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Software package

Freelancer marketplace package

A two-sided freelance marketplace with vetted profiles, structured briefs and proposals, milestone contracts funded through a payment provider and held until acceptance, project messaging, a dispute queue, two-way ratings and commission and payout statements, ready to configure around your categories of work.

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Who it is for

Built for

A good fit

Operators of freelance marketplaces and talent networks in a defined category of work, from a founder-run network of a few dozen vetted specialists to a platform with hundreds of freelancers and a small operations team. It suits platform admins who vet freelancers and set commission, operations staff who handle disputes and payout runs, clients who want to compare proposals and pay per milestone with some protection, and freelancers who want a clear brief, a fixed contract and a reliable payout.

Also worth knowing

It is less suited to job boards, which advertise employed roles rather than contract engagements, and to agencies that place and bill people themselves, which the recruitment agency package covers. Operators who need a reviewer step inside each milestone, tiered commission or certification-based matching should look at the custom service first.

The operational problem it solves

How it runs, step by step

A marketing manager at a client company posts a brief for a product explainer video on Tuesday: the structured form asks for length, style references, deadline and usage, and she attaches the script.

  1. Freelancers in the motion design category whose availability is open are notified.

  2. By Thursday she has five proposals, each with a price, three milestones and a message, laid out side by side with each freelancer's rating and portfolio.

  3. She picks one, the contract is created from the proposal, and she funds the first milestone, storyboard, through the payment provider.

  4. The amount is held, and the freelancer sees the milestone as funded and starts work.

The storyboard is delivered on Monday through the project thread.

  1. The client requests one change within the contract's revision terms, the revised version is accepted the next day, and the held amount is released to the freelancer's balance less the platform commission.

  2. The second milestone follows the same path.

  3. On the third, the client says the final render does not match the approved storyboard; the freelancer disagrees, and the client raises a dispute.

  4. The operations lead opens the dispute queue, sees the brief, the approved storyboard, every message and both deliveries in one view, and decides on a partial release, recording the reasoning.

  5. Both parties rate each other once the contract closes.

  6. On the first of the month the payout run produces a statement per freelancer showing contracts, commission and the amount paid out, and the admin dashboard shows commission earned by category.

Features

What the package does

The package is organised as modules that follow an engagement from brief to payout: profiles and vetting, briefs and proposals, contracts and held payments, messaging and delivery, disputes and ratings, and commission and payouts. Each module below lists what it does; the comparison table shows which package variant includes it.

Directory and reviews

  • Freelancer profiles with skills and portfolioProfiles hold skills from a taxonomy, a portfolio, rates and availability so clients can judge fit.
  • Two-way ratings after completionClients and freelancers rate each other when a contract ends.
  • Identity verification at onboardingFreelancer identity is verified at onboarding and the outcome recorded on the profile. Available as an add-on.
  • Featured freelancers and category pagesPromote freelancers in featured placements and on category pages. Available as an add-on.

Workflow and tasks

  • Admin vetting and approval of profilesYour team reviews each profile and approves it before it appears on the marketplace.
  • Delivery, change requests and acceptanceWork is delivered per milestone, change requests are raised formally, and the client accepts or asks for changes.
  • Dispute queue with release decisionsYour team reviews disputes and decides full or partial release of held funds.

Forms and requests

  • Structured client briefs by work typeClients describe the work with a brief shaped to the type of work, which makes proposals comparable.

Listings and search

  • Proposals with price and milestones, comparedFreelancers respond with a price, milestones and a message, and the client compares proposals side by side.

Billing and payments

  • Milestone contracts funded and heldEach milestone is funded through the payment provider and held until the client accepts the work.
  • Flat commission and payout statementsA flat commission is taken and freelancers receive payout statements on a set schedule.

Messaging and notifications

  • Project messaging with filesClient and freelancer talk and share files within the contract, so the record stays in one place.

Roles and permissions

Who does what

  • Platform admin

    • Define categories, the skills taxonomy and brief templates
    • Vet and approve freelancer profiles
    • Set commission and payout schedule
    • See contracts, held amounts and commission across the platform

  • Dispute handler

    • Open disputes with the contract, deliveries and messages in one view
    • Decide a full or partial release and record the reasoning
    • Message both parties within the dispute
    • See dispute history per freelancer and client

  • Client

    • Post structured briefs and compare proposals
    • Fund milestones and accept or request changes to deliveries
    • Message the freelancer within the project
    • Raise a dispute and rate the freelancer

  • Freelancer

    • Maintain a profile, portfolio, rates and availability
    • Send proposals with milestones against briefs
    • Deliver per milestone and respond to change requests
    • See their balance, payout statements and ratings

Example screen

Concept demo

Concept demo of the freelancer marketplace contract view showing milestone statuses, held amount, a delivery awaiting review and the project message thread.

A contract as the client sees it: three milestones with their status of accepted, funded and awaiting funding, the held amount on the active milestone, the delivery awaiting review with its change request count, and the project thread alongside.

Scope and options

What is included and what is extra

In the base package

  • Freelancer profiles with skills taxonomy, portfolio, rates and availability
  • Admin vetting and approval of profiles
  • Structured client briefs by work type
  • Proposals with price, milestones and message, compared side by side
  • Milestone contracts funded and held through the payment provider until acceptance
  • Project messaging with files against the contract
  • Delivery, change request and acceptance per milestone
  • Dispute queue with full or partial release decisions
  • Two-way ratings after completion
  • Flat commission and payout statements on a set schedule

Common add-ons

  • Identity verification at onboarding, recorded against the profile
  • Featured freelancer placements and category pages
  • Saved searches and brief alerts for freelancers

Needs custom work

  • Reviewer step between delivery and client acceptance
  • Tiered or category-specific commission
  • Matching rules based on certifications or test results
See the custom development service

Ownership, maintenance and pricing

After the build

Deployment and ownership

The package runs on your hosting or on hosting we manage, chosen in the proposal and changeable later. You own the code and your data either way. Profiles, briefs, contracts, messages, dispute records and payout statements can be exported in standard formats at any time, and the platform can be moved to another provider. Funds held against milestones sit with the payment provider under its terms and are never held by the platform itself.

Maintenance

Maintenance is optional and scoped separately. When taken, it covers security updates to the platform and its dependencies, monitoring of payment provider callbacks, payout runs and notification sends, backups, and a monthly window for small configuration changes such as a new category, a brief field or a commission rate. Larger changes are quoted as change requests.

Pricing model

Priced per proposal.

The package is sold as a one-off setup and customisation with optional monthly maintenance and hosting as separate recurring lines. The setup figure depends on the number of work types, the add-ons chosen, the payment provider and its holding model, how many profiles and engagements are migrated and whether you host it yourself. The commission your platform charges is your business decision and is not part of what you pay us. Recurring costs are listed on their own lines in the proposal.

Prefer a fully custom build?

Freelancer platform development

Custom freelance marketplaces and talent networks with briefs, proposals, milestone contracts, held payments, disputes and payouts designed around a specific category of work.

View the service

Also used in

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Where does the money sit while a milestone is in progress?

With the payment provider connected during setup, which supports holding funds and paying out to freelancers. The package records the funding, hold, release or refund against the milestone; it never holds funds itself, and the provider's terms apply to the held amounts.

What happens when a client does not respond to a delivery?

The admin sets an acceptance window per category. If the client neither accepts nor requests changes nor disputes within it, the delivery is treated as accepted and the held amount is released, with reminders to the client beforehand.

How are disputes decided?

By your dispute handler, not by the software. The dispute view brings together the brief, the contract, every delivery and every message, and the handler records a full or partial release with the reasoning, which both parties can see.

Can a client and freelancer agree changes mid-contract?

Yes. Either party can propose a change to an unfunded milestone's scope, price or date; the other accepts and the contract records the amendment. Funded milestones are changed only through a change request within the revision terms, or a dispute.

Does the platform determine whether a freelancer is self-employed?

No. It records engagements and produces statements. Employment status, tax and the terms between the platform and its freelancers are matters for your own advisers and the terms you publish.

Is this a finished product I can see running?

Not yet. The readiness badge shows the real state: the package is a custom build assembled from our multi-vendor, orders, messaging and directory modules for each operator, and the example on this page is a labelled concept demo rather than a live platform.

We want a reviewer to check every delivery before the client sees it. Is that included?

The package runs delivery directly to the client for acceptance. A reviewer step inside the milestone flow is custom work handled through the custom freelancer platform service.

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Tell us about your locations, the people who will use it and the add-ons you need. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

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