We earn revenue from affiliate links on our site. We strive to keep our site updated, so if you notice any broken links, please tell us.
This section is for businesses looking to hire someone to design, code, or do other things for them. Common tasks include logo design, website design, article writing, and editing, video editing and producing, SEO, and influencing. You can also hire people to be customer service agents, to answer email or chat questions from customers, help with marking plans, accounting, or coding your app. Actually, you can hire people for almost anything.
Quite a few of these are plagued by a race-to-the-bottom, where everyone bids low and then you get what you pay for, which is not much. So you need to be careful before you hire. But they do offer a bit more payment protection than hiring someone off Craigslist. For most of them, you can post a project for free, and then pay a fee when you pay the freelancer. You can also look to local staffing agencies if you want to eventually hire someone but try out a few candidates first. That might be a better fit than someone off a website.
- 99Designs: You can hire a designer directly or can set up a contest where people submit their designs, which is a way of getting a variety of design style options that hiring a single person doesn’t offer. How it works.
- Fiverr.com: Probably the site most focused on SEO, editing, WordPress, and logo design. Good for small, one-off jobs. You pay a fee when you hire someone. It used to offer people willing to do things for $5, (hence the name), but those times are long gone. Get 20% off your first order with our link.
- Freelancer.com: can be used for big or small projects, and you can pick the payment method, like paying a fixed price or hourly.
- Upwork: They have been around a while and have a strong complement of coding freelancers for app & web development. They also offer a subscription plan for businesses that plan on hiring freelancers frequently, to keep track of projects and billing. If you need to bring a freelancer on board as an employee, they can do payroll services.
- Design Pickle: they sell you unlimited design and illustration services for a monthly fee. It might be a good option if you need a complete branding or redesign.
- Guru.com: another alternative, so check them out to see if their pricing meets your fancy.
- Creative Circle: A bit different from the others, it’s a staffing agency with big inroads in the design and advertising industry. Good choice if you want to bring someone on full-time eventually or get temporary help. Very popular among creative people when they are between jobs, or looking for a job, so the talent pool is usually above average.
Subcategory: Logo Design
There is an abundance of logo design companies out there. Generally, you put in the name of your business and it spits out a generic-looking logo with some generic-looking fonts and designs. You usually get a low-resolution version for free, and then have to pay for high-resolution versions. The low-resolution version is good enough for appearing in a corner of a website but won’t work for printing, letterheads, or full-width appearances on websites.
- Namecheap Logomaker: This one is the only one that is completely free and gives you file types you can easily expand to larger sizes. It is owned by the hosting company Namecheap, who is also our hosting company, and we like them very much.
- Wix Logo Maker: Owned by the website creation and e-commerce software Wix, you can also order business cards and swag/merchandise right from the site once you have created the logo.
- Canva.com: They offer free logo design and also are a printing company for business cards, letterhead, brochures, etc. You can also create infographics, which are useful for Pinterest marketing. Pricing.
- Hatchful: Same as the others, free to create, pay to download.
- Logology: They sell logo design services for a fixed price.
- FreeLogoDesign.org: A low-resolution version is free.
- VistaPrint: from the old school printing company. Download for $20.
Sign up for Startup Deals
Get the best offers and tips right in your inbox.
Revenue Disclosure: We’re upfront people, so we want to be upfront with how we make money. We make money through affiliate links and ads. How do we NOT earn money? We DON’T get paid to add companies to our categories or sell email addresses. That means no one can pay us to put them on the list in any category, move them higher up the list, or change what we say about them. We want small businesses and entrepreneurs to trust us to point them in the right direction, and we’re proud of the fact that this is a guarantee you won’t see on other websites.