Freelancers are working

The freelancing websites or marketplaces are free to join. But they take a cut from your earnings/sales.

There are some freelancing websites that have memberships for freelancers. Below I mentioned some of them:

FREELANCER.COM

You can signup for free but freelancer.com will charge you to use their website. They have four different types of memberships for freelancers. See them below:

Freelancer membership packages
Freelancer.com memberships

UPWORK.COM

Signing up on Upwork is free. Also, you can use their website for free and without having any premium membership. Though they have a “Plus” membership that costs $15 per month.

See their freelancing memberships below:

Upwork memberships for freelancers
Upwork.com memberships for freelancers

PEOPLEPERHOUR.COM

They allow freelancers to use their platform for free. But it’s not free for everyone. They will give a 3-month free tier after you join PEOPLEPERHOUR.COM. If you failed to make 2 sales and good reviews (4 stars or above among 5 stars), then you have to pay in order to use their freelancing website.

peopleperhour free qualifying period failure notice
Peopleperhour.com free qualifying failure notice

Their memberships cost from $15 to $22 per month. See more detail in the picture below:

peopleperhour memberships
Peopleperhour.com memberships

How the freelancing websites make money?

All the freelancing websites or marketplaces make money from freelancers’ earnings. Also, they charge a small amount to the clients. But most of their earnings come from freelancers.

Almost every popular freelancing websites charge 20% commissions to freelancers. That means if you make $500 in sales, then you will get $400 and the freelancing website will get $100.

And this is the main reason, most experienced freelancers don’t want to work via the marketplace. Perhaps, they choose to get clients through their own & personal website.

Conclusion

Most freelancing websites are free to signup and also continue to work. But there are some limitations to those free tiers.

Paid membership gives you some enhancement in your freelance journey. But in my personal experience, I did not find them worthy or it did not help to get clients (in my case). Every freelancing website has its own way of making money. But one thing is common which is charging freelancers 20% as their commission.