How To Build a Freelancer Marketplace Like Upwork ?

The freelance industry has established itself on a large scale, and the global reach of these micro-job platforms has added to the 50.9% of the US freelance worker population, making a market share of 86.5 million in the year 2027. The industry has grown exponentially to contribute largely to the US economy, making up to USD 1.27 trillion solely in the year 2023, and it is only rising, with a 90.1 million increase in the freelancing population by the year 2028.

These statistics familiarise us with the popularity of freelancing platforms like Upwork in today’s economy. It is an attractive industry that lures aspiring entrepreneurs to invest in the lucrative sector. Moreover, the industry exudes a mutual advantages ecosystem for all its user types, allowing autonomy, time flexibility, and exposure beyond borders.

All things considered, now let us look at the operational model, revenue model, and steps to build a freelancer marketplace like Upwork. This blog has essential information required by a new business owner for quickly entering the market and building a well-functioning, enterprise-grade platform to extract the sector advantages.

Upwork- Everything You Need To Know

Upwork, formerly known as Elance-o Desk, is one of the largest freelance marketplaces globally. It was founded in 2013 and now accommodates over 18 million registered users on the platform. Upwork includes multiple work niches, ranging from consulting, writing, design, programming, and more. Furthermore, to gain more insights on the largest micro-job website, the key statistics below are given to acquaint business owners with the potential of the freelancing industry.

• Generated USD 756 million in 2024
• Cater to more than 125 categories
• At present, the platform has employed more than 800 employees
• Approximately 4146 companies use Upwork to hire project-based service providers, generating over USD 2.5 billion in revenue from these clients.

Upwork has adopted robust vetting procedures, an easy-to-use interface, and advanced project management tools, providing it a competitive edge over other marketplaces. It is a go-to platform for freelancers and clients seeking a wide range of skills.

How Does Freelancer Marketplace Like Upwork Work?

Upwork is the epitome of the freelancing industry, with a smooth user interface and the large-scale accommodation offered to all user types on the platform- freelancer, client, and admin.

• Clients and Businesses: The clients register on the platform with essential information and post jobs with detailed specifications for the service providers to make bids on the job posted according to the location, budget, due date, and description.  
• Freelancer: Upwork allows free registration on the platform with essential information, and freelancers bid for the job posted online. After the job is completed, the payment is released by the admin to the service provider’s account.  
• Admin: The admin is in charge of the entire platform, handling the payments and the operational functionality of the website to deliver a smooth user experience. The admin can monitor reviews, manage registrations, make payments, and more. 

Now, after getting an insight into the platform workflow, the revenue model of the is the next essential revelation for a new business owner.

What is the Revenue Model of Freelancer Marketplace Like Upwork?

The on-demand service platform revenue streams are an amalgamation of different models formulated at the discretion of business owners. Upwork, one of the biggest names in the freelance industry, has generated a huge revenue of USD 586.1 million in 2023. Let us take a look at its established revenue streams.

• Commission Charges: These are the charges for each financial transaction on the platform. The website owner collects a 10% service charge on the task completion.  
• Featured Listings: The featured listings are the highlighted service profiles that grab more customer attention.  Therefore, the featured listing can be a chargeable feature. 
• Subscription Packages: Subscription packages are one of the regular income sources for the platform owner. These packages provide exclusive offers to subscribers. Upwork offers subscription packages such as Freelance Plus and Agency Plus to the user types. 
• Third-Party Advertisement Fees: Fees charged from third-party business advertisements for online promotion on the platform. 
• Service Charges: This fee is charged by the platform owner from the service seeker for availing the platform facilities. 

The freelancing industry thrives on cordial competition, assisting its user types to get the best services available in the market. Henceforth, the next section provides a glimpse into the market competition to examine ways to compete with the market giants and successfully build a freelancer marketplace like Upwork.

Competitive Alternatives of Upwork

Upwork in itself is known to be one of the popular and largest freelancer marketplaces that has introduced multiple job categories and has managed to generate huge returns, connecting over 18 million service providers with service seekers on the platform.
A glimpse into the market specialists and their workflow allows an aspiring individual looking to invest in the freelance industry to formulate a competitive platform, deriving from the pain points of its targeted consumer base.

1. Fiverr (2010)

Fiverr is another mainstream platform that operates on the gig model. It is a preferred platform for both small-scale projects starting from USD 5 and large-scale projects. Fiverr generated an enormous revenue of 1.11 billion in January 2025. The platform offers 700+ service categories and has a registered user base of over 4 million.

2. Toptal (2010)

Toptal is an innovative platform that caters to businesses looking to employ highly skilled and vetted freelancers. The platform connects these businesses with the top 3% of freelance talents. Toptal is remotely operating in 140 countries and has registered 25,000 clients on the platform availing the superior quality services on the website.

3. Freelancer.com (2009)

Another pioneer freelance service platform, Freelancer.com, operates in 247 countries. It is one of the largest crowdsourcing platforms, offering 1800 categories to the registered 79 million user types- freelancers and employers. Freelancer.com indulges in the competitive bidding system, allowing professionals to pitch for a job posted.

Steps to Build a Freelancer Marketplace Like Upwork 

As established in the previous sections, Upwork is one of the most popular platforms for operating and employing many freelancers, allowing the smooth transformation of conventional job types to the now flexible and autonomous job type.

It is a lucrative industry with a low entry barrier that invites new business owners to make a smart and profitable investment. Now that major market insights are on the display, next, the blog lays down the step-by-step plan to build a freelancer marketplace like Upwork.

Step 01: Conduct Comprehensive Market Research

Market research is the first and most important step when investing in an evolving industry. While settling on a business plan, evaluate the emerging trends of the industry, the feedback and pain points of the user types, and analyse the market requirements. Formulating a business plan with strategic adaptability, constant innovation, and competitive prices is an ideal and largely remunerative business idea. This market research exposes business owners to the vast opportunities available in the industry. Finally, choose a business venture that resolves a pain point, has a vast user base, and allows you to reach your business goals quickly.

Step 02: Find a Focused Strategy

After a comprehensive study of the industry requirements, you will find that the industry giants of the market, like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com, are generic pioneer marketplaces with a large user base and a minute scope of competition along with being capital intensive. A new freelance marketplace can be made a market specialist with a focused strategy. Quickly entering the market saves the development time for a new business owner wth feature-rich turnkey software and an up-to-date design format. One can launch a niche-specific platform in the industry after gathering important and relevant feedback at every development stage and moving forward with.

Step 03: Select a Suitable Business Model

After deciding to enter the service industry, a new business owner must choose a profitable business model to ensure a higher return on investment (ROI) while achieving the breakeven point as quickly as possible. Below are the robust business models that streamline the workflow of the platform, along with easy and efficient operations.

• General Freelance Marketplace

The general freelance marketplace is a popular business model that caters to the service industry and its user types, offering a wide range of freelance services across various categories. It is one of the most common freelance marketplace models.

Examples: Upwork, Freelancer.com, Fiverr, and more.

• Niche-Specific Freelance Marketplace

Niche-specific freelance marketplaces are the subsequently emerging industry trend. This business model caters to a singular popular industry type in the service industry, among the freelance industry- web development, graphic designer, and the handyman industry- dog breeder, home keeper, and more.

Examples: 99designs, Behance, Toptal, and more.

• Local Freelance Marketplace

A local freelance marketplace connects freelancers with clients on the basis of geographical location. This marketplace provides a streamlined platform experience to all user types. This business model facilitates in-person project-based services catering to the handyman industry.

Examples: TaskRabbit, Airtasker, Thumbtack, and more.

• Service-based Marketplace

This business model is an advantageous marketplace for the service seeker. The hiring clients and businesses have the autonomy of setting prices according to the posted job. It assists in attracting more businesses to the platform with the offered perks.

Examples: Fiverr, Bark, and more.

• Bid-based Marketplace

The bid-based business model facilitates the bidding module on the platform with the service providers offering bids on a job posted with different price points. It is a mutually beneficial ecosystem where the service seekers can choose their preferred bid, and professionals can bid prices with respect to their individual skill set.

Examples: Upwork, Freelancer.com, and more.

• Subscription-based Marketplace

The subscription-based business model is one of the popular marketplaces confirming with a remunerative model for a new business venture. It offers premium features and functionalities, exclusive job features, listings, and more. This model is made available to enhance customer retention nd brand loyalty after establishing the business in the industry.

Examples: FlexJobs, SolidGigs, and more.

Step 04: Choose Aligning Developmental Approach

A micro-job platform launch can be initiated through various developmental approaches.

• Readymade Software Solution: A turnkey software solution is one of the preferable options with a pre-built industry-specific feature list that fulfills all the requirements of a new platform owner. Readymade software solutions assist in the quick deployment of a micro-job business platform. 
• Custom Development: The custom development approach involves the development of an online freelance platform from scratch by hiring dedicated developers and designers and requires high financial investment. It is also a time-consuming developmental approach with an approximate time consumed on an average to exceed 3-4 months. 

So, selecting an aligning developmental approach is a determinant of the budget requirements as well as the time taken to enter the industry. Therefore, an aspiring entrepreneur should invest wisely after looking into the personal financial roadmap that aligns with the business goals and risk propensity of an investor.

Step 05: Configure The Platform

The development approach will glide you to the next step in the agenda- configuring the marketplace before the launch. Designing the platform according to the business branding with a clean and professional layout and quick responsiveness on all platforms ensures a steadfast goodwill and expands it further. This step includes finalising the design and the feature list for the platform that confirms with the business goals. Find the required feature list listed below.

FREELANCER	ADMIN	CLIENTS
Multiple Job Types	Custom Task Fields	Advanced Job Posting
Bidding Module	Custom Registration Fees	Advanced Filter Search
Job Cancellation Window	Analytics and Reports	Discount Coupons
Multiple Payment Gateways	Rating and Reviews Monitoring	Direct Hiring
Custom Service Packages	Commission Mangement	Ratings and Reviews

Step 06: Launch and Market 

The last step in the process to establish your online service marketplace is accompanied by a series of steps. It starts with the optimization of your website for SEO, this step ensures that the platform reaches the right target audience, followed by rigorous testing affirming a smooth user experience and website responsiveness. Furthermore, after the launch of your online service marketplace, promoting it is the next step of importance. To efficiently market your website online, a new platform owner must implement social media campaigning, email marketing, paid advertisement, and influencer marketing to enhance the reach of your website.

How to Keep Your Freelancer Marketplace Competitive?

The launch of your platform is just the first lap in your run towards success. Keeping your website competitive is equally important to ensure an ascending graph.

• Identify Market Gaps: Catering to the identified market gaps in the industry offers a competitive advantage to the business owner. Analysing the user feedback and understanding their requirements presents the industry gaps that need to be addressed.
• Enhanced Marketing Strategies: Focusing on enhancing the marketing strategies through campaigning, offering discounts, referring, strategies, and more lures more user types to the platform. Hence, it increases the competitiveness.
• Focus on a Niche: Determining a sub-niche provides an upper hand to a new business with the centered and streamlined user experience offered on the website. A vertical marketplace offers a tailored experience to the user in contrast to the popular horizontal marketplace. 
• Region-based Presence: Establishing a business geographically is one primary step that can ensure the gradual scaling of the website. Scaling the business slowly assists in the gradual augmentation of the business. 
• Constant Innovation: A freelancer marketplace offering a smooth user interface, following the market trend, and with advanced industry-specific features and functionalities. 

These are some of the researched and proven ways to establish your freelance marketplace in the industry. Thoughtfully entering the industry after analyzing the pain points of the target audience will bear advantageous results for a new business owner.

How Can Yo!Gigs- The Best Freelance Marketplace Software Solution Help?

Yo!Gigs is the best freelance marketplace software with state-of-the-art features and functionalities that are compatible with numerous niches, ranging from the freelance industry to handyman services. Hence, it has become the world’s only service marketplace catering to both industries. It is a purpose-built software solution pre-built with essential industry-specific features with 100% customisation and scalability capabilities.

Yo!Gigs is a one-stop solution to fulfill all your online service marketplace demands and assists new businesses in launching a cutting-edge micro-job website. The software solution provides aspiring entrepreneurs with a meticulously created long feature list available at a one-time cost and includes 1 year of free technical support provided by the relentless team at Yo!Gigs.

Catered Industry Niches

• Digital Marketing
• Business and Finance
• Writing and Translation
• Landscaping Services
• Furniture Assembly
• Pest Control, and more. 

Reasons to Choose Yo!Gigs

Business owners interested to build a freelancer marketplace like Upwork must look for a software solution developed to be the best, and Yo!Gigs is a market-ready software solution with a user-friendly interface, multiple client-centric revenue models, streamlined marketplace operations, and more.

Key Benefits

• One-Time Cost
• Self-Hosted Software
• White Label Software
• 1-year Free Technical Support
• Fully Customizable and Scalable
• Free Personalized Demo

Key Features

• Numerous Job posting Modules (Job Bidding, direct hiring, and job posting)
• Multiple Job Types (Private and Public)
• Multilingual and Multiple Payment Gateways
• Custom Registration Fields
• Custom Task Categories
• Commission Management 
• Analytics and Reports
• Custom Service Packages
• Advanced Job Posting
• Job Cancellation Window
• Reviews and Ratings, and more.

Final Verdict

The online service industry is on an ascending journey, with the freelance economy growing 15 times faster than the traditional job market, proving it to be a lucrative industry to make an investment. This blog has laid down an overview for new business owners interested to build a freelancer marketplace like Upwork and making informed decisions at every step. It is an asset-light business opportunity that can be capitalized to build a successful business. To gain expert guidance with a substantial success rate, get in touch with the Yo!Gigs team of professionals.