Mainstay vs a free directory

This is the hardest comparison on the site: a free directory does the same job for nothing, and no argument changes that.

What a free directory is good at

It is free. Permanently, unconditionally, and in a way no subscription can answer. If cost is the constraint, the comparison ends here and you should use the free list.

Cost sets no floor on quality. Some free lists are curated by people who care about them and are better than things you can pay for. “Free” is not evidence of anything, in either direction.

No commitment to evaluate it. You can read a free directory this afternoon and lose nothing if it turns out to be useless. Reading Mainstay is free too, and only contact is metered — but the comparison still favours the list that never asks.

What tends to decay in a list nobody pays for

Two things, and they are the two things this register is built around. This is not a claim about any specific free directory — go and check the one you are looking at:

Entries go stale. Someone signs up, gets a client, stops looking, and never comes back to say so. The entry stays. A year later you email five people and hear from one. Removing stale entries takes either work or a mechanism, and neither is free to run.

Nothing was checked, or something was and nobody wrote down what. An open list takes what it is given. A curated one may check carefully and still leave you unable to say what “curated” covered — whether anyone confirmed the person exists, whether the portfolio is theirs, whether the skills match the work shown.

What the subscription pays for

$49 a month buys 100 contact reveals (pricing); browsing, every record, every rate and every check record stay free. What the money funds is three mechanisms, all of them inspectable before you spend anything:

A published bar. The standard is seven numbered clauses, versioned, dated and published in full under CC BY 4.0. Every record was read against it before it appeared, and every record prints which clauses it cleared and when.

An identity check against a government-issued document. No record is published until it happens, and the record then says which of two things happened: the automatic check against the document, or a check by a person here. A list that says only that it vets people leaves you unable to tell either of those from nothing at all. What the register keeps of the check is the outcome, its date, the issuing country, the type of document, and the printed name. The automatic lane belongs to Stripe, and the images stay there: the key this site holds cannot read them. It is a check that the person is who they say they are — not a criminal record check, not a right-to-work check, and not a claim that anyone is good at the work.

A register that removes its own stale entries. Every Mainstayer answers a check every week. Miss a week and the record leaves every list a client sees, automatically. Each record also prints its twelve-week attendance history (how we verify).

What you are buying is not a better class of person, but a list that was checked against something written down and that takes itself down when it stops being true.

One directory, named, with its free tier read

The free tier most people mean is usually attached to a paid product, and the split is worth seeing.

OnlineJobs.ph publishes a free plan at $0 with up to three job posts, and the FAQ on its own pricing page asks “Why can’t I contact workers with the free account?” The free row carries no contact allowance at all. The paid rows do: Pro at $69 a month, which advertises “Contact 75 workers / month”, and Premium at $99 a month, “Contact 500 workers / month”. The same page says “Hire direct. No salary markups or ongoing fees” and offers a “100% Money Back Guarantee. If you don’t find someone great, we’ll give you your money back.” (onlinejobs.ph/pricing, read 2026-08-14.)

Two things follow, and neither of them flatters this site. A subscription metered by contacts is not a new idea — that is the same shape as the reveal allowance described above, and another directory is selling it right now. And the split it makes is the split this site makes: the list is free to read, and reaching somebody on it is the part you pay for. So if you are weighing a free tier against this one, weigh them on what was checked before an entry was published and on what happens to an entry that goes quiet — not on the price of looking, which is nothing on either.

What we cannot tell you

We cannot tell you that any particular free directory’s entries are bad. We have not audited one, and a vendor’s opinion of a competitor’s data quality is worth nothing.

We also cannot tell you that anyone here is good at the work. A check says a record was read against a written bar and that the person answered a check this week. We see no money and no correspondence, so we publish no rate we verified and no reply time — and neither can anyone who tells you they do (what a directory cannot verify).

The comparison we would actually recommend: read a free list and read this register, on the same afternoon, for the same skill. Both are free to read. Then decide whether the difference is worth $49.

When Mainstay is the wrong choice

Your budget is zero. Use the free list. We would rather you spent nothing than spent $49 to find that out, and browsing here costs nothing if you want to compare first.

You only need one contact. A single introduction for $49 is bad value. Free lists, your own network, and a marketplace charging on the job all beat it.

You enjoy the screening and are good at it. If you can spot a recycled portfolio and a borrowed description on sight, most of what the subscription pays for is work you were going to do anyway and enjoy doing.

You want the largest possible pool. Mainstay does not compete on pool size. If your requirement is unusual enough that the answer is one candidate somewhere in the world, start where the most people are.

You want somebody to hold the money, or to replace the person if it goes wrong. No directory does either — not the free ones and not this one. That is a marketplace or an agency, and it is a good reason to use one.