Freelancers and people in search of freelance work are turning to the apps. On the Freelancers Union we’re studying that, more and more, a lot of our members are discovering work on apps referred to as “freelance platforms.” UpWork, Fiverr, Freelance.com, are among the many hottest. These are corporations that function third-party marketplaces, the place freelancers share their expertise and get related with shoppers in search of their labor.
It’s no shock that as tech layoffs have elevated, and staff look warily at full-time alternatives that seem more and more scarce and unstable, expert staff flip to freelance work – the place there appears to be stability and alternative. The Future Workforce Index 2026, UpWork’s annual analysis paper, signifies a ten% year-over-year improve in expert staff freelancing, 38% in 2026, up from 28% in 2025. As shoppers search this higher-skilled labor at marginal or cheaper price for his or her companies, the third-party apps like UpWork and Fiverr present the answer that may nonetheless profit their bottom-line. Purchasers scour the websites to seek out the most effective freelancers for probably the most cost-efficient worth. They’ve made the monetary calculation that it’s cheaper for his or her enterprise to contract one among hundreds of freelancers on these platforms than it’s to rent full-time workers—which implies state and federal taxes, healthcare, and perhaps a 401k.
Hundreds of freelancers and shoppers discover actual profit from utilizing these platforms. When freelancers work with shoppers who lay out the specs of the job, are clear about benchmarks, expectations, and deliverables – the freelance work will be copacetic, versatile, and financially rewarding. Freelancers can construct their enterprise and popularity on the platform, and shoppers get the work product they search.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t all the time work out that method.
When a freelancer indicators up with one among these platforms, there’s a sense of management over their labor and the work they tackle. They keep a piece profile, record their expertise and expertise, in addition to no matter further standards apply to their experience and the sorts of jobs they search. Relying on the platform, they obtain a Job Success Rating, or an identical score of their work product from previous shoppers. Freelancers and shoppers are informed a couple of seemingly frictionless “entry to international expertise and companies throughout the globe,” and that they’ll lastly “work the best way you need.” Nevertheless, lately we’re listening to issues with rising alarm from our membership about work on these platforms.
Freelancers are reporting to us about a wide range of regarding points. They’re having their accounts’ arbitrarily frozen, funds promised by shoppers’ withheld. They’re being demonetized, deplatformed, suspended, and having their content material disappear with out rationalization. Freelancers describe a definite lack of management that they’ve over cash owed to them per a signed settlement. When coping with platforms’ dispute-resolution course of with a consumer, freelancers inform us a couple of restricted capacity to provoke disputes on the platforms within the first place and a prohibitively costly and onerous arbitration course of.
There’s additionally concern in regards to the lack of management that freelancers have over their popularity. One consumer dispute can flip into a foul assessment, destroying a freelancers’ algorithmically-determined Job Success Rating on UpWork. Freelancers report materials earnings loss following these and different unexplained algorithmic rating modifications.
AI-generated buyer assist; fee-structure erosion of take-home pay, shoppers breaching platform coverage by insisting on freelancers circumventing the platform payment to chop prices – these compounding points all result in a query we’re asking ourselves on the Freelancers Union:
Who do these freelance platforms work for?
As extra expert freelance labor and job alternatives transfer onto these platforms, freelancers describe feeling trapped on these platforms with out actual safety or authorized recourse. We consider that these freelance marketplaces ought to have all the identical obligations to freelancers supplied by the Freelance Isn’t Free Act, and requisite federal, state, and native labor legal guidelines.
We wish to hear from you!
Do you’re employed on a contract platform? Is it working the best way you need?
Attain out to us at: advocacy@freelancersunion.org.
