With the help of ever-developing means of digital communications, the world is shrinking rapidly. Apart from boosting other business and industry related activities, this phenomenon has helped a great deal in allowing collaborators and telecommuting freelancers from across the globe to work in a remote manner, and expand their services to offshore clients.
The bouquet of freelance services being provided through the Internet includes a wide variety of creative and technical skills, and graphic designing and writing are two core services among them. There exist a large number of websites and job boards that offer freelance work opportunities to graphic designers, writers and other service providers.
Here, we have picked the top five that may really be of use to the freelancers from Southeast Asia and India. They allow freelancers to receive payments through PayPal, which comes in quite handy when it comes to getting smoothly and promptly paid.
1. Upwork.com: Elance and oDesk were two well-known freelance platforms that merged into a single freelance marketplace to be renamed as Upwork.com in the year 2015. The website claims to have twelve million registered freelancers and five million registered clients. Reportedly, it posts around three million jobs worth approximately $1 billion every year, which makes it the largest freelancer marketplace worldwide. Upwork.com is different from other players in the market as it allows its clients to interview their freelancers before hiring them with the help of a real-time chat platform. It charges the freelancers a ‘sliding service fee’ ranging from 5% to 20%.
2. Freelancer.com: This is one of the best known freelance marketplaces and is trusted by a large number of freelancers from across the globe. Established in the year 2009, this company claims to provide work opportunities to over 20 million users now. Most of the freelancers working for this website hail from India, United States, Philippines, Pakistan and the United Kingdom. The website charges a 10% fee off the freelancers upon their earnings, which can be reduced with paid monthly membership, with a minimum fee of $5.
3. iFreelance.com: Yet another promising freelance marketplace, iFreelance.com is different from its competitors in a manner that it doesn’t charge any commission off the freelancers. Instead, it follows three affordably priced membership levels. While the Basic membership costs $6.25 a month, the Silver membership costs $9.00 while the Gold membership is charged $12.00 per month. Additionally, it provides a host of unique features such as Bid Position, Free Employer Exposure, Marketing Tools, Performance Tools and Personal Profile URL.
4. Fiverr.com: Fiverr is an online freelance marketplace that offers tasks and services known as ‘gigs’ to the freelancers, beginning at a base price of $5. The website was founded in 2009 and claims to list more than three million ‘gigs’ upon it. Since January 2013, the marketplace has been known to rank among the top 100 most popular sites in the U.S. and top 150 in the world. In addition to the website, this marketplace also features a smart mobile app that makes it very easy and streamlined for the freelancers to claim and finish projects.
5. Guru.com: Perhaps one of the oldest known freelance marketplaces, Guru.com was a pioneer in the field of offering Internet based job assignments to service providers. It was founded in the year 1999, and served as a destination for high tech workers looking for short-term contracts. The marketplace features a unique SmartMatch feature that analyzes freelancers’ suitability for various assignments issued by the clients.