Best Freelance Platforms in the UK 2026 (Fees Compared)

Last updated: September 2026. Reviewed by the Jobbers editorial team, freelance marketplace researchers who track platform fee changes across the UK freelance sector. Have feedback or spotted an outdated figure? Let us know — see the verification notice below.

The UK’s freelance workforce now stands at roughly 2.046 million people, according to the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE) — nearly half of the country’s entire solo self-employed population. With that many people earning a living independently, the platform you pick to find clients can make a genuine difference to your take-home pay, not just your workload. Some platforms take a fixed cut of every invoice. Others charge nothing at all and let you and your client agree the price directly.

This guide compares seven platforms UK freelancers actually use in 2026 — what each one charges, who it suits, and where the catches are. Before you commit to one, it’s worth comparing how much of your invoice each one keeps: you can browse freelance jobs across categories, or jump straight to jobbers.io if a zero-commission model matters most to you.

Verification notice: Every fee, percentage, and figure in this article was checked directly against each platform’s own official pricing or help-centre pages, and against IPSE and GOV.UK data, as of September 2026. Platforms change their fee structures without much notice — Upwork alone has revised its freelancer fee model twice since 2023. Please confirm current rates on the relevant platform’s website before pricing a project, signing a contract, or making any tax or business decision. This article is general information, not financial, tax, or legal advice.

How we compared these platforms

We looked at seven marketplaces that consistently come up when UK-based freelancers and clients discuss where to find work: two UK-founded platforms (PeoplePerHour and YunoJuno), four global marketplaces widely used by UK freelancers (Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer.com, and Malt), and jobbers.io. For each one, we pulled the freelancer-side commission and the client-side fee straight from the platform’s own help centre or official pricing page, linked in the Sources section at the end. Where a platform’s public documentation was inconsistent or unclear, we’ve said so rather than guessing at a number.

Quick comparison: fees at a glance

Platform	Freelancer fee	Client fee	Best for
jobbers.io	0% commission (pay only for proposal credits)	0% — price agreed directly with the freelancer	Keeping your full negotiated rate
PeoplePerHour	20% (first £250 per client), 7.5% (£250–£5,000), 3.5% (above £5,000)	Shown at checkout	UK-based clients, local projects
YunoJuno	0% — freelancer keeps the full day rate	Platform fee, plan-based	Vetted creative/tech contracting, IR35-aware clients
Upwork	0–15%, variable, locked per contract	5% Basic / 10% Business Plus + contract initiation fee	Long-term contracts, global reach
Fiverr	Flat 20%, no tiers	5.5% buyer service fee	Fixed-price “gig” services
Freelancer.com	10% or $5 minimum (lower with paid membership)	3% or $3 minimum	High-volume bidding, budget projects
Malt (UK)	0% for UK freelancers	10–15%+ depending on client’s plan	Direct-relationship consulting work

1. jobbers.io — zero commission, direct payment

jobbers.io takes a different approach from most of the platforms on this list: it charges freelancers 0% commission on completed work, full stop. There’s no percentage taken off your invoice, no tiered structure that rewards long-term clients over new ones, and no distinction between your first project with a client and your fiftieth. Freelancers and clients agree the price and payment terms directly between themselves, and the money changes hands without the platform taking a cut of it.

The platform’s own revenue comes from a paid credits (connects) system used to submit proposals — similar in concept to Upwork’s Connects — rather than from a percentage of your earnings. That’s an important distinction worth understanding before you sign up: proposals aren’t free, but what you actually get paid for the work is entirely yours. For freelancers who do consistent volume with repeat clients, avoiding a recurring percentage fee on every single invoice can add up to a meaningful amount over a year, particularly compared with a flat-rate platform like Fiverr.

2. PeoplePerHour — the UK’s own freelance marketplace

PeoplePerHour was founded in London in 2007 by Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kitiris, and it remains headquartered there today, with an additional engineering office in Athens. It’s one of the few major freelance marketplaces that was actually built in the UK for a UK-first client base, which shows in details like GBP-native pricing and a freelancer pool that skews more British than Upwork or Fiverr.

Its fee structure is tiered by how much you’ve billed a specific client over the lifetime of that relationship, according to PeoplePerHour’s own commission page: 20% on the first £250 billed to a new client, dropping to 7.5% between £250 and £5,000, and 3.5% on anything above £5,000 (all figures exclude VAT). In practice, that means your effective fee falls the longer you work with the same client — but every new client relationship starts back at 20%. There’s also a minimum service fee of £1 per invoice. For UK freelancers chasing local SME clients and quick turnaround projects, it remains a solid, well-established option.

3. YunoJuno — vetted contractors, zero freelancer fee

YunoJuno is another London-founded platform (2012), built specifically as a freelancer management system for mid-size and enterprise clients hiring creative and tech contractors — think brand teams, agencies, and in-house departments that need to bring in specialist talent compliantly. Unlike the bidding-and-proposal model used by Upwork or Freelancer.com, YunoJuno works more like a curated talent pool: freelancers are vetted before they’re visible to clients, and day rates are set in GBP.

The freelancer-side economics are straightforward: YunoJuno charges freelancers nothing. According to the platform’s own freelancer page, you keep 100% of your quoted day rate, and the client’s company pays the platform’s service fee separately. That structure, combined with built-in IR35 status tooling for clients, has made it a popular choice for contractors doing longer engagements with larger UK businesses rather than one-off small projects.

4. Upwork — the largest global marketplace

Upwork remains the biggest general-purpose freelance marketplace UK freelancers are likely to encounter, spanning everything from software development to copywriting to admin support. Its freelancer fee structure changed materially in May 2025: Upwork replaced its old tiered model (20% on the first $500 billed to a client, 10% up to $10,000, then 5% beyond that) with a variable service fee of 0% to 15% per contract. The exact percentage is set individually for each contract — disclosed when you submit a proposal or accept an offer — and stays fixed for that contract’s duration.

Clients pay separately: a 5% marketplace fee on the Basic plan or 10% on Business Plus, plus a one-off contract initiation fee of roughly $0.99 to $14.99 per new freelancer relationship. Freelancers also need Connects to submit proposals, priced at $0.15 each, which is a real recurring cost worth factoring in alongside the service fee itself. Upwork suits freelancers chasing long-term, higher-value contracts and who are comfortable investing time in a competitive proposal process.

5. Fiverr — fixed-price gigs, flat fee

Fiverr flips the usual freelance-platform model: instead of bidding on client-posted projects, you publish pre-packaged “gigs” at set prices, and buyers purchase directly. That makes it one of the fastest platforms to get started on, since there’s no proposal-writing required to land your first sale. According to Fiverr’s own seller documentation, the platform charges a flat 20% commission on every completed order, including tips and extras — there are no tiers, loyalty discounts, or reductions based on seller level or total earnings.

Buyers pay their own separate service fee, currently 5.5% plus a small additional charge on lower-value orders, which affects how your pricing looks at checkout even though you never see that portion directly. For UK freelancers offering well-defined, repeatable services — logo design, short-form video editing, voiceover work — Fiverr’s gig format can generate consistent inbound orders, provided you’re comfortable with a fee that doesn’t come down as you scale.

6. Freelancer.com — high-volume bidding

Freelancer.com, listed on the Australian stock exchange, is one of the oldest platforms in this space and runs on a bidding model: clients post a project, and freelancers submit competing bids, similar to early Upwork. On the free plan, freelancers pay a 10% fee or $5, whichever is greater, on both fixed-price and hourly work — a cost that paid membership tiers (roughly $5 to $30 a month) can reduce to as low as 3% on fixed-price contracts, though the subscription only pays for itself once you’re billing a reasonable volume through the platform. Clients separately pay 3% or $3, whichever is higher.

The bidding culture here tends to be more price-competitive than Upwork or PeoplePerHour, with a global freelancer pool that includes a lot of budget-focused talent. It can work well for freelancers early in their career building a portfolio, or for straightforward, well-specified tasks where price is the main differentiator — it’s a harder fit for specialists trying to command premium UK day rates.

7. Malt — zero commission for UK freelancers

Malt is a Paris-founded platform that has expanded into the UK market over the past couple of years, positioning itself around direct, no-bidding relationships: freelancers set their own day rate and clients browse profiles rather than posting open projects for competitive bids. Malt’s fee structure varies by country, and its own help centre is explicit about the UK specifically: freelancers based in the UK are not charged any commission at all. The client’s company instead pays a separate service fee based on their chosen plan — Starter, Advanced, or a custom Enterprise tier.

This is worth flagging because Malt’s fee model in other markets (notably France) uses a tiered freelancer commission that steps down the longer you work with a client — so the UK terms genuinely are more favourable for freelancers than Malt’s home market, not just marketing language. It’s a smaller talent pool in the UK than Upwork or PeoplePerHour, but a reasonable option for consultants targeting European or UK enterprise clients who value a curated, less bidding-driven experience.

IR35 and Making Tax Digital: what changed for UK freelancers in 2026

Two regulatory changes are worth knowing about regardless of which platform you use. First, from 6 April 2026, the company-size thresholds that determine whether a client counts as “small” for IR35 (off-payroll working) purposes increased — the turnover ceiling rose from £10.2 million to £15 million, and the balance-sheet limit rose from £5.1 million to £7.5 million, while the 50-employee headcount threshold stayed the same. HMRC’s own figures suggest around 14,000 UK companies have been reclassified from medium to small as a result, which shifts responsibility for determining IR35 status back to the contractor’s own personal service company for those engagements. Full detail is available directly from GOV.UK’s off-payroll working guidance, linked below.

Second, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is being phased in for sole traders and landlords with qualifying income above set thresholds, changing how frequently affected freelancers need to report to HMRC. Neither of these changes is specific to any one platform in this comparison — they apply based on how you’re structured and who your end client is, not where you found the work. If you’re unsure how either applies to you, it’s worth a conversation with an accountant rather than relying on a general guide like this one.

How to choose the right platform for you

Prioritising take-home pay on repeat clients: jobbers.io, YunoJuno, and Malt (in the UK) all charge freelancers 0% commission, so your invoice total is what you actually receive.
Want mostly UK-based clients: PeoplePerHour and YunoJuno both skew heavily towards British businesses and GBP pricing.
Chasing the largest possible client pool: Upwork and Fiverr have the biggest reach globally, at the cost of more competition and, in Fiverr’s case, a fixed 20% fee.
Just starting out with little portfolio: Fiverr’s gig model and Freelancer.com’s high bid volume tend to generate the fastest first jobs.
Doing longer enterprise contracts: YunoJuno’s vetting and IR35-aware tooling suits corporate clients better than an open bidding marketplace.

Most experienced UK freelancers don’t rely on a single platform — many run two or three in parallel to diversify their client pipeline and reduce dependence on any one source of work. There’s usually no exclusivity requirement, though it’s worth checking each platform’s terms of service around taking a client relationship off-platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best freelance platform in the UK in 2026?

There’s no single “best” platform — it depends on your work type and pricing model. jobbers.io suits freelancers who want to keep their full negotiated rate with zero commission. PeoplePerHour and YunoJuno are strong for UK-based clients specifically, while Upwork and Fiverr offer the largest global client pools if you’re happy to compete on a bigger stage.

Which freelance platform has the lowest fees for UK freelancers?

Among the platforms compared here, jobbers.io, YunoJuno, and Malt (for UK freelancers specifically) charge 0% commission to freelancers, with the client covering the platform’s fee instead. PeoplePerHour, Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com all deduct a percentage directly from what you’re paid, ranging from roughly 3.5% up to a flat 20%.

Is there a commission-free freelance platform in the UK?

Yes. jobbers.io charges 0% commission on completed work globally, and both YunoJuno and Malt operate a 0%-freelancer-fee model specifically in the UK market, with the client’s company covering the platform cost instead.

Do I need to register as self-employed to use a freelance platform in the UK?

If you’re earning money by providing services through any of these platforms, HMRC generally expects you to register as self-employed (or operate through a limited company) and file a Self Assessment tax return. Requirements vary by income level and structure, so it’s worth checking GOV.UK or speaking with an accountant.

How does IR35 affect freelancers working through UK-based clients in 2026?

IR35 (the off-payroll working rules) determines whether a contract should be taxed like employment. From 6 April 2026, the turnover and balance-sheet thresholds that define a “small” client company both rose, meaning roughly 14,000 UK companies now qualify as small — shifting the responsibility for determining IR35 status back to the contractor for those engagements.

Can I use more than one freelance platform at the same time?

Yes, and many UK freelancers do exactly that to diversify their client pipeline. There’s usually no exclusivity requirement, though it’s worth checking each platform’s terms of service, particularly around non-circumvention clauses that restrict taking a client off-platform.

Which platform is best for UK freelancers just starting out?

Fiverr’s gig-based model has one of the lowest barriers to entry since buyers come to you rather than requiring competitive bidding. Freelancer.com’s high bid volume can also generate fast early opportunities, though its lower average project values suit simpler tasks better than specialist services.

Do freelance platforms handle UK tax and National Insurance for me?

No. None of the platforms compared here withhold UK Income Tax or National Insurance on your behalf when you’re genuinely self-employed. You remain responsible for registering with HMRC, tracking your income, and filing your own Self Assessment return, or company accounts if you trade through a limited company.

How do freelance platform fees affect my day rate?

Any commission comes off the top of what a client pays, so it’s worth pricing with the fee in mind rather than absorbing it silently. On a 20% commission platform, for example, you’d need to quote roughly 25% more than your target take-home rate to end up with the same net income as on a 0%-commission platform.

Are UK-specific platforms like PeoplePerHour and YunoJuno better than global platforms like Upwork and Fiverr?

“Better” depends on your goals. UK-specific platforms tend to offer more local clients, GBP-native pricing, and time-zone alignment, which can suit contractors who prefer working with British businesses. Global platforms offer a much larger pool of clients and projects but more competition and, in some cases, higher fees.

Sources

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