Discovering a better freelancing platform than Upwork

GP · 2024-12-11T20:15:27+00:00

As we all know that Upwork has become a sinking ship, I am trying to find a new platform that can help every freelancer in this forum, including me. Do let m...

Roddy

I have been trying to get out of Upwork because I am tired of the whole connects nonsense.

Freelancer is horrible. Each job has like 200 applicants. Sometimes the post is in Spanish, and the applications are in English. I don't think applicants are reading any of the job posts. They're just applying randomly.

Most clients don't select anyone, and when they do, it is always the freelancer with the lowest rate.

PeoplePerHour would be okay, if it wasn't because there aren't too many jobs there.

Guru is horrible. It is abandoned. You don't even know how much everyone else is charging.

Right now, I already have a 3 stars review in Upwork, not sure why, and I may get another bad review because I failed the client. My fault. I underestimated the scope of the project. If I get my account cancelled, even for six months, I don't know what I'd do.

Workana is mediocre, but it is good for people who speak Spanish.

AJ The Upworker

Roddy its weird how on one hand you complain about the connects on Upwork, then on the other hand you complain about the hundreds of applicants who haven't read the job post on Freelancer.

Which one is it? You have to choose.

Personally, I think the connects system works because it stops unqualified applicant from spamming job posts and minimises the chance of my proposal being buried.

I've also been on Upwork for several years, and (after the first few months) I've never been close to running out of connects with the freelancer plus plan. Now that they roll over connects month to month I'm rapidly accumulating connects.

TopRatedTroll

I tried Guru in 2017. I think I browsed jobs for about a month and the feed never changed lol. I'm convinced they are similar to Upwork and make all their money on freelancers on purchasing things like extra bids and tests and whatever. They have some $300 per year option to buy tests IIRC. They had no jobs but lots of things for freelancers to buy for their profiles. Maybe nobody complains about it because nobody is on Guru anymore, but I thought it was obvious they were dead and making money from freelancer subscriptions.

Vladimir

Okay, after a couple of weeks of using Contra I can sum up my impressions:

Maybe I've been on Upwork for too long but I like the streamlined layout
While feature-poor and missing what I think most look as vital on Upwork (clear work history, contracts amounts, earnings etc.), I like the focus on Portfolio which is very similar to Upwork's Project Catalog.
No anxiety about violating TOS, freelancers can link their off-platform profiles
Freelancers do need to have a paid membership in order to access all job posts, free membership allows access to only a handful of jobs. Applying is free and without a limit.
Search engine and filters are very basic, no saved searches.
Now for the most important bit, not sure about other categories but there are maybe around 10-15 new jobs per day in total. Budgets do appear higher on average than on Upwork and I haven't come across some of the red flags that I'm seeing on some jobs posted on Upwork. Clients' names are displayed but without any client history information.
Haven't landed a job yet so can't share any feedback about the contract workflow.

Conclusion:

I'd give it a shot, because it's refreshing, there's less hoops to jump through, it's very easy to navigate and start using. However, there's a drastic difference in the number of available jobs.

As promised I'll soon bring on the Community Talk a designer who is finding success on Contra, so we can maybe glean how to better use the platform to find more success, since we might be overly Upwork-centric in the apporach.

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