoppers focuses on the core activities

Cons:

• There are not too many cons detected, but still, in comparison to Upwork, that’s why work hoppers have less opportunity.

9. 99Designs

99 design working principle is slightly different from that of Fiverr, and other sites similar to upwork. However, still, its work is the same as that of other freelancing websites. The platform is best for graphic designers, content writers, developers, and musicians & producers. Working principle of 99 Designs:

Here, a client may organize an event or contest where the freelancer can go and submit their entries. After that, the employer has to make sure that who will be perfect for his work.

It is also possible that a client can visit your profile and give you the quotation for the work personally in your inbox.

Pros and cons of 99Designs:

Pros:

• As compared to Upwork 99, the design has relatively less competition, so the website lagging problem is minor here.

Cons:

• It charges different amounts of fees every time like
• For an entry-level freelancer, the charge is 15%
• Mid-level of freelancer they charge 10%
• For top-level, the cost is 5%, that’s why sometimes you have to calculate a little bit for your charge.

Upwork alternatives for the writers

1. CloudPeeps
2. ClearVoice
3. Contently
4. Quietly
5. Skyword

Upwork alternatives for the developers

1. Toptal
2. Gigster
3. Gun io
4. Flexible
5. Arc Dev

Upwork alternatives for the designers

1. Fiverr
2. Skyword360
3. PeoplePerHour
4. Guru.com
5. Bark.com

Conclusion

As we have mentioned in our post, Upwork has a high reputation compared to other freelancing websites, so the competition is also very high since too many freelancers seek jobs or projects.

Whenever an employer posts a job, they get a lot of freelancers in a short time.

For that reason, many times, the websites become slow and lag a little bit. So we can consider using another site initially since there are many pro-level freelancers already present there. Hence, you have significantly fewer chances to get any project.

So go for any other Sites similar to Upwork and gain knowledge about the work. Once you become professional, then you may join. By doing this, you can avoid too much competition in the prior stage of freelancing.

Keep the conversation going…