5 Fiverr Alternatives for Hiring Software Developers in 2025

The gig economy is thriving. With an increasing number of businesses partnering with freelancers and contractors over full-time employees, several platforms have emerged to connect employers with top gig talent. Fiverr, a global freelance marketplace, was founded in 2010. The platform facilitates hiring for short-term gigs and projects. While this is ideal for some businesses, employers looking for niche software engineering talent, thorough vetting, and long-term arrangements should consider Fiverr alternatives.

How Fiverr Works

Fiverr is a marketplace that connects freelancers (“sellers”) with employers (“buyers”). You can browse or search across categories, keywords, and filters. Businesses may reach out to freelancers to discuss specific projects. Then, they place orders after choosing a Gig package or requesting a custom offer. Employers peruse reviews, portfolios, and other materials to help them make a decision.

Fiver Pro

Fiverr Pro is a more comprehensive solution that facilitates recruitment, onboarding, and management of freelance talent for different-sized projects. The service offers project planning, project management, and talent sourcing. The talent is vetted by industry experts. Employers get a shortlist of candidates with the skills to meet their project needs and can hire on an hourly basis or a project basis. 

There are two plans: Fiverr Pro Essential and Fiverr Pro Advanced. For the Essential plan, businesses receive all of the regular Fiverr services plus a vetted shortlist of candidates. Businesses must order services worth $1,000 or more annually to remain eligible. The Advanced plan includes everything in the Essential plan plus legal document management, support from a Business Success Manager, and one background check and worker classification audit/month. This plan costs $129 per month.

What Are Fiverr’s Features?

Wide Range of Categories

Fiverr’s marketplace includes thousands of freelancers across fields like Programming & Tech, Graphics & Design, Writing & Translation, and AI Services, with subspecialties like Website Development, Chatbot Development and Design, and UX Design. There are 700 categories in total.

Global Operations

Fiverr connects freelancers and businesses across some 160 countries. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, the company has satellite offices in New York, London, Berlin, Orlando, and Kyiv. This flexibility means employers can work with remote talent all over the world.

Convenience

Companies can access remote talent easily via the platform. They can look at reviews and portfolios and hire freelancers quickly to meet a wide variety of niches and needs.

Why Should You Consider Fiverr Alternatives?

Oversaturated Marketplace

Although the sheer volume of sellers on the marketplace can be a perk, it can also be a disadvantage. With so many services and a lack of niches, the platform risks spreading itself too thin. Tech employers often have trouble finding specialized talent to fill in the gaps. Fiverr also lacks options for complex, highly technical projects, which tech employers often need.

Lack of Quality Control

Although Fiverr Pro does perform candidate vetting, there are many complaints that the regular platform fails to perform proper quality control. Businesses may contract professionals who provide inadequate work. Freelancers can also be unreliable, inexperienced, or otherwise incompetent. Practically anyone can become a seller on Fiverr, and businesses must rely on ratings and portfolios to make a decision.

Communication Barriers

Because Fiverr is a global talent marketplace, businesses may encounter language barriers and contrasting time zones. This can lead to project delays and misunderstandings. Both buyers and sellers may fail to respond to messages promptly, and there is the potential for missed deadlines due to communication issues. Moreover, buyers and sellers alike complain about inordinate amounts of spam from Fiverr itself.

High-Cost

Both buyers and sellers incur a fee for each transaction. The standard fee is 5.5% of the service fee, and a $3 fee is added to orders under $100. Meanwhile, sellers incur a 20% commission fee. These costs can really add up. And if businesses choose to go with Fiverr Pro, the costs are even higher. Additionally, buyers may experience hidden fees with unvetted freelancers.

Focus on One-off Tasks and Projects

Given the short-term focus of projects on Fiverr, the platform is not ideal for ongoing or long-term arrangements. Typically, projects are small-scale. Businesses will likely have difficulty finding freelancers for complex initiatives.

Fiverr Alternatives for Hiring Remote Software Engineers

1. Terminal

Unlike Fiverr, Terminal exclusively focuses on tech hiring. Employers can connect with quality software engineers in a wide variety of niches, from AI to data science and beyond. 

Terminal uses a combination of AI and dedicated human recruitment professionals to find top talent in key markets. In contrast to Fiverr, Terminal always rigorously vets all candidates before presenting a curated shortlist of tech talent for employers to consider. Only the top 7% of candidates pass this comprehensive screening. 

Instead of matching businesses with developers anywhere in the world, Terminal focuses on key markets in Latin America, Canada, and Europe. These markets boast high-quality tech talent, lower costs, and strong English language and communication capabilities. Nearshore talent pipelines ensure overlapping business hours for real-time communication. 

Another important difference between Fiverr vs. Terminal is the ability to tap into complex and niche skill sets. Terminal’s professionals don’t just perform basic gigs; they can offer specialized qualifications for longer-term projects and arrangements. In addition to contract talent, Terminal connects businesses with full-time engineers. The company can also serve as an Employer of Record, navigating complex local hiring regulations.

Terminal conducts the hiring process from start to finish, tackling sourcing, screening, and management of new hires. The talent they source costs up to 40% less than US hiring. Plus, you’ll enjoy a 14-day risk-free trial period at no cost.

2. Upwork

Like Fiverr, Upwork is a vast marketplace of freelance talent. The platform offers a range of roles, from Generative AI Specialists and Ruby on Rails Developers to Content Writers and Bookkeepers.

However, the model is a bit different from Fiverr. While both are freelance marketplaces, Upwork involves the client posting projects and freelancers bidding on them via project proposals. Upwork uses algorithms to provide shortlists of candidates who appear to be the best matches. Similar to Fiverr, you can review portfolios and reviews from other clients. You can also peruse project catalogs of freelancers.

Upwork has three models: Marketplace (5% service fee), Business Plus (10% service fee), and Enterprise (custom pricing). Recently, the platform changed its fixed 10% service fee to a variable fee of up to 15% for freelancers. 

There are a few important downsides to consider when evaluating Upwork. First, there are the costs. There are no fixed costs other than service fees, so it can be difficult to budget. Moreover, there’s no assurance of work quality; you’ll have to make a decision based on your own assessment of the candidate’s portfolios and reviews. Upwork does provide ratings assessing talent level from past clients, but there is no vetting from the platform itself. 

Upwork doesn’t specialize in tech hiring. Additionally, there may be time zone and language barriers. There’s no support from the market, which can make global hiring and compliance difficult. The platform performs freelancer testing to ensure professionals have the basic skills for their niche, but the testing is not comprehensive. It’s also easy for candidates to look up answers. Finally, Upwork is not ideal for long-term hiring.

3. Toptal

In contrast to Fiverr, Toptal is dedicated to tech hiring. The freelance marketplace thoroughly vets developers and matches candidates to businesses based on their requirements. 

Toptal mainly hires from Europe and the Americas, although the network spans 100+ countries. The platform ensures that engineers speak English and offers project management tools to facilitate smoother working arrangements.

One of the main detractors when it comes to Fiverr vs. Toptal is the exorbitant cost. Freelancer rates begin at $60 and can top $200 in some cases, depending on qualifications and the project. This is on top of a flat monthly subscription fee. The steep price tag can make Toptal prohibitively expensive for startups and SMEs.

Another downside of using Toptal is that the company exclusively connects freelance tech talent, not full-time hires. It’s also not ideal for longer-term engagements.

4. Freelancer.com

Freelancer is another of the Fiverr alternatives with a vast freelance talent pool of millions of professionals. The company operates around the world and has offices across different continents.

Like Upwork and Fiverr, Freelancer offers specializations across categories and niches. Similar to Upwork, the platform is a bidding-based model. Businesses can hire freelancers across skill, category, or location and receive immediate bids. Freelancer boasts that 80% of jobs receive bids within 60 seconds.

Freelancer’s pricing structure is a bit confusing. Hourly projects cost 3% of the price you pay the freelancer on top of their fees. Fixed-price projects cost the higher of a $3 flat fee or 3% of the price you pay the freelancer. There are additional costs for special services and features, such as featuring projects, marking projects as urgent, or asking freelancers to sign NDAs or Intellectual Property agreements. 

A significant disadvantage of using Freelancer is that many users complain of frequent scams on the site. The search functions can also be difficult to use. And much like many other Fiverr competitors, the platform is not suitable for full-time or long-term work.

5. PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour is a UK-based platform for largely European freelance talent that operates in over 100 countries. Unlike Fiverr, they thoroughly review and vet all candidates. The platform also uses smart AI to match freelancers to clients.

Similar to Fiverr, PeoplePerHour is not exclusive to tech talent. Businesses post project briefs and freelancers submit proposals. Freelancers can also post projects themselves.

PeoplePerHour is a short-term hiring solution. The company states that 90% of projects are completed within a week. An additional challenge is the frequent time zone disparity. There are also complaints of scams from both providers and clients.

Moreover, the pricing structure is not clear; it’s based on the amount earned, although PeoplePerHour is not transparent about the particularities of the model. It does, however, offer free project postings. 

Why Terminal Is the Best Alternative to Fiverr

Of all the Fiverr alternatives, Terminal stands out for its niche and specialized talent pool, rigorous vetting process, affordable costs, and global hiring model. Moreover, unlike Fiverr and its competitors, Terminal supports both short and long-term projects and hiring. If you want ongoing relationships with contractors or full-time software engineers, plus extensive screening and customized matching services, Terminal is the natural choice.