Benefit From the Ultimate Freelance Service Talent Pool — Toptal Review

Over the last decade, freelancers have transformed the way they work and do business. The workforce is constantly becoming fluid, embracing flexibility and slowly moving away from the classic 9 to 5 working hours.

The companies that can adapt to change are certainly the ones that will take the lead. Most likely, no, your business needs skilled and knowledgeable professionals, but most companies/businesses do not have highly qualified employees these days.

So instead, they rely on a team of freelancers. There is a need to hire freelancers who provide quality work. And one of the best platforms that provides freelancing services worldwide is Toptal — the Ultimate Freelance Service.

What is Toptal?

Toptal is an established and popular freelance network that connects customers with highly proven freelance talent. When launched, Toptal only offered freelance software developers.

It has expanded to other verticals to include freelance designers, financial experts, product managers, and project managers. The key features of Toptal are its rigorous screening process and a large community of quality talent.

Its multi-stage verification process consists of code reviews, portfolio reviews, real-time testing, and English proficiency testing.

Toptal claims that this strict scrutiny helps reduce the “Top 3%” of freelance talent. During the screening process, Toptal employees understand the essential competencies, skills, and past work experience of freelancers.

After receiving a client request, Toptal understands their requirements in detail and matches them with their talent fund’s genuine freelancer. However, hiring from Toptal is not cheap, probably because only well-funded “top” companies can afford to hire freelance translators from the platform.

Brief Background of Toptal

Found by Tasso du Val and Brenden Benescott in 2010, Toptal instantly attracted many freelancers who desperately looked for remote work. Benescott left the company in 2018 amid muddy waters between him and Du Val, which even involved a company suing him.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we can firmly note that now is the perfect time for people to improve their skills online.

From the beginning of Toptal, he reportedly remained profitable. Interestingly, only once did he raise capital — an early seed, which involved investors like Andresen Horowitz. Toptal is also proud of operating a remote workforce with zero physical offices — a fully distributed company.

How Does Toptal Work?

Toptal relies on a personalized matching process to pair freelancers with relevant projects posted by clients on its website. Follow the step-wise process below:

1. Sign up on the site and post a job request

Clients wishing to hire freelancers should submit their application form on the Toptal website with relevant job details

2. Get on a call with Toptal’s team and share your requirements in detail

After the client submits the job description, Toptal’s internal team reviews and contacts the client. During the conversation, the Toptal team tries to gain a deep understanding of the requirements

3. Get recommendations from Toptal

After understanding, Toptal works to find freelancers who would be well-suited for the job available to them. If there are freelancers immediately, Toptal will recommend them to the client by sharing their digital resumes (created by the respective freelancers) if no one is available in their “chosen” pool. Toptal will find suitable freelancers and will notify the clients when their screening process

4. Review and evaluate the recommended freelancers via your interviews

The client can then choose to interview the recommended freelancers and assess them according to their terms

5. Select the right freelancer for the job and start work with a trial period

If the client likes the freelance, they can begin working with them immediately after signing the contract. Toptal also requires an initial deposit of $ 500 from customers

6. Choose to continue working, request for a replacement, or part ways with Toptal

Toptal offers a risk-free trial period for customers to evaluate the freelancer’s work and confirm good compliance. If the client decides not to go ahead with the engagement, they are not required to pay anything — Toptal repays the $ 500 deposit in full. Toptal freelancers usually work remotely. However, clients can also apply for freelancers to work outside of their office. However, the availability of such freelance translators is relatively low

7. Review the freelancer’s work and approve payments

The platform provides flexible payment solutions. Typically, invoicing takes place every two weeks, with payment available within ten days of the invoice.

Toptal Business Model

Toptal’s business model is part of the multilateral platforms category.

Like all markets, it depends on the network’s effects to provide enough value to both customers and freelancers. For example: to fulfill the promise of connecting clients with real freelance translators within 24 hours, Toptal needs to have many freelance translators in its talent fund, along with their real-time job status.

Similarly, Toptal needs a large enough customer base to guarantee a steady stream of freelance projects. Toptal’s assumption of earnings is simple.

It invoices clients directly during the duration of the freelance project. It receives this payment, retains the commission, and pays the freelancers a lower, pre-determined rate.

Freelancers are allowed to set their hourly rates based on Toptal’s recommended rates.

These are obtained by considering factors such as the place of residence and expertise of the freelancer.

Pros and Cons

To keep things simple, let’s look at only one category of Toptal’s presence — hiring freelance developers.

Pros

Experienced developers: Toptal focuses on hiring quality talent. This emphasis results in their developers being quite proficient. A certain proportion of them also has experience of previously working for reputable companies.

Personalized recommendations: Toptal’s detailed comprehension of both the job requirements and the freelancers’ skills enables it to make highly personalized candidate recommendations to clients.

Established company: Toptal is the industry leader in vetted freelance networks and enjoys an established brand name. It boasts of having many large companies as clients.

Cons

High cost: Toptal is prohibitively costly for most startups and cash-strapped companies. It results from massive commissions (multiple times more significant than 100%) that it levies on top of freelancer fees.

Not viable for small projects: For smaller projects that require minimal supervision and input, hiring freelancers via Toptal can be overkill, as the value-for-cost isn’t often justified.

Conclusion

To conclude, Toptal is an excellent service if you are looking for a job or a freelancer to identify with your talents. Once you have completed the registration process, you will finally be able to get the required expertise.

Once you get used to its interface, it will be easy for you to get service for any project you are currently downloading. Any high-stake and serious business require a professional freelancing service from Toptal’s talent pool.