To hire a small team instead of one freelancer, the Upwork alternatives that put a whole team under one contract are Fiverr agencies, development agencies found on Clutch, and Toptal Teams. If you’d rather assemble freelancers yourself, Arc.dev, Freelancer.com, and Lemon.io are the closest swaps, but you’ll be the one coordinating them.
We wrote this guide, so weigh that. We left ourselves out of the ranking. Where we fit is in a box at the end.
Who this is for: a founder or manager who needs two to six people, say front end, back end, mobile, and QA, working as one unit on a defined product. Who should pick something else: if you need one specialist for a short task, Upwork itself is fine. If you need 20 or more engineers, look at the large firms in our Pakistan list or a staffing firm.
Most “Upwork alternatives” pages we read on 2026-10-13 were written by hiring platforms that rank themselves first, and almost all compare ways to hire one developer at a time. This list asks a different question: who gives you a working team, and who leaves the team-building to you?
Why a team on one contract is different
On Upwork, four freelancers usually means four contracts. Upwork’s client pricing page says Basic-plan clients “pay a 5% Marketplace fee” plus a contract initiation fee that “ranges from $0.99 to $14.99 per contract.” Four contracts means up to four initiation fees. The bigger cost is your time: you run the handoffs between them.
Our offshore true-cost calculator shows what those management hours cost. In its default example, eight hours a week of your time at $75 an hour adds $15,600 over six months.
How we ranked them
We checked 15 options and kept 9 that publish enough to compare. We read only official pages: pricing pages, help centers, and FAQs.
- First, one contract or several. Options where one contract covers the whole team come first. Options where you hire and coordinate each person come second.
- Then, within each group, what you can check before a sales call. One point each for: client fees published, a price or minimum visible up front, and payment protection held by the platform (escrow or payment released after you accept the work).
- Ties: alphabetical order.
Vetting claims like “top 1%” are listed, but they don’t score. No platform publishes how its percentage is measured.
The comparison table
| # | Option | Who you hire | Client fees (checked 2026-10-13) | Minimum or price shown | Payment protection | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upwork (for reference) | Freelancers or agencies | 5% Basic, plus $0.99 to $14.99 per contract | Freelancer rates listed | Escrow | ||
| 1 | Fiverr agencies | An agency with 3+ in-house staff | 5.5%, plus $3.50 under $200 | Gig prices listed | Paid on completion | 3 |
| 2 | Agencies on Clutch | An agency | Clutch charges buyers nothing | Each agency lists a minimum | None from Clutch | 2 |
| 3 | Toptal Teams | A team assembled by Toptal | $79 a month | No rates published | Trial, not escrow | 1 |
| 4 | Braintrust | Individuals or embedded teams | Not published | No | Not stated | 0 |
| 5 | Gigster | A managed team | Not published | No | Delivery “guaranteed” | 0 |
| 6 | Arc.dev | Individuals you assemble | ”$0 until you hire” | $15 to $110+ an hour | Not stated | 2 |
| 7 | Freelancer.com | Individuals you assemble | 3% or $3, whichever is greater | No | Milestone escrow | 2 |
| 8 | Lemon.io | Individuals you assemble | No setup fees | 160-hour minimum | Prepaid, not escrow | 2 |
| 9 | Contra | Individuals you assemble | $15 or $29 per payment over $500, unless the freelancer pays for Pro | No | Not stated | 1 |
Group one: one contract covers the team
1. Fiverr agencies
- Who you hire: an agency with “A team of at least 3 in-house professionals,” vetted by Fiverr before it can list (Fiverr agencies). Agencies are open in categories including programming and tech.
- Fees: “The standard service fee is 5.5% of your purchase amount, and we add a $3.50 fee to orders under $200” (client payments).
- Protection: the agency is paid after the order completes.
- Best for: a scoped project you can buy as a package, with Fiverr holding the money.
2. Agencies you find on Clutch
- Who you hire: a development agency. You contract with it directly, not through Clutch.
- Fees: “Buyers never pay to search Clutch, read reviews, post a project, or contact providers.” “Companies can pay a fee for higher placement in specific directories,” so read past the sponsored slots (methodology).
- Minimums: every profile shows a minimum project size, such as $1,000+ or $25,000+.
- Reviews: “In 2025, we rejected 10% of submitted reviews for signs of falsified information.”
- Best for: a full product build with a team that already works together. Tie payments to milestones you can test, since there’s no escrow.
3. Toptal Teams
- Who you hire: a team picked from Toptal’s network. “Lead the team yourself with Toptal Teams, or choose Toptal Teams Advanced and we’ll provide you with a dedicated team manager” (Toptal Teams).
- Fees: “a flat monthly subscription fee of $79” (FAQ). Rates aren’t published.
- Protection: “a trial period of up to two weeks.” “If you’re not completely satisfied, you won’t be billed.”
- Best for: companies that want senior people billed by the hour or week, and can manage them or pay for a manager.
4. Braintrust
- Who you hire: “Staff aug, embedded teams, or contract-to-hire” (pricing).
- Fees: “Zero platform fees for talent.” The client side is “Flexible Pricing” through sales.
- Best for: larger companies that want embedded contractors.
5. Gigster
- Who you hire: a managed team. Its site offers “Dedicated Teams” and a “Fully Managed” model that delivers “across scope, time and budget … guaranteed.”
- Fees and minimum: not published.
- Best for: enterprise builds. Its home page leads with AI engineering for large companies.
Group two: you assemble the team yourself
These work, but you hire each person, check how they fit together, and run the coordination. Budget your own time for it.
6. Arc.dev
- Pricing: “$15 - $110+” an hour for freelance hires (pricing). “We offer a risk-free trial period of up to two weeks.”
- Vetting: “Top 2% of talent, fully vetted” (home page).
7. Freelancer.com
- Fees: for fixed-price projects, “a fee of 3% or $3.00 USD (whichever is greater) is levied at the time a project has been awarded” (fees and charges).
- Protection: “The payment is protected by the Freelancer Milestone Payment System. Only release the payment once you are 100% happy with the work that has been delivered.”
8. Lemon.io
- Pricing: “Yes, 160 hours. That’s one month full-time (40 hours a week) or two months part-time (20 hours a week).” “There are no upfront recruitment or setup fees” (FAQ).
- Vetting: “Only 1% do,” meaning 1% of applicants pass.
9. Contra
- Fees: “Contra is always commission-free for all creatives.” Clients pay a “$15 or $29 per payment >$500” fee when the freelancer is on the free plan, and nothing when the freelancer is on Pro (pricing).
Checked and left off
- Andela, Turing, and A.Team publish no client pricing or minimums.
- Guru and PeoplePerHour blocked our checks of their fee pages.
- BairesDev blocked our checks on every attempt.
How to hire a small team without the chaos
- Write one scope for the whole product. One document, every feature, and what’s left out. Our guide to how we scope fixed-price projects shows the format.
- Ask who runs the team day to day. Get a name. If the answer is “you,” budget your own hours for it.
- Pay per tested milestone. “Login works on a real phone” is a milestone. “50% at the halfway point” isn’t.
- Agree on how the team talks to you. One weekly demo and one written update a day works for most projects. See what five hundred deliveries taught us about client communication.
- Vet the people, not the logo. How to vet an offshore development team covers reviews, repositories, and paid trial tasks.
If you want a fixed price rather than a team billed by the hour, our list of Toptal alternatives with a fixed price compares those options.
Where Dawloom fits
We are a team of about ten, organized by service area, and one contract covers the whole team. You talk to the engineers who build. We take on mobile apps, web platforms, and AI features.
We bill $30 an hour, or by milestone, from a written scope, with no fee on top (pricing). Each milestone is “tied to a deliverable you can look at and accept.” We don’t publish a minimum, and there’s no escrow. Our reviews are 4.9 from 343 on Fiverr, 5.0 from 156 on Freelancer.com, and a 4.9 average across 13 completed jobs on Upwork. We have no Clutch profile.
Pick someone else if you want staff augmentation, someone on site, or a platform holding your money. Fiverr agencies and Upwork agencies do that last part.
FAQ
What is better than Upwork for hiring a development team?
For a team on one contract, look at Fiverr agencies, agencies on Clutch, or Toptal Teams. Fiverr agencies need at least three in-house staff and Fiverr holds payment until the order completes. Clutch lists agency minimums and charges buyers nothing. Toptal Teams costs $79 a month plus hourly rates it doesn’t publish.
Can you hire an agency on Upwork?
Yes. Upwork lists agencies as well as freelancers, and the same fees apply: 5% on the Basic plan plus a contract initiation fee of $0.99 to $14.99, checked 2026-10-13.
What are the fees on Upwork compared with Fiverr and Freelancer.com?
Upwork Basic charges clients 5% plus $0.99 to $14.99 per contract. Fiverr charges 5.5%, plus $3.50 on orders under $200. Freelancer.com charges 3% or $3, whichever is greater, on fixed-price projects. All checked 2026-10-13 on each platform’s own pages.
Is it cheaper to hire freelancers or an agency?
Freelancers usually have lower rates. But with several freelancers, you do the coordination, and your hours are a real cost. Put both quotes into our true-cost calculator with your own management hours to compare them.
If you have a defined product and want one team under one contract, tell us what you’re building and we’ll send a written scope first.