In this digital age, flexible work hours have gained prominence. Now the tradition of 9 to 5 is really dying, as instead of working full time the new generation love to work remotely from home.
Today the majority of people are earning money through various online platforms. Modern Technology has consistently changed the working environment and helped workers become more efficient than ever before.
There has been a complete revolution in the job market after the development of freelance marketplace apps and websites like Upwork, Fiverr, etc have come into existence. You are no longer limited to looking for jobs in your area, you can search any number of job-seeking sites on the internet, and find remote jobs or positions available to freelancers from anywhere in the world.
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the job sector has been profoundly affected and caused a widespread economic shutdown, that forced the workforce to look for new job opportunities online. And this was possible because of the freelancing websites and apps that made it easy to help freelancers by providing a platform to earn money.
Upwork is one of the largest freelance platforms in the world. According to Statista, Upwork generated more than 50 million U.S. dollars revenue from freelancers in the United States.
Freelancing is becoming progressively famous day by day. Some of the major companies such as Amazon, Google, Apple, Airbnb, Walmart, etc hire freelancers to get their work done. Even the new startups have started developing an app or websites like UpWork to follow the trend.
According to the new report 48% of the U.S. workforce will be freelancers by the end of 2020. There are about 1.1 billion freelancers around the world with a total global workforce of around 3.5 billion.
So, as per all the above facts, creating a freelance website or app will surely be a beneficial investment for business owners and a great opportunity in the long run.
In this blog, we will discuss the cost to Develop a Freelance Marketplace like Upwork and how to create a website like Upwork, also will have a look into some core features and benefits of such websites.
What is a Freelance Marketplace and how does it work?
Freelancer Marketplace Business Model is an online platform where qualified and skilled freelancers can find work and get payment from anywhere in the world. It provides two-sided platform service for people to buy and sell various types of digital services. Here the companies can find and hire freelancer specialists for specific jobs. This is the smartest way of hiring people and getting the work done.
We can check the profiles of various professional freelancers on these sites and ask them for a quote for the work that is to be done. Also, the hiring person can look at previous projects done to get an idea of the quality of the work.
Websites and Apps like Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, etc are some popular digital business platforms providing a wide range of services in a convenient way.
In order to work as a freelancer one had to register with their details to the freelance platform and create your profile. After the profile is created the freelance platform team will verify the details provided and make you eligible for the projects once you’re verified.
Advantages of Freelance Marketplace
How to build a website or app like Upwork?
Building a website or app from scratch requires a lot of research and extensive pre-planning about how the website or app will perform according to the market trends. One can also use Upwork clone and build a similar website like Upwork using the Prebuild Upwork clone script, but this may be unsafe and not modular, which may be dangerous for the future.
The following steps are required for developing an App or Website like Upwork.
1. Decide the aim of your business
You should be very much clear about your business strategy and how to start your Freelance Marketplace like Upwork. As an entrepreneur, you should be concerned about every aspect of your business and need to have a clear goal in mind about the comprehensive business objectives and the guidelines that become the foundation of your business planning.
Deciding the objectives of your business will give you a clearly defined target, and will enable your business to measure the progress towards your stated aim. You can further, make some add ons according to the competitive environment.
2. Identify the target audience
A targeted audience is a group of people on which you want to focus your specific marketing efforts. Having a well-defined target audience is one of the most vital pieces of marketing strategy. This is a much more effective way to reach potential clients and grow your business.
Without knowing how to find your target audience will waste your time and money, this will overall affect your bottom line significantly.
Once you decide the target audience, be sure to consider the following questions.
1. What market share do your competitors own?
2. Will the target audience benefit your business?
3. Can the target audience afford the services?
4. What will drive them to make the purchase?
3. Study the requirements
Before we jump to the design and development phase of our project, we need to understand exactly what is needed to build freelancer marketplace platform like Upwork or Fiverr.
There should be complete research on the requirements that are needed to be defined during the process and also what will be the cost to build a freelance marketplace site like Upwork, which focuses and prioritize the project plan of the website or app development.
4. Identify the core features
Every piece of software has a feature that makes it unique. The purpose of your website should be one of the main factors in deciding what features should be added. And according to the purpose, the features that are needed should be made a priority.
Before your website is written, designed, or coded, you should have a clear mind map of The features that will be offered. Providing the right functionality is very much important in Competitive Market.
5. Custom Development
After completion of the research and requirements of your website or app, now it's time to put all the concepts in code and build a freelance marketplace website or app like Upwork.
Once the idea and concepts are clear, the app development team will study the requirements of the client and start working on the actual design of the website.
The development of a website or app requires good expertise in the coding field, so if you’re not having a strong team then you can hire an outsourcing agency to do the particular work for you, they will have a team of developers, designers, writers, and project Managers to handle the entire project.
You should start with a MVP product having core and unique features , so you can get the practical insights on how to improve or update the product.
6. Testing
Testing is the most important step of product development, it ensures the performance of the website or application.
The testing of the product should be done during all stages of marketplace development. Testing helps to improve the quality, reliability, and performance of the system, and also check whether the software functions as per the requirements or not.
7. Deployment
Deployment is the most important aspect of the development process, once the software has been fully tested, developers deploy it to run in the web environment
Top features included in the website or app like Upwork
Developing a website or app like Upwork requires a lot of research so that the new website or app performs better in every aspect according to the market trends. But an increase in the number of features will also affect the cost to create a website like Upwork. So, firstly it is necessary to add in the basic features that make the website or app functions properly.
Below are some essential features that must be included.
1. Registration
To maintain the record of all the clients, a registration page is absolutely necessary. There are two types of users on freelancer websites, one is the freelancer, while the other is the customer who gives the projects to the freelancers. We can also include a profile of agencies to register themselves. Seeing the marketing trends many companies have also started registering on this platform.
So, having a feature of registration for entering the details is essential.
2. Freelancer Profile
A Freelancer Profile is the portfolio of the users registered on the Freelance platform. It includes their name, bio, skills, and past experiences. There should also be a skills verification test and profile verification, so the parties may be able to trust each other.
3. Search and Filters
The marketplace website or app should have a search and filter system so the users can find a specific job project or freelancers that align with their skills and requirements.
A search bar is a feature that will help you to find a particular job post or client for you. Filters will sort the job listings, projects, skills, experience, budget, etc.
4. Messaging Option
It is a type of communication tool which helps the users to communicate with each other privately. Also, it allows the users and clients to discuss the project details via screen sharing and file exchange
5. Notifications
The Notification system is necessary to keep the users updated about the activity on the freelance platform. This feature will inform the users about new messages, projects, payments, etc.
6. Secure Payments
Payment integration is an important feature of any website or app. This feature handles all the transactions between customer and freelancer from withdrawal and deposit money to making transactions to another account.
Having an easy payment portal with different payment options is highly recommended for any freelance website or application.
7. Reviews and Ratings
Showing information and score of freelancers based on their quality of work output and overall satisfaction rate of the customers will help the clients to review your work before they assign you a new project.
Technologies used to build websites or apps like Upwork
Cost to create a Freelance website or app like Upwork
The cost to create a website like Upwork depends on many factors such as the platform you choose, the development team you hire, what additional features you want to include, the complexity of the website or app, hours of development, etc.
Below you will find some different phases through which a website or app development project proceeds according to the specific needs of a particular business.
1. Stages of development
i) Architecture Design
Architecture design is the most important part of the marketplace development, which will define the whole process of the development and working of the website or Application.
It includes, how many types of users your freelance marketplace website or app will have? And which functionalities will the users use on your platform?
ii) Development
Development is also defined as the implementing phase. This includes coding or writing the HTML / CSS source code according to the web standards.
iii) Database Design
Database Design & development is an integral part of the software development lifecycle. The database management system must be powerful enough to securely store the client’s information and process the requests from the users.
iv) Testing
For building a successful freelance website or app, quality assurance is very much necessary. Testing will identify system errors and missing requirements. Also, it will reduce the cost and time to produce software that is bug-free so that it is ready to deliver to the client.
v) Deployment
Once the development is complete, developers will deploy the developed freelance platform and make it accessible in the web environment.
vi) Maintenance
After the final development and deployment of the product, maintenance service is required to make the website or app work properly. Maintenance includes regularly visiting the page to make sure that it is displaying properly.
2. Average rates of developers
A developer may charge differently based on the expected duration of your job. Charges maybe higher for short-term contracts, while they may be less in exchange for more work flexibility and benefits.
The rates of developers may vary from the location of the country, depending on the hourly rates of development.
3. App Development Cost
Cost to Develop a Freelance Marketplace like Upwork is not accurate, it depends on many factors like developing platform, developers, complexity, additional features, development hours, etc.
1. Resources
The following resources are required for the development of any website or app.
- - Project Manager
- - Business Analytics
- - Designer (UI/UX/HTML)
- - Web /Mobile App Developers
- - Tester
2. Hours
The hourly cost varies according to the complexity of the website or application and what additional features you want to include in it.
Usually, the fee is in the range of $15 to $20 / hour depending on Developer experience.
3. The extra cost
The development process will also include some extra costs for the tools that may require according to the features and functionality you want.
- - Logo Design
- - Domain
- - Server Cost / Hosting
- - Content Writing
- - SSL Certificate
- - 3rd party email service, SMS service, etc
4. Working with an agency
Many business owners choose outsourcing as a way for development, especially if you want to build a freelance marketplace business model, then hiring a development company which provides a high-quality, full-cycle development service, profound expertise, and personal data protection, will be the best option.
If you can get good value for less money- why not follow the road!
Successful projects are always within the process of improvement and are gradually adding some new features that allow them to scale up.
Well if you’re thinking of developing a freelance marketplace website or app, an estimate cost would be anywhere between $5,000 - $35,000 depending on the features.
At Webs Optimization, we have experienced frontend and backend developers who will make it all work together. We provide extensively and integrated IT services that include UI/UX design, Web development, Mobile app development, and Enterprise solutions.
Conclusion
There are a lot of factors that play an important role in the success of a website or app development process. Selecting the right development company will definitely make you earn a fortune.
Therefore, all the details mentioned above will be useful for the website owners and website developers for developing a freelance marketplace website or application.
And if you still have any queries in building a freelance marketplace, reach out to us and talk to us about your requirements. Our expert team will guide you through the process of how to Develop a Freelance Marketplace like Upwork.
