Top 2 Freelancing Websites in 2022
Which are the top 2 freelancing websites in 2022?
In this blog, I'm gonna help you pick which platform
to start freelancing and share the secrets
that only the highest earning freelancers know
on exactly how you become success
freelancer.
. I’ve narrowed the choices down to Fiverr and Upwork
And my goal is to help you figure out
what's the best freelance platform for you?
I distribute each of them into five main categories.
Jobs, clientele, payments, ease,
and the magic X-factors that make each platform unique.
I'm even going to share some advanced-level secrets
that I'm almost certain that you've never heard before.
1. FIVERR
In this battle royale is Fiverr.
You've probably heard of these guys.
They have over about $900 million worth of gross merchant
volume
in 2022, and they're growing 60% a year.
They've got over 4 million buyers,
so it's a pretty enormous marketplace.
On the job side of things you post your gig,
and you hope for the best.
Jobs are typically low paying, though
there are some people that are doing tons of business
and getting great rates on Fiverr.
There are also some people who have made tons of money
on Fiverr.
On the advertising side of things,
you can advertise your gigs on Fiverr and boost volume.
That's something you can't really do on other platforms
that makes it a little bit special.
On the client side of things.
According to Fiverr, the average buyer spends $226.
The name "Fiverr" really doesn't help them.
My experience has been that Fiverr clients
have just been marketed to for a really, really long time
for the platform's cheapness.
And so, unfortunately again, in my experience,
you can have like a lot of really big client headaches here.
That still applies.
On payments, disputes are at the staff's discretion.
So, you do have the service chargeback risk.
What does that mean? (Alarm ringing)
That means that if a client comes to Fiverr
and says, "Oh, this man didn't do what I said them
to do or paid them to do,"
then you are at risk of not getting paid.
Also, on the payment side of things, Fiverr takes 20%.
So, it's a pretty big cut across the board.
And they also take forever to pay.
On ease,
Big points to Fiverr.
They're one of the easiest platforms
to get initially set up on.
And if you're pricing your gigs right,
then you can win business pretty quickly.
Their magic X-Factor is they're extremely accessible.
Some people are making a lot of money with their gigs too.
So, they get a couple of points in those categories also.
So, some of the pros of Fiverr is you can promote your gigs.
It's great for people who are just starting out outside
of the US and it's probably the fastest to get started,
and repeatable projects can mean tons of volume,
which then can translate into a very large pile of earnings.
On the con side of things,
clients can be tough to deal with,
especially in getting reviews.
We're talking about reviews-driven platforms.
So when you've got to follow up with people,
a bunch of times just to drag a review out of them,
you need to do a lot of studies
to figure out what is actually working,
what is of a significant enough size gig?
Are people going to pay more if you are better?
Or is it just a low-priced niche?
It's difficult to suss out where the opportunities are.
Also, some of the other freelancers that I know have
reported
some content theft, basically people
that have been the copy-pasting word for word,
their exact gigs, and their content from other sites.
Fiverr does a pretty better job of policing this,
and it's simple to report, but it does exist.
One thing about Fiverr that you probably didn't know.
Fiverr Pro, which is a program that is reserved
for professional freelancers, businesses
, and things of that nature.
You get put into a premium category
and you can price gigs a lot higher.
Fiverr Pro is an application-only program,
and they actually reject the vast majority
of those who are applying.
They even rejected me after I told them
that my business had made over a million dollars on Upwork.
But here's the secret: you can get rejected, then reapply
and still get in later.
So just because you get denied for something doesn't mean
that it's a no forever.
You can still reapply.
2. UPWORK
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Now let's talk about the absolute elephant called Upwork.
Big and strong freelance website in 2022.
They're an enormous player in the freelance world.
They've got over $3.5 billion worth of transactions going
through Upwork annually.
And they're growing at around 20% per year.
On the job side of things,
There's a lot of opportunities to specialize in
and own a specific niche.
Job listings allow you to assess niche demand,
and that's something that's very, very different
from Fiverr's approach where you're just kind a guessing
at where is the money to be made?
At $3.5 billion a year, there's more than enough cheddar
to go around.
On the client side of things.
It's a mixed bag really.
It depends on where you wanna focus.
Some clients are just very early on,
they're very low-budget, but there are also tons
of business-owner clients that have money and want the best.
You can be the best even if you're new.
On the payment side of things,
Upwork has multiple payment options,
They also have instant pay, which at $2 is pretty fantastic.
Granted, it is US-only, but it looks like
they're rolling it out to other locations.
On the east side of things,
Upwork does have an application process for new freelancers.
So there is a barrier there and you need to make sure
that your profile is fully complete
before you go through that application.
The platform does require getting the hang of it,
and you do need to manage your own engagements.
The bonus side of things, the magic X-Factor.
Upwork, you have great freedom.
You can run projects however you want.
You can engage with client’s kind of however you want.
Once you get that really going,
invite-only jobs are amazing.
There's also hourly protection and escrow,
which are wonderful for being absolutely certain
that you're going to get paid (cash register ringing)
whenever you do work.
So overall, Upwork has a bunch of really great pros to it.
$2.5 billion and growing, they're the largest
by total volume going through the platform.
This is huge and there's a lot of opportunities there.
Their escrow function can be really fantastic
and an absolute lifesaver in making sure
that you're getting paid whenever you do work.
On Upwork, if you know how to master the system,
then there is a lot of opportunity for you to win big.
Upwork does have US-only functionality.
And honestly, a lot of the clients
that are spending the most amount of money are going to be
from the US, so there is a fair amount
of US local advantage, great news for US freelancers,
not so great if you're outside the US.
Also,
We'll see what happens in the future.
Also with Upwork, you're kind of mostly on your own.
You can't advertise your jobs, your gigs, your projects.
Most people would probably rate Upwork clients
either 1 or 2 or 3.
There is a lot of opportunities,
but you need to be raising your rate and working
with bigger and better clients.
I'm trying to be generous
because really they should get marked down
a little bit more.
Now about that one advanced level thing that I promised
to tell you about Upwork.
I'm actually gonna tell you three things.
Number one, expert-vetted is not actually better.
It does give you access to enterprise clients
and Upwork will push you a little bit more
to these sort of large-budget clients.
Think people like Microsoft, Airbnb, what-have-you.
But it's not necessarily better.
I know a number of different expert-vetted people,
and they're not getting work from being expert-vetted.
So that actually doesn't mean that they have an edge.
Here's the second secret.
I may get a lot of interview requests
and a lot of people reaching out about trying
to do their project.
But in fact, I take on a lot fewer jobs
than almost everybody else in my niche.
What does that mean?
Volume and doing tons of projects is not necessarily the way
to succeed.
Number three, contract titles matter. A lot.
So much more than you think.
This is something that you can only get changed
before you actually accept an offer from a client.
The way that this plays out is when you have a work history
that your clients are looking at,
you don't want it to show that you are doing something
in Marketing Automation and then Partner of something else.
And then you've done some Data Entry work from a contract
that was listed for some totally different person,
but the client just hired you through that one
because they already had a posting up there.