Where to hire freelancers: Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal, LinkedIn

The best sites to hire freelancers depend less on talent than on the deal you sign. Fees, who checks the person, when your money leaves your account, and who owns the files all differ.

So we read the client-side help pages of Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal and LinkedIn on October 27, 2026. Then we priced the same three jobs on each one.

Example: Two Rivers Bakery is a made-up bakery in Wausau, Wisconsin. It needs a $600 logo refresh, $150 of menu copy edits and $2,000 of bookkeeping help this year. We'll follow it through every section.

Four sites, four different deals

Here's the short version before the detail.

Each site makes a different promise to the client. The fee is only one line of that promise, and often not the line that ends up costing you the most.

Every cell comes from the platform's own pages, linked in the sections below. Upwork's old pricing page, upwork.com/pricing, showed a 404 when we checked, so its fees now live in its help center.

Fiverr costs less on small jobs; Upwork wins if you pay by bank

Start with money, since that's what most owners compare first.

As of October 2026, Fiverr's payment help page says the standard service fee "is 5.5% of your purchase amount, and we add a $3.50 fee to orders under $200."

As of October 2026, Upwork charges two things. On its free Basic plan, the Client Marketplace Fee is "up to 7.99%" of what you pay freelancers. It drops to 3% if you're in the US and pay from a qualifying bank account. On top of that sits a Contract Initiation Fee of "$0.99 to $14.99 USD" once per new contract.

That's the theory. Here's what it did to the bakery's three jobs.

We worked these totals by hand from the fee pages on October 27, 2026, using the full 7.99% for card payments. Upwork's ranges are wide because the initiation fee varies with "contract type, account history, and hiring activity" on each contract. You only see it at checkout, or at the first payment on an hourly contract.

Two things surprised us. We expected Fiverr's flat fee to win on small jobs and lose on big ones, and the numbers mostly agreed, with one catch in how you pay. Paying Upwork by bank beat Fiverr on the two bigger jobs. And on the $150 job, Fiverr beat Upwork by card by at least $1.23, despite its flat $3.50. Small, but real. Fees also repeat. Fiverr says each extra or tip "has a separate fee", and Upwork charges the initiation fee again when you rehire someone on a new contract.

The other two sites price differently. As of October 2026, Toptal's FAQ lists "a flat monthly subscription fee of $79" once you go ahead with matching, and it doesn't publish expert rates there. LinkedIn lists no client fee: its Services Marketplace lets you message providers for free.

One more thing about fees: the freelancer pays one too. Upwork's freelancer fee "ranges from 0% to 15% per contract", which is partly why rates on the site look the way they do.

Keep that in mind when a quote looks high.

Toptal vets for you; everywhere else, vetting is your job

That's the money side, and it's the easy part to compare. Quality isn't, and this is where the sites really split.

Toptal is the only one of the four that screens people before you see them. Its FAQ says that "of the more than 200,000 people who apply" each year, it accepts "fewer than 3%". That's Toptal's own figure, not an audit.

It also lets you trial "up to three individuals" per position before you commit.

On Upwork, Fiverr and LinkedIn, the ratings and reviews left by earlier clients are the only filter between you and a stranger with a good profile. A five-star profile tells you past clients were happy. It doesn't tell you this person can do your job.

So test before you hire. A paid test costs you a day or two and a small fee, but it shows how the person writes, asks questions and handles a deadline.

These four steps catch most bad fits:

1. Pay for a small, real test task before the full project.
2. Ask for two live examples similar to your job, not mockups.
3. Open a live site they built and time its pages with the website speed test we built.
4. Check that the person who wrote the proposal is the one doing the work.

Each role has its own tests. Our guides cover them for hiring a web designer, hiring a full stack developer and hiring an SEO freelancer, with US rates and red flags.

If vetting a developer feels like the hardest part, an agency is the other route. Building small-business sites is our own web development service, so we're an interested party here.

Upwork and Fiverr hold your money; LinkedIn doesn't

Once you've picked someone, the next risk is paying for work you never get. Here the gap between the sites is bigger than any fee.

Upwork keeps fixed-price money in what it calls project funds, "formerly referred to as 'escrow'", which you deposit before work starts. When the freelancer submits work, its fixed-price protection page says a "14-day countdown for automatic payment" begins. Review inside that window.

Fiverr charges you when you order. After delivery, its order guide gives you "three days" to accept, ask for revisions or extend the review. Do nothing, and "the system will automatically complete the order."

Three days goes fast if delivery lands on a Friday.

If you're away that week, extend the review before the clock runs out. Once an order is complete, Fiverr's cancellation guide says you can no longer cancel it through the Resolution Center; you'd have to contact Customer Support.

Toptal bills after the trial: if you're not satisfied during it, "you won't be billed." LinkedIn is the opposite. Its help page says payment "happens through the service provider's preferred process, outside of LinkedIn."

For a LinkedIn hire, pay in stages and ask for an invoice each time. A freelancer who doesn't have a template can make one in our free invoice generator.

Who owns the work you paid for?

You own it on Upwork and Toptal by default, under their written terms and with conditions. On Fiverr and LinkedIn, the written terms you agree matter even more.

US law sets the baseline. A transfer of copyright "is not valid unless" it's "in writing and signed", says 17 U.S.C. 204(a). And a commissioned work only counts as "work made for hire" in nine listed uses, with a signed written agreement, under 17 U.S.C. 101. A logo isn't one of the nine.

That's why the platform terms, or your own contract, decide who owns the files.

Upwork's Optional Service Contract Terms, effective November 21, 2025, say the work becomes "the sole and exclusive property of Client" upon the freelancer's "receipt of full payment". They apply unless you and the freelancer agree different terms.

Toptal's FAQ answers the ownership question in two words: "The client."

Fiverr is less clear to an outsider. Its Terms of Service page showed us a bot check, so we couldn't read them. Its cancellation guide does say delivered work "can't be used after a cancellation because ownership stays with the freelancer."

On LinkedIn there's no platform contract at all, so the written agreement you and the freelancer sign is the only thing that moves ownership to you. Our graphic designer hiring guide covers the ownership clause to ask for on a logo.

Read this section as a map of the rules, not as legal advice on your own contract. If a logo or software is central to your business, a short call with an intellectual property lawyer costs less than a dispute.

Leaving the platform and tax forms can cost more than the fee

That settles who has the files. Two later costs catch owners off guard: moving a good freelancer off the site, and year-end paperwork.

Upwork's conversion fee page says its terms "require you to keep all work and payments on Upwork for the first two years" after you find someone there.

To leave early, you pay 13.5% of the freelancer's hourly rate times 2,080 hours, before any discount Upwork applies.

That number gets big fast.

For the bakery's $40-an-hour bookkeeper, that's $40 x 2,080 = $83,200, and 13.5% of it is $11,232. That's more than two years of the 7.99% fee on a 20-hour-a-week contract, which comes to $6,647.68.

Tax forms run the other way. Upwork's US tax forms page says you "don't need to file a Form 1099" for contractor payments made through Upwork, and that Upwork files Form 1099-K when it applies.

Hire directly through LinkedIn and that paperwork is yours.

The IRS 1099-NEC instructions set the reporting line at nonemployee pay of "$2,000 or more" for tax years beginning after 2025. Payments by credit card or through third-party networks go on Form 1099-K instead, filed by the payment company.

Then there's the contractor test itself. The IRS test asks whether you control "only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done" by the person. Set hours and a desk? Ask a tax professional before you pay, because we're not one.

Choose Upwork if you need ongoing work, Fiverr for one-off tasks

Now, with the fees, money rules and paperwork side by side, the choice gets simpler.

Choose Upwork if the work is hourly or ongoing, like bookkeeping or site upkeep, and you can pay by US bank. Funded milestones and the 14-day review protect you while the work is underway, and Upwork handles the 1099 paperwork a direct hire would leave on your desk.

Choose Fiverr for a defined task with a fixed price: a menu edit, a social banner, a short proofread. Watch the 3-day window. For bigger edits, our book editing cost guide shows what US editors charge per word.

Choose Toptal when one hire is senior and expensive enough that $79 a month for screening, plus a trial you don't pay for if it fails, is cheap insurance.

Choose LinkedIn when you want someone local or referred, and you're fine writing your own contract. It suits writers too, and the paid test brief in our copywriter hiring guide works just as well over a LinkedIn message.

Our take: start on Fiverr or Upwork for your first small job, and keep the full contract inside the platform. Handing the whole job to one team is the other road, and our agency cost guide prices it.

Freelancers reading this from the other side should see how to win a first job on Upwork.

Want a price for the job itself? Request a DigitalTreed quote. We'd be one of your options, so weigh us like the others.

How we made this guide: Our team went through every fee and rule on October 27, 2026. We opened the client help pages of all four sites in a normal browser. The IRS 1099 instructions and two sections of the US Copyright Act came next. We priced the made-up bakery's three jobs ourselves from those pages. Fiverr's Terms of Service sat behind a bot check, so we didn't use them. Every source is linked inline, beside the line it backs up.

First published July 2020. Rewritten October 27, 2026: the list of freelancing sites for job seekers, which put Digital Treed first, is now a client-side comparison of four sites. It covers fees, vetting, payment protection, ownership, the Upwork conversion fee and 1099 forms, with our fee table.

Sources

• Upwork Help: What is the Client Marketplace Fee?
• Upwork Help: What is the Contract Initiation Fee on Upwork?
• Upwork Help: Learn about the Freelancer Service Fee
• Upwork Help: How Fixed-Price Payment Protection works
• Upwork Help: What is the Upwork Conversion Fee?
• Upwork Help: Manage U.S. tax forms
• Upwork Legal: Optional Service Contract Terms (effective November 21, 2025)
• Fiverr Help: Paying for orders, extras, or custom offers
• Fiverr Help: The complete guide to your Fiverr order
• Fiverr Help: How cancellations work for clients
• Toptal: Frequently Asked Questions
• LinkedIn: Services Marketplace
• LinkedIn Help: Get started as a service provider on LinkedIn
• IRS: Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (revised 12/2026)
• IRS: Independent contractor defined
• 17 U.S.C. 101, definitions (Legal Information Institute)
• 17 U.S.C. 204, execution of transfers of copyright ownership (Legal Information Institute)