A selection of the best and most reliable resources used by professionals in all corners of the planet:
Upwork
Commission - 5% - 20% (depends on the amount of the contract, the larger, the smaller the commission)
Transfer - PayPal, Payoneer, direct payment
One of the most popular freelance platforms in the world. A base of almost one and a half million customers allows a freelance specialist of almost any industry to find an order for himself. Most importantly, both short-term and long-term. The platform recently launched a premium account for top-level freelancers.
The essence of the changes is that by building your portfolio and the projects you have worked on, you will be able to choose which projects to show a potential customer. That is, throwing your offer at the "bad", the customer sees in the profile relevant projects that you have chosen especially for him.
According to the platform's statistics, in 2017 the most popular skills among freelancers were Robotics, Blockchain and Bitcoin. One of the significant disadvantages of the platform due to its massiveness is the large number of specialists from India who offer cheap and low-quality services, which is why there is an outflow of serious clients and, obviously, freelance professionals.
Toptal
The commission is $500
Transfer - Payoneer, PayPal, to your currency account
This platform selects only the "cream" of the freelance world. As they themselves declare for their customers: "You have a chance to work with the TOP 3% of freelancers in the world." Against the background of other platforms, Toptal is distinguished by a rather specific process of selecting freelancers, which consists of 4 stages.
Stage 1 – language proficiency testing and personality test. It is not too complicated and takes up to 15 minutes of your time
2nd stage – technical testing. You are given 90 minutes to solve three problems. If you solve two correctly, you will definitely go further. Tasks are sent according to your data and specifications, which you send the day before.
3rd stage – technical interview. You will communicate with one of the company's engineers. He will give you several problems to solve. It is important that here you need to solve all of them, if two are correct and one is not, then you have failed.
The 4th stage is a test project. You will be given a project that must be implemented in two weeks. After the allotted time, the company's engineer will review your results and give feedback. In case of a positive answer, you become a "resident" of the platform and have access to the projects of companies such as Airbnb, Zendesk, and so on.
Freelancer
Commission - 3% - 10% (depends on the contract amount)
Transfer - Payoneer, PayPal, Skrill, Wire Transfer, Express Withdrawal
On Freelancer, from the very beginning, you will have to face an intuitively incomprehensible interface and the need to pour funds into the exchange. First, you need to choose a membership plan that costs from $1 to $60 per month.
Membership plans determine the number of applications per month, the number of external invoices, the ability to apply for high-paying jobs, the ability to customize the appearance of your profile, and so on. In order to have a sufficient number of applications per month and apply for good projects, you need a membership plan for at least $10 per month.
You can submit a sponsored application (from $4 to $50 depending on the project budget) to make your application stand out from the rest. In this case, applications are listed first by the amount of money paid, and only then by rating.
In addition to all this, there is such a service as placement in a sponsored directory. This service allows you to be placed at the top of the list of freelancers in the selected category. This service costs from $50 for 7 days.
Guru
Commission – 12%
Recalculation - PayPal, Payoneer
Guru is mostly a platform of web designers and graphic designers. There are two types of accounts - paid and free. However, due to severe limitations in the services you can provide, free is not worth considering. Paid costs from $12 to $45 per month, depending on the type of services you choose. You will also receive a 50% discount when purchasing an annual subscription.
In order to apply here, you need to buy "attempts". You can buy 100, 250, and 500, which are worth $25, $45, and $75, respectively. So, to work here, you need start-up capital, just like on Freelancer. It is also important to understand that the service does not have an hourly wage, but a fixed amount.
99designs
Commission - from $300 (depends on the contract)
Transfer - Skrill, Paypal, AlertPay or Western Union
The platform is purely for photographers and designers. Orders range from logo design to UI/UX design. The site is built according to the type of competition sites. The customer publishes a competition with a description and budget, and freelancers submit their ideas and solutions to it.
7 days are allotted for the first stage of the competition. After that, the customer selects several finalists and they go to the second stage, which lasts about 2 weeks. One winner is selected from the finalists, to whom the money for the competition is transferred. The process takes quite a long time. In the first 7 days, more than a hundred freelancers apply for the project.
There is a mark system for contests on the site. "Blind" means that no one but the customer will see your ideas and proposals. "Guaranteed" - this label guarantees that the customer will choose a winner and pay him money. If you apply for jobs without these signatures, there is a very high probability of theft of competitive works. Pay level is close to Upwork.