Compare
Ways of hiring, compared.
How a register differs from a marketplace, an agency and a free list, then the head-to-heads. Every page here dates the competitor figures it quotes.
The models
- Directory, marketplace, or agency: three ways to hire, separated by who carries the risk when it goes wrong.
- What a subscription buys: the case for paying a subscription rather than a percentage, and the plain limits of it.
- Hiring without a commission: the places a hiring fee can sit, and who ends up paying each.
- Mainstay vs a free directory: what a published bar and an identity check add, and when free is the right answer.
Leaving a platform
- Upwork alternatives: what a marketplace does for you, and what each replacement model leaves you to arrange.
- Toptal alternatives: what each platform actually checks when it says vetted.
- Fiverr alternatives: what to move to when the work outgrows the package.
Head to head
- Mainstay vs Upwork: what each one protects you from, and which suits the hire you are making.
- Mainstay vs Fiverr: a defined deliverable against an introduction to a person.
- Mainstay vs Toptal: a screened network chooses for you; a register publishes the bar it checked and leaves the choosing to you.
- Mainstay vs Contra: a profile platform is built for the professional’s presence; a register for the buyer’s shortlist.
Open the register →
Browsing is free · a card is needed only to reveal a contact