10 Best Contra Alternatives

Contra has built a loyal following by promising what most freelance platforms don’t:
0% commission for freelancers, built-in contracts and invoicing, and a “professional network first” feel rather than a noisy gig marketplace.

For freelancers, that’s huge. For clients, Contra is attractive if you want:

• Modern, portfolio-led profiles
• Direct relationships instead of locked-in marketplaces
• A cleaner UI than older platforms

But there are reasons teams start hunting for Contra alternatives:

• You need more specialist talent (e.g. game art, advanced product engineering, growth marketing).
• You want heavier vetting for higher-stakes roles.
• You’re hiring at scale and need enterprise-grade compliance and workforce management.
• You just want more volume of candidates and projects than Contra’s still-growing network can offer.

Below are 10 of the best Contra alternatives, with a clear focus on what each one is actually best at for hiring managers, founders, and teams.

What Is Contra, in a Sentence?

Contra is a commission-free professional network and freelance platform where independents can showcase services, sign contracts, invoice clients and get paid with 0% platform fees, monetised through optional memberships and tools rather than taking a cut of earnings.

Think of it as a hybrid between LinkedIn, Notion-style portfolios, and a lightweight marketplace. Great concept, but not always a one-stop shop for every hiring need.

10 Best Contra Alternatives

1. Twine

Best for: Vetted creative, tech and marketing freelancers

Twine is a global freelance marketplace connecting 45,000+ companies to over 900,000 freelance experts across 190+ countries, specialising in tech, creative, marketing and AI roles.

Why Twine is a strong Contra alternative

• Expert network:
  Twine focuses on quality over quantity; all the freelancers are vetted and cover across 150+ specialities, like app and web developers, product designers, animators, musicians, video editors, copywriters, and growth marketers.
• Vetted talent
  Twine reviews freelancer applications and portfolios, so you’re not wading through endless low-quality profiles for specialist work.
• Project-led matching
  You post a brief and Twine surfaces the best-fit freelancers instead of hosting a race-to-the-bottom bidding war.
• Simple, transparent workflow
  It’s free to post a project, and Twine manages the workflow from brief to payment, so you’re not juggling multiple tools for contracts and comms.

When to pick Twine over Contra

• You need specialist creative or technical talent (e.g. motion graphics for a product launch, or a React developer who has shipped SaaS).
• You want quality over sheer volume and don’t have hours to manually vet everyone.
• You’re a startup or SME that wants “one place to find and manage freelancers” instead of piecing together tools.

💼 Connect with top freelance talent on Twine: post your project on Twine for free and start building a reliable bench of designers, developers and marketers.

2. Upwork

Best for: Massive global talent pool and flexible budgets

Upwork is still the largest general-purpose freelance marketplace, with over 18 million registered freelancers and more than 800k active clients, generating billions in annual client spend.

Why it’s a strong Contra alternative

• Scale: If a skill exists, it probably exists on Upwork—everything from AI engineers and DevOps to virtual assistants and niche consultants.
• Flexible contract types: Hourly, fixed-price, long-term retainers, or full-time contracts.
• Robust review data: Long histories, earnings, and ratings help you de-risk hires.

Things to watch

• Fee complexity: Upwork introduced a variable service fee model (0–15%) for freelancers, plus additional client marketplace fees, so the total cost can creep up.
• Noise: You’ll often get dozens of proposals; screening is essential.

Choose Upwork if you want maximum choice and job volume, and you have the time (or an internal recruiter) to curate candidates.

3. Fiverr

Best for: Fast, pre-packaged creative and marketing work

Fiverr popularised the “gig” concept: fixed-price services such as “edit your YouTube video in 24 hours” or “design a logo with 3 concepts” that you can buy instantly.

Why it’s a strong Contra alternative

• Predictable pricing: You see package tiers and extras up front—helpful for tight budgets with clear deliverables.
• Speed: Ideal for smaller, repeatable tasks like thumbnails, basic animation, landing page tweaks or ad creatives.

Things to watch

• Aggressive fee model:
  • Freelancers typically lose 20% of each order.
  • Buyers pay a separate 5.5% service fee, plus a small-order fee under $100.
• Mixed quality: Lots of excellent sellers, but also plenty of templated work and oversold gigs; portfolio review is non-negotiable.

Fiverr is a good Contra alternative when you need tightly scoped one-off tasks, not complex, multi-sprint projects.

4. Freelancer.com

Best for: Budget-conscious projects and auction-style hiring

Freelancer.com lets you post a project and receive bids from a large global pool across thousands of skills.

Why it’s a strong Contra alternative

• Competitive bidding: If you want to see a range of approaches and prices before you commit, the bidding model can be useful.
• Wide skill coverage: From small design tasks and scraping scripts right up to larger development projects.

Things to watch

• Layered fees: Clients typically pay around 3% or a small minimum per project, while freelancers pay a higher percentage of earnings, which can indirectly affect rates.
• Quality variance: As with any open marketplace, you need strong briefs, screening questions, and perhaps paid test tasks.

Freelancer.com suits teams that are comfortable driving cost competition and willing to manage the selection process closely.

5. Guru

Best for: Long-term relationships with a small freelancer bench

Guru is a more “relationship-oriented” marketplace with features like WorkRooms and flexible payment structures (hourly, milestones, recurring, task-based).

Why it’s a strong Contra alternative

• Low employer fees: Guru lets you find and hire at no upfront platform cost, with employers paying a 2.9% handling fee per invoice (often rebated with certain payment methods).
• Freelancer membership tiers: Freelancers can lower their own service fees from 9% down to around 5% with paid plans, which can make rates more attractive overall.

Things to watch

• Smaller than Upwork/Fiverr: Candidate volume can be lower in some niche categories.

Guru is worth a look if you want ongoing collaboration with a handful of freelancers and you’re conscious of total fee drag for both sides.

6. Malt

Best for: Hiring freelancers across Europe

Malt is a European-centric freelance marketplace with over 850,000 freelancers and around 90,000 companies using the platform, making it one of Europe’s largest freelance communities.

Why it’s a strong Contra alternative

• European focus & compliance: Ideal if you’re EU/UK-based and care about local regulations, VAT, and language/time-zone alignment.
• Consultants + freelancers: After acquiring Comatch, Malt also covers higher-level consultants and industry experts, not just freelancers.
• Matching support: You can search on your own or let Malt recommend profiles.

Things to watch

• Primarily European market: Perfect if that’s your talent focus; less relevant if you’re building, say, an all-LatAm engineering team.

Malt works best as a Contra alternative when you want a localised, Europe-heavy talent pool with marketplace plus light management capabilities.

7. Arc (Arc.dev)

Best for: Vetted remote developers, designers and product talent

Arc is a marketplace for pre-vetted remote talent, originally focused on developers but now including designers, marketers, PMs, and more.

Why it’s a strong Contra alternative

• Vetting and curation: Arc screens for both technical skills and communication, with a “top 2%” positioning in some regions.
• Flexible engagement models: Freelance and full-time placements.
• Faster matching: Arc markets itself on delivering shortlists quickly, which is helpful for time-sensitive hires.

Things to watch

• More tech-leaning than creative: Great for engineering and product teams; you may still want Twine or others for heavy creative workloads.

If you were using Contra to source remote devs and product talent, Arc is a good alternative to consider alongside Twine’s developer network.

8. Flexiple

Best for: High-calibre freelance developers and designers

Flexiple focuses on building teams with vetted developers and designers, using a rigorous vetting process and fast matching.

Why it’s a strong Contra alternative

• Top 1–2% talent focus: Flexiple positions its network as the “top 1%” of dev and design talent, assessed through multi-hour technical evaluations.
• Fast time-to-hire: Marketing claims often highlight ~72 hours to match you with a suitable developer or designer.

Things to watch

• Tech/design only: This isn’t where you go for copywriters or community managers.

Flexiple is a strong Contra alternative when you need great technical skills and want an extra layer of vetting beyond open marketplaces.

9. Braintrust

Best for: Enterprise tech talent with a user-owned model

Braintrust is a decentralised, user-owned talent network that matches top knowledge workers (especially in tech) with high-end clients like Fortune 1000 companies.

Why it’s a strong Contra alternative

• 0% fees for talent (like Contra): Freelancers keep 100% of their contracted rate; clients pay a flat platform fee (often around 10–15% of contract value), still lower than many traditional intermediaries.
• High-calibre clients: Braintrust leans into enterprise and high-growth tech, making it a good fit for complex or high-budget projects.

Things to watch

• More enterprise-flavoured: If you’re a small startup with sporadic, low-budget tasks, Braintrust may be overkill compared to Twine, Upwork or Fiverr.

Braintrust is a compelling Contra alternative if you like the 0% freelancer fee philosophy but want a heavier enterprise focus and governance by the talent community.

10. Worksome

Best for: Companies managing lots of contractors and freelancers

Worksome is less a “gig marketplace” and more a freelancer management system (FMS): a platform to source, classify, onboard, and pay freelancers and contractors in one compliant flow, including its own marketplace layer.

Why it’s a strong Contra alternative

• End-to-end contractor ops: Centralise contracts, compliance, approvals, and payments, particularly helpful in regulated sectors or global orgs.
• Marketplace + FMS: You can bring your existing freelancers into Worksome to manage them, and use the marketplace when you need new talent.

Things to watch

• Better fit for teams at scale: If you only hire one or two freelancers a year, Worksome will feel like too much process.

Worksome is a smart Contra alternative if your real problem isn’t “finding people” as much as organising, paying and staying compliant with a growing contractor workforce.

Final Thoughts

Contra has pushed the market forward with its commission-free, portfolio-first approach, but it’s not the only option and often not the best stand-alone solution for a growing business.

You don’t have to marry a single platform. A practical approach:

1. Define your main hiring patterns
   • Creative-heavy? Tech-heavy? Ongoing retainers? One-off tasks?
2. Pick 2–3 platforms from this list that align with those patterns.
3. Run the same test brief on each (same budget and scope).
4. Compare:
   • Quality of candidates
   • Time to first good proposal
   • Communication and professionalism
   • Total cost (including platform fees + your team’s time)

You’ll quickly see which Contra alternatives actually fit how your team works.

If creative, product and marketing work are a core part of your roadmap:

🎨 Hire a vetted freelance expert on Twine: post your project for free on Twine, get tailored pitches within hours, and build a reliable bench of creatives, developers and marketers you can keep coming back to.