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Upwork alternatives
The short answer: Upwork is a marketplace for freelance and contract work. Posting a job is free, and you pay a marketplace fee on each payment. Hiring someone you found there onto your payroll within two years costs a conversion fee. SuperHired headhunts a salaried hire for a flat fee set by the role, from $7,500.
Pick Upwork for hours or a scoped project you will manage yourself. Pick SuperHired when the person should join your team on salary.
Upwork lines come from its own public pages, checked November 2026. Each one links to its source.
| Compare | SuperHired | Upwork |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | A salaried hire for your team, headhunted for the role. | A freelancer or agency on an hourly or fixed-price contract (contracts help). |
| How you pay | One flat fee, set by the role. 30% at signing, 70% when an offer is accepted. | Free to post. A marketplace fee on each payment, plus a one-time contract initiation fee of $0.99 to $14.99 for each new contract on the Basic plan (help article). |
| Marketplace fee | None. One flat fee per search. | The pricing page lists 5% on Basic (3% for eligible US clients paying from a bank account) and 10% on Business Plus (8%). A help article says Basic is up to 7.99%. |
| Onto your payroll | That is the service. | Within two years, a conversion fee of 13.5% of a year of estimated earnings, at least $1,000 (conversion fee, contract-to-hire). |
| Guarantee | 120-day replacement guarantee, under the service terms. We explain them before you commit. | None on the pages we checked. Fixed-price funds are released when you approve the work, or after a 14-day review window (contracts help). |
The fee repeats on every payment. To hire a freelancer onto your payroll within two years, you pay a conversion fee. For a $60-an-hour freelancer, 13.5% of a year at 40 hours a week is $16,848, less client fees you paid on their contracts in the last 12 months.
You pay 30% at signing, before you meet candidates. We focus on marketing and go-to-market roles, and our searches are for salaried hires, not freelance or contract hours.
SuperHired headhunts marketing and go-to-market people for agencies and in-house teams. Agencies are our core. Each search runs in six stages: Discover, Define, Headhunt, Understand, Evaluate and Start Well. Our method explains each one.
The fee is set by the role, never by the salary. A standard search is $7,500. A specialist or technical search is $10,000 to $15,000, and an executive search is $15,000 to $25,000. You pay 30% at signing, which covers discovery and starts the agreed search, and 70% when an offer is accepted. Pricing has the details.
Each search includes a 120-day replacement guarantee under the service terms, and we explain those terms before you commit. Where a simulation can answer an important hiring question, finalists do a paid exercise built around the real work.
Upwork says it is free to create a client account and post a job (how it works). Work runs on hourly contracts, billed for logged time, or fixed-price contracts, where you fund milestones and payment is released when you approve the work, or after a 14-day review window (contracts help).
Its pricing page lists a 5% marketplace fee on the Basic plan, or 3% for eligible US clients paying from a checking account, and 10% on Business Plus, or 8%. Its Client Marketplace Fee article says Basic is up to 7.99%, so check the rate at checkout. A contract initiation fee of $0.99 to $14.99 applies once for each new contract on the Basic plan, including with someone you hired before. Business Plus has exceptions.
To hire a freelancer you found on Upwork onto your payroll within two years, Upwork charges a conversion fee: 13.5% of the hourly rate times 2,080 hours. Its contract-to-hire article sets a $1,000 minimum and takes off client fees paid on that freelancer’s contracts in the last 12 months.
Any Hire, for talent you found outside Upwork, costs $49 a month for each active contractor contract.
Checked November 2026. Prices and terms change, so confirm them with each firm before you sign.
If the person should join your agency on salary, use a search rather than a marketplace. SuperHired headhunts marketing and go-to-market people for agencies and in-house teams, for a flat fee set by the role, from $7,500, with a 120-day replacement guarantee. Stay on Upwork for freelance or project work.
Upwork’s pricing page lists a 5% marketplace fee on the Basic plan, or 3% for eligible US clients paying from a checking account, and 10% on Business Plus, or 8%. Its Client Marketplace Fee article says Basic is up to 7.99%. A contract initiation fee of $0.99 to $14.99 also applies to each new contract on the Basic plan.
Within the first two years, Upwork charges a conversion fee of 13.5% of the hourly rate times 2,080 hours, with a $1,000 minimum, less client fees paid on that freelancer’s contracts in the last 12 months. For a $60-an-hour freelancer, that is $16,848 before the credit.
The Upwork pages we checked list no replacement guarantee. On fixed-price contracts, funds are released when you approve the work, or after a 14-day review window. SuperHired includes a 120-day replacement guarantee under the service terms.
Your next hire
We’ll talk through the role, how we would run the search and the fee. If freelance help or another firm suits you better, we’ll say so.