Staffing agency, freelance marketplace or job board?

The three routes in one line each

• Freelance marketplace: you post a project or browse profiles, freelancers send proposals, and you hire and pay through the platform.
• Job board: you post a job, people apply, and you screen, hire and pay them directly.
• Staffing or recruiting agency: the agency screens for you and presents a few people; depending on the model, you hire them directly for a fee or pay the agency every month.

Who does the work

The routes move the screening work between you and someone else. On a marketplace or a job board you read every proposal and run the interviews and the test yourself. With an agency, you read a shortlist and run the final interviews.

Marketplace profiles add some signals, such as job history and ratings from earlier clients, but those ratings were written for other jobs. Check the skills that matter to you with a short paid test; see our test task guide.

What you pay and where it goes

• Marketplace: a fee on every payment for as long as you work through the platform. On Upwork, the client marketplace fee is up to 7.99%¹ of each payment.
• Job board: pricing differs from board to board. On Stafka, posting a job is free; pricing shows when a fee applies.
• Agency: either a one-time placement fee or a monthly price that includes a margin. Stafka charges a one-time $2,500² on the start day; see placement fee or monthly agency for the comparison.

Marketplace fees look small per payment, but they run for the whole relationship. Upwork's user agreement also sets a conversion fee if you move a freelancer you met there off the platform within the period its non-circumvention terms cover: 13.5%³ of 12 months of estimated earnings. Our Stafka and Upwork comparison has the details and the sources.

Speed and effort

A marketplace is fastest for a small task: proposals can arrive within hours. A job board takes longer, because good candidates apply over days rather than hours and you screen them yourself. A recruiter's shortlist takes a few days of their work and saves most of yours; Stafka sends three matching profiles within 5⁴ business days.

For a long-term role, the slowest part is usually your own calendar: interviews, a test, references and the offer. Our guide on how long remote hiring takes has a realistic timeline.

Which route fits which hire

• A one-off project, such as cleaning up a CRM or setting up a help desk: a marketplace, paid by the project.
• A few flexible hours a week: a marketplace, or a freelancer you find through your network.
• A long-term, full-time role where the person learns your business: a job board if you have time to screen, a recruiter if you do not.
• A role with access to money or sensitive data, such as bookkeeping: the route with the most thorough checks, including references; see our reference check guide.

Comparing a specific option? The comparison pages put published prices side by side, including a job board for one country.

Risks on each route

• Marketplace: the person often has several clients, so availability during your hours can be thin. The platform's payment protection helps with small jobs.
• Job board: many applications, some not fitting at all; the quality of your own screening decides the result.
• Agency: you depend on their screening, so ask how they test English and skills and what happens if the hire does not work out.

For Stafka placements, the answer to the last question is fixed in our terms. Stafka replaces the person free of charge if they leave or do not work out within 180² days of the start date: one replacement per placement, once the placement fee has been paid and as long as the role, hours and pay stay as agreed. The fee itself is not refunded.