Toptal Detail Review 2021: Is It Worth Paying More Than Upwork and Fiverr?

Toptal Detail Review 2021: Is It Worth Paying More Than Upwork and Fiverr?

In the sea of online freelance job boards, Toptal takes an alternative approach for those seeking talent and those looking for work. In this Toptal review, we explore how Toptal works, the quality of talent you can find on the website, and how much you can expect to pay.

Beyond that, we take a look at the pros and cons of Toptal to figure out if its high price tag is worth it to bring in the best talent.

What is Toptal?

Toptal functions as an intermediary between hiring companies and freelancers. Its primary advantage comes from its crop of pre-vetted freelancers. Whereas most job boards and freelancer marketplaces let anyone make a profile, Toptal uses its screened database of freelancers to ensure companies only hire the “top 3% of talent” (more on this claim below).

Therefore, freelancers can go to Toptal and apply to join that team of freelancers. In addition, a company can go to Toptal and request workers for specific projects.

Toptal review: Pros and cons

The “top 3% of talent” wording is simply a marketing line used by Toptal. You can take that with a grain of salt, especially considering there aren’t really specifics, or a baseline, to figure out to what that 3% is referring. Is it 3% of all people online? In the world? In the technology job market? Basically there’s limited evidence that the claim means anything.

However, we can take a look at the pros and cons we’ve discovered throughout our own use of Toptal and combine it with praise and criticism compiled from reviews around the internet.

Pros 

• Toptal has a rigourous freelaner acceptance process. Toptal eliminates the workers who absolutely shouldn’t be there, whereas anyone can make an account and flaunt their “expertise” on Freelancer.com, Upwork, or Fiverr. For instance, Toptal doesn’t accept people who can’t pass language tests, skills reviews, and test projects.
• The people you hire are usually very nice and professional. Part of Toptal’s review process is a continued excellence examination and a personality analysis. They want to make sure they get hard workers without the drama.
• The freelancer search system offers personalization and project-specific pairings. With a combination of AI and customer support reps, Toptal takes your project description and locates people who will fit based on experience, rates, and availability.
• Toptal handles the dirty work. You get to focus on choosing a freelancer from a narrowed-down list and getting right to work on your project, while Toptal manages the majority of the talent selection process, invoices, and vetting.
• There’s minimal risk. You receive a downpayment refund if you don’t hire a freelancer. And there’s a free trial. They also hold freelancers accountable so you don’t end up with a worker who finishes half of the work, pockets the money, and forgets about you.
• You can hire remote and on-site talent. You can hire people on a remote work basis or have them come into the office.

Cons 

• Toptal is expensive. Not only do they charge freelancer fees, but the platform takes a significant commission for each person you hire. Commissions are high, and you must put down an initial deposit of $500 (this will either be applied to your first payment or refunded if you decide to not move forward with the project).
• The talent categories are limited. You’re currently limited to hiring from a few categories, primarily tech-oriented talent like developers, designers, and project managers. We’d like to see offerings for freelance writers, photographers, data consultants, and people from other industries.
• There’s limited transparency on how they get “the best talent.” I’ve run tests with marketplaces like Fiverr and 99Designs, and I can tell you that high-priced workers often fall flat while some of the more reasonably priced freelancers provide incredible results. Just because Toptal is expensive doesn’t mean it’s automatically good. It would be nice to view information about the talent pool with reviews, CVs, and other metrics to understand who Toptal hires.
• Toptal has an undesirable sales funnel. There’s not much information about the talent pool until you make an account and apply your project details. Then, the sales team starts to reach out to you to get you to opt into free trials, make deposits, and choose high-priced talent. With an onslaught of other hiring marketplaces that don’t have middlemen, this funnel seems antiquated.
• It’s time-consuming compared to other talent marketplaces. Sometimes it’s nice to spend weeks seeking out the best possible worker, but many times you just want to look at a few resumes and hire someone. When time matters, Toptal falters with lengthy interviews, searches, and back-and-forth emails for customer support.

Toptal review of the types of services you can hire for

The talent pool from Toptal mainly revolves around the tech world. This is a wonderful thing for those looking for developers and designers, but it limits the use of Toptal as a general hiring mechanism for all companies.

Some general job titles you can find on Toptal include:

• Developers
• Designers
• Finance experts
• Project managers
• Product managers

Each of those primary freelancer categories gets broken down into sub-categories.

Examples include:

• Android developers
• Java developers
• WordPress developers
• Salesforce developers
• Animation designers
• Presentation designers
• Ecommerce site designers
• Blockchain designers
• Virtual project managers
• Scrum masters
• Interim CPOs
• AI product managers

Again, that’s great for the tech startups and software companies that require workers, but if you’re looking for help with things like writing, voiceovers, translation, music, HR, etc. then you’re probably going to want to search elsewhere.

Toptal work quality and the hiring process

Hiring the right people starts by going to the best source of talent. We believe Toptal provides a wonderful crop of talent if you’re willing to put in a little extra work to find it.

Unfortunately, we have this new way of looking at hiring where an automated system pairs you with random people around the world, with limited interview processes and information about those freelancers. Toptal at least offers its own database of talent and narrows down the list based on your selections.

After that, you speak with a Toptal hiring expert to outline more information about your job. They use that information to finalize the top two freelancers for the job, based on pricing, availability, and skills.

Finally, you speak with each freelancer to clarify the scope of your project.

It’s required to go through these steps to find the best results.

From a hirer’s perspective, that’s both advantageous and troubling. A solution like Fiverr allows me to quickly find designers and developers by looking at profiles, portfolios, and reviews. I can hire people within a matter of seconds, making quick jobs easier.

However, that may also lead to questionable hiring choices. Toptal at least handles the vetting for you, even if it means taking the time to follow its longer process. Beyond that, Toptal also allows for Skype conversations with the talent, negotiations, and test projects to figure out if someone is right for your company.

Toptal pricing and fees

One big downside of Toptal is its high cost.

But let’s start with some pricing positives from our Toptal review:

• Toptal has no recruiting or termination fees.
• You also get a no-risk trial to test out your freelancer before committing.
• You set the initial budget.

Toptal does take a cut of every transaction you complete through the platform, but that pricing is set by you in the first place.

We’ve read reviews and checked with the Toptal customer support team to get a general idea of what the average company pays for freelance talent.

We learned that hourly jobs usually cost more than $60 per hour. They have an option to look for freelancers willing to accept less than $25 per hour, but it’s far less likely to find a match. Part-time jobs typically cost from $1,000 to $4,000 per week. Full-time workers generally ask for anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 per week.

Finally, you must make a deposit before getting started with your new freelancer. The deposit is $500, but that gets credited to your first invoice (or refunded if you decide not to move forward with your project).

As you can see, Toptal pricing is far higher than that of the competition. Sure, sometimes Fiverr, 99Designs, and other hiring systems like Upwork get pricier with longer and more in-depth projects, but those are usually exceptions.

Unfortunately, Toptal starts you off with high pricing, so you’re stuck trying to figure out if it’s worth the cost after your freelancer already starts working. Ideally, they’d offer more workers with lower fees to at least give you some options.

Toptal user interface

Hiring a freelancer on Toptal varies from what you may be used to with services like Upwork and Fiverr. Instead of bidding/contests, Toptal uses an algorithm and human workers to pair freelancers with companies.

The automated step-by-step wizard asks for all information about our project. For example, you can choose from talent options like developers, designers, and product managers.

It also gets specific, requesting information about the timeline for said project.

This way, you’re not paired with freelancers who have no intention of sticking around for your six-month project.

You can also tell Toptal how many workers you need.

We like this page since it’s unique to Toptal, whereas competitors typically require you to hire workers individually. Toptal attempts to build a team for you, at least if you need one.

You can also look for freelancers who want to work 40 hours per week, or 5 hours per week, or on a project basis.

You can search for desired areas of expertise to ensure the freelancers have the right skills. For instance, you may include skills like web design and UX design for a developer or designer.

Finally, Toptal lets you specify your budget.

As you can see, the budgeting tends to encourage jobs with more than $25 per hour rates. And many user reviews state that the rates are regularly on the higher end.

Toptal then spends a moment matching you with the best talent based on your selections.

This is one of the areas where Toptal excels, seeing as how you’re contacted later about the absolute best workers for your job.

During our Toptal review, we realized that Toptal works more like a personalized hiring firm as opposed to the fully automated job boards and marketplaces we’ve grown used to.

Toptal customer service

In the next part of our Toptal review, we’ll take a look at customer service.

Toptal thrives when it comes to combining automation with personalized talent selection. The beginning parts of the hiring process are seamless with simple questions and fields to fill out.

But then you’re forced into Toptal’s sales funnel, which essentially means you need to speak with one of their representatives in order to proceed.

But the main time you’ll want to speak with a Toptal representative is during your project. What if something’s wrong with billing or payments? What if your freelancer doesn’t provide the right work or takes too long?

We would assume that Toptal has a direct phone line or live chat to resolve any immediate issues. Unfortunately, there’s no live chatbox. You also get sent to the sales phone line for immediate assistance. Outside of that, an email form is available for getting in touch with customer support.

This might be okay if Toptal provided in-depth videos, articles, and knowledgebase tutorials, but all we could find was an FAQ page, links to social media pages, and a few blog articles.

Overall, it appears that Toptal has the screening process down to a science, but it relies too much on its automated messaging instead of providing in-depth online resources and, most importantly, real people to call when problems arise.

Toptal review: Our final thoughts

Overall, our Toptal review showed a wide range of benefits, from its screening process to its options to hire both remote and in-house workers. You receive a risk-free opportunity to test candidates, and you don’t have to worry about invoicing and billing.

Having said that, we noticed a number of potential issues that could drive many hirers and hirees away from the platform. To begin, it’s extremely expensive without any evidence that you’re guaranteed better workers. 

Sure, Fiverr can get expensive for larger projects, but you can at least look at reviews and resumes beforehand. Not to mention, value is usually more important than the so-called “best” talent. In our opinion, that’s just fancy marketing lingo so they can charge more.

Furthermore, Toptal lacks the quality customer support expected of this type of hiring marketplace. Combine that with limited talent categories, 

a time-consuming hiring process, and an annoying sales funnel and it becomes clear that Toptal isn’t for everyone.

Overall, many companies have found wonderful workers on Toptal, but they pay a steep price. 

We recommend Toptal for those in the tech space who would rather not sift through thousands of applicants or browse through an endless supply of freelancers on places like Upwork, Freelancer.com, and Fiverr. 

It’s also clear that Toptal is meant for medium to large businesses with deeper pockets, as many small businesses or startups won’t be able to afford the rates.

Interested in other options? If you’re specifically looking for WordPress developers, you can check out our post on the places to hire freelance WordPress developers.