The Pros and Cons of Freelancing: Is It Right for You?

Freelancing is on the rise.

Many professionals around the world are considering giving up their traditional jobs and transitioning to freelancing instead. If you’re in the same boat and considering freelancing as your next career choice—welcome to the club.

But how do you know if freelancing is the right fit for you? After all, you’d rather not cast off only to realize your boat is capsizing. How can you decide whether you should become a freelancer?

When I’m trying to make an important decision, I always make a pros and cons list to help me understand both sides of an argument. I hope this breakdown of the advantages and disadvantages of pursuing freelancing will help you decide whether it’s the right choice for you.

In this article, I’ll discuss:

The pros of freelancing

The cons of freelancing

Is freelancing right for you?

How to start freelancing

The pros of freelancing

Ten million Americans are considering freelancing, according to Upwork’s Great Resignation survey. Among those planning to quit their jobs, 52% are giving freelancing serious consideration.

What’s more, many are choosing freelance over full-time work; it’s no longer just a fallback or a side hustle.

Wondering why so many people are freelancing? A freelance career has several advantages. Upwork’s Freelance Forward report found that flexibility and freedom are key motivators for new and existing freelancers. I want to dive deep into this and show you what this flexibility and freedom really mean for freelancers. Here’s a look at eight pros of freelancing.

Control over your workload

One of the key benefits of freelancing is that you get to choose your own workload. With no boss hovering over you, you can choose to work as much or as little as you want.

Unrealistic expectations at work and the lack of boundaries have seen many a full-time worker burn out. However, freelancers have much more control over their workloads and can create a work-life balance that best suits their needs.

You can choose to work with one client or five. You have the freedom to work four hours a day or ten. You get to decide if you take on a new client or say no and go for a vacation instead.

This is not to say that freelancers don’t burn out. Been there, done that! However, that experience taught me to manage my workload better and prioritize other aspects of my life, such as travel or my health. Freelancing allows you to create flexibility in your life and control your workload so you can prioritize the people and things that matter most to you.

Choice of who you work with

You don’t usually get to choose your boss or your teammates at a traditional job. So if you dislike working with them, you can’t really do much about the work environment apart from changing jobs. One of the major pros of freelancing is that you get to choose who you work with.

Unlike full-time workers, freelancers have greater freedom to do the work they enjoy—and say no to work they don’t. This results in greater job satisfaction for most independent professionals.

Many professionals are electing to reprioritize some aspects of their professional lives. Instead of being tied to an employer, many look to freelancing as an opportunity to take control of when they work, where they work, how much they work, and with whom they work.

To quote research from the Freelance Forward report, “On the whole, freelancers report more satisfaction with their jobs overall, their day-to-day work tasks, and their work-life balance. While it is always possible to find those who are unhappy with their working arrangements, on net freelancers believe themselves to be earning more, have the level of flexibility they require, and overall higher satisfaction with their work.”

Access to diverse and meaningful projects

In addition to having more control over their workloads, many independent professionals are also turning to freelancing as an opportunity to work on more diverse and creative projects.

In episode five of the Work Unlocked podcast, Frisco Chavez tells us this is one of the key advantages of freelancing and why he prefers it over working a regular job. “I get to work on a variety of amazing Upwork projects. From exotic cars to virtual reality—the diversity of what I get to do and the creativity that I put into the work has only been possible thanks to freelancing.”

Latitude to set your own schedule

Freelancing allows you to set your own flexible schedule. Whether you want to work 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. or 2 pm to 10 pm—it’s up to you.

On the Work Unlocked podcast, top freelancers share their own reasons for choosing to freelance. In episode four, Latasha James shared how freelancing gives her the flexibility to prioritize her family and health.

In Upwork’s Flexibility Through Freelancing study, UI/UX designer Wahidul Islam Murad shares his reasons for ditching traditional employment, “In my culture and region, working at a bank is considered the pillar of success,” said Murad. “When I left my career at a bank to freelance on Upwork, everyone thought I was crazy. It was very hard to explain to my family why I was pursuing this path. Today, I am earning ten times what I was earning at the bank, all while being able to have the flexibility to work whichever eight hours I choose during the day.”

Wahidul Islam Murad

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On a personal note, this flexibility to set my own hours was a massive benefit for me as well. While traveling as a digital nomad, I was often in a different time zone than my clients. If I had been forced to work fixed hours, I would have had to stay up nights. Being able to work when I want gave me the freedom to balance work and travel in a much more sustainable way.

Today, I am working from my home base in Australia and have set hours for work that are based on when I’m most productive. However, if I need to take an hour out of my day for a doctor’s appointment or if I want to start late so I can have a morning at the beach, freelancing allows me the flexibility to do that.

Freedom to work from anywhere

If you want to become a digital nomad and work from anywhere in the world? Freelancing can help you with that. For many—myself included—location independence is one of the best benefits of being a freelancer.

When your business relies on you and you alone, it’s much easier to take your work with you and work from anywhere.

Canadian content writer Amy Sept lives in Spain and continues to work with her clients no matter where in the world she may be. Sept is a military spouse, and location independence is a self-engineered, essential perk of her business that she doesn’t take for granted, “I started my own business to be location independent and own my own time. I am always mindful of this to make sure I don’t waste this gift that I have!”

Amy Sept

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Flexibility to cater to caregiving or personal health needs

Another huge benefit of freelancing is that it gives professionals the flexibility to be caregivers or better look after their own health.

According to the Freelance Forward report, 74% of freelancers say that freelancing gives them the flexibility to be more available as a caregiver for their families, and 67% say it gives them the flexibility to address personal mental or physical health needs. This rises to 81% and 74% for remote skilled freelancers, respectively.

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The connection between personal circumstances and the need for flexibility and control is evident. For example, someone with a chronic illness may not know on any given day when they will feel able to work. Chronic illnesses can prove incapacitating and unpredictable, but that doesn’t mean the person can’t or doesn’t want to work. It would be difficult to find traditional employment where you could show up or not without notice on a given day.

Freelancing, in contrast, allows precisely this.

Childcare needs can provide a similar challenge to traditional employment. A parent may have the ability to work some days, but availability varies and is circumstantial to shifting parental responsibilities, sometimes at the last minute. Being able to freelance and work from home with the kids around opens up a world of new opportunities for parents who may have otherwise quit the workforce.

“I originally left my full-time job at a Fortune 500 company to freelance so I could travel and volunteer. Now that I'm a father, I'm even more grateful for the flexibility Upwork offers me to work on my own terms and be present with my two children,” said Market Research Analyst and Translator Hugo Roger.

Hugo Roger with his family

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You can hear more about Hugo’s success as a freelancer and how he built a flexible lifestyle through freelancing on Work Unlocked.

Ability to increase your income

A myth surrounding freelancing is that independent professionals can’t make a high income. Yet, according to the Freelance Forward report, 44% of freelancers say they make more than they would for a traditional employer.

Skilled professionals can earn as much money freelancing as they put their minds to. Clients are willing to pay higher rates for experienced, reliable, independent professionals who provide quality service. By working with multiple clients simultaneously and setting their own rates, freelancers can shatter the income ceiling that full-time workers are often limited by.

Plus, full-time jobs limit workers to one employer. On the other hand, freelancers often work with more than one client. This makes them less reliant on one client alone for their income. Many freelancers also offer more than one service, which opens up further avenues to generate income from their business.

On Work Unlocked, many high-income-earning professionals shared that their freelancing income is often double what they made at their full-time jobs.

​​Courtney Allen has earned $400,000 on Upwork in the past 12 months. This is ten times her income from pre-Upwork days. Latasha James, who quit her fortune 500 company job to become a social media strategist, started making upwards of six figures in income in her first year of freelancing.

Similarly, Morgan Overholt has made half a million dollars on Upwork and has doubled her salary from her last position. “Today, I charge upwards of $120 an hour for all of my clients, and that's because I'm fast, I'm efficient, and they're happy to pay it … It’s been absolutely life-changing,” said Overholt.

Independence of being your own boss

As a freelancer or solopreneur, you are your own business. You are the brand. Any decisions or strategic changes you choose to make don’t affect anyone else except you.

You can experiment and try different services and offerings to see which ones make you more money and bring in more clients than others.

Solo business owners have the ultimate flexibility to pivot and make changes quickly. According to research published in RAUSP Management Journal, “the self-employed are more satisfied than employees because they have greater autonomy in decision-making and more freedom to be creative in their businesses.”

If you want to make the leap into self-employment but are nervous about how to do it, freelancing can be a great way to get started. It’s a relatively low-risk and inexpensive way to dip your toes into the world of becoming a solo business owner. Once you’ve gotten your feet wet freelancing and learned the landscape, you may decide to grow into an agency to expand your client base further.

The cons of freelancing

Of course, as promised, I want to be fully transparent with you about the cons of freelancing as well. After all, what good is a pros and cons list if it only shows you all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of freelancing?

Below I’ve described six of the main cons of pursuing freelancing. However, as you’ll see, they’re not insurmountable.

You don’t receive employee benefits

Employees in many countries receive benefits and perks that are part of their employment contracts. Depending on where you’re located, this could include paid time off, sick days, health benefits, paid training and development opportunities, retirement contributions, and more.

When you’re a freelancer, you work for yourself so you forgo these benefits. You will need to organize and pay for your own health insurance. However, the flexibility of freelancing means that you have more control over your own time off (make sure you take it!), and you can pursue the professional development opportunities that will benefit your business at your own pace.

Your earnings may fluctuate

Your workload may be inconsistent in the early days of building your freelance business. Sometimes when it rains, it pours and you may have multiple projects on your plate. At other times, you may not have much work at all. This fluctuation in cash flow can feel like a huge negative for newbie freelancers.

However, as someone who has been a full-time freelancer for almost nine years now, I can tell you that it won’t always be so inconsistent. As you learn more about your business (and yourself), you will also figure out how to streamline your business expenses, budgeting, and income so it becomes more predictable.

Like me, you may also like to pursue retainer clients who pay you a fixed monthly fee so you can be guaranteed a set income each month. On the other hand, if you work on one-off projects, you may like to break it down into smaller milestones so you can be paid at different points during the course of the project. Upwork’s fixed-price contracts allow you and your client to agree on deliverables and set up milestone payments seamlessly.

You are responsible for every aspect of the business

As a business owner, your business's success (and failure) is entirely dependent on you. While this is exciting, it can also feel overwhelming—especially when you’re new to freelancing.

In addition to doing your work, you will also need to learn how to do your own self-employment taxes, take care of the business admin like invoicing, invest in marketing and even organize your own vacations and time off.

Why do I say this is a con of being a freelancer? For many newbies the glitz of freelancing often wears off once they realize that a freelance business comes with all this “extra” work that you don’t get paid for by the hour.

You will also be responsible for creating your own work schedule and setting your hours of work. Freelancers have to learn to set boundaries and manage their time. With no one telling you when to work and how to organize your day, this can feel quite challenging for a new freelancer.

Check out: ​​A Day in the Life of a Freelancer + Daily Routine Examples for insights into how experienced freelancers organize their days.

One of the most critical life skills freelancing has taught me is organization. As a freelancer, you will have lots of big and small things on your plate. You will have clients, tasks, emails, phone calls, and more vying for your attention. Without being organized, you will likely miss deadlines and opportunities. I use my diary, task management tools, and my calendar to track my time and keep my day-to-day organized.

To succeed as a solo business owner, you must become a master of all the trades and skills that will keep your business running. As you come up against new problems in business, you’ll need to solve many of them yourself. As a result, you’ll find that constantly reskilling and upskilling will become second nature to you.‍

You have to learn to be your own best advocate

As a freelancer, you will also have to learn to become your own best advocate. For example, as a full-time employee, you don’t have to worry about finding new work. You have your job laid out for you when you show up to work each day. As a freelancer, you’ll have to learn to market yourself to find new projects and clients and grow your business.

This constant self-advocacy and “selling” yourself can take some getting used to. Some days it can feel like a never-ending job search with rejections thrown in for good measure. Ironically, while I work in marketing myself, I can still find it challenging to sell my services to clients. As an introvert, I used to find it exhausting to keep up with the hustle.

However, I learned to batch the work and not feel like I have to market myself every day. I now network sparingly and focus on building genuine relationships instead. I also put a lot of effort into creating my Upwork and LinkedIn profiles, which has resulted in clients inviting me to projects rather than my always having to invest time in outbound outreach.

In addition to marketing and finding clients, you will also need to advocate for yourself in other ways. This can be challenging and require a considerable shift in mindset when coming from an employee background. For example, if you feel like a client is asking for work that is outside the scope of your original agreement, you will need to speak up for yourself. Remind the client about your agreement.

Similarly, if you find a project not quite going the way you envisioned it. Or, if a client is particularly difficult to work with, you will need to stand up for yourself and fire the client.

Saying no to a client can feel scary, but it’s something you will need to learn to do professionally and responsibly as a freelance business owner.

You could feel isolated at work

Working from home and working with clients from around the world is undoubtedly one of the best perks of freelancing. However, the downside of this is that working from home can sometimes make you feel isolated, as well.

Freelancers can become siloed in the work they do. The silo mentality is a default state of mind you (or others you work with) may fall into where you default to not communicating with others.

When you’re in the same physical space as others working on the same project as you, communication is in many ways easier. Working remotely, on the other hand, can sometimes mean that you don't catch a recent update or change in a project due to a lack of poor communication practices.

This silo mentality is common in remote and hybrid teams where different teams or team members fail to share information with one another. It leads to inefficiencies in everyone’s workflow and can leave freelancers feeling unimportant or disconnected from their work.

This isolation at work can feel frustrating and demotivating. It’s important to discuss this with the people you work with. Sometimes clients may need a little education on how to communicate with their remote team members so they’re always in the loop.

Explain why this communication is important and how the silos can negatively impact the work you do for them. Suggest regular meetings or updates via a team chat thread, This will help align your clients, co-collaborators, and you. Even if it’s asynchronous, regular updates provide everyone with an opportunity to raise questions and issues that will definitely help you (and others) collaborate better and feel more looped in.

You may miss your people-time

Isolation can also take an emotional toll on some of us. With no colleagues around for a quick water cooler chat, working alone can leave extroverts feeling uninspired and listless.

For the more outgoing among us, this certainly feels like a disadvantage of freelancing. However, it doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker. If people-time is important for you, you will need to figure out ways to build human interaction into your days.

As an introvert, I’m usually quite content with minimal people time. I don’t miss the drama of office politics. However, to make sure I’m not turning into a hermit, I take a walk daily. Just seeing other people out and about is great for my mental health. I also make sure to pencil in time with family and friends on a weekly basis, so I don’t forget how to have in-person human conversations!

While I don’t currently have any pets, for many freelancers, having a pet around helps. Working from home with your dog, cat, or pet bird around can be comforting, provide companionship and help reduce stress levels.

If you truly crave more people-time, you may even like to work from a coworking space instead of working from home.

Is freelancing right for you?

To freelance or not to freelance? What’s it going to be?

No one can make this decision except you, of course. However, after going through our extensive pros and cons list, you may have a better idea of whether freelancing is the right choice for you.

It may also be comforting for you to know that in a post-pandemic world, freelancing is being seen in a completely different light. According to Upwork’s Great Work Teardown report, businesses are scrambling to add skills and finding that existing ways of hiring and managing talent are no longer effective. There’s a breakdown of the traditional workplace, workforce, and work-life. And independent professionals are powering the rebuild.

As a result, more businesses are open to remote work and hiring talent irrespective of their proximity to a corporate office. According to the research, 38% of businesses plan to significantly increase their use of remote freelancers in the next two years.

This changing attitude has increased the number of opportunities for freelancers to find high-paying and meaningful work. Plus, unlike remote employees, freelancers maintain complete control of their own work situations. You never have to be worried about corporate policies changing or having to visit the office a certain amount of times since where and how you work is entirely up to you!

As Upwork CEO Hayden Brown said in her opening keynote for the Work Without Limits summit, “The future has never been brighter for freelancing.”

You don’t have to make this decision right now or even tomorrow. Take some time to digest it and see what resonates with you. If the pros outweigh the cons, freelancing may be a yes for you. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be an out-and-out yes or a no. You could keep your job and get your toes wet in freelancing. That’s how many of us got started.

Above all, use your common sense and gut feeling and do what works for you.

How to start freelancing

If you’ve weighed the pros and cons and decided that freelancing is worth taking a shot at, here’s a quick rundown on how to get started:

1. Choose your service: Consider what services you want to offer clients. Consider your own experience and expertise before you choose an area of work. Below are some of the most popular freelancing jobs in 2024:

• Copywriter
• Digital marketer
• Web/mobile developer
• Videographer
• Graphic designer
• Virtual assistant
  
  

1. Identify the right clients: What type of clients are best suited to your business? Consider different industries, common problems, and shared characteristics. Knowing who your ideal client is will help you position yourself better.
2. Set your rates: Consider your experience, skills, and expertise, and set your freelancing rates. Don’t sell yourself short, even if you’re new. Research typical rates in your line of work to get an idea of a fair rate.
3. Build your digital presence: An online presence is crucial for your freelancing career. Start by creating your Upwork profile. Also, set up your website and a presence on LinkedIn.
   
4. Create a portfolio of work: As a freelancer, your portfolio establishes your work quality by showcasing your accomplishments and past projects. Feature the best work related to your service offering.
   
5. Start looking for work: With your profile and portfolio ready to go, it’s time to start approaching clients for work. Make use of online platforms like Upwork to find clients from around the world, looking for freelance talent like you.
   
6. Write an awesome proposal: The right proposal can mean the difference between securing a job or not, so it’s critical to have a proposal that works for you. Start by creating a template to help you organize your proposal. But remember, the most successful freelancers tailor their proposals to the specific client and project.
   
7. Build relationships with your clients: Once you have a great client, don’t let the relationship die. Put on your business-owner hat and nurture these professional relationships so they lead to long-term work or new client referrals.
   
8. Do good work: Most importantly, deliver on your promises. Do good work for your clients; it will keep them coming back to you.
9. Learn new skills: The most successful freelancers are those who consistently improve their skills, adapt to changes, and expand their knowledge. Keeping up with current trends is also essential to providing your clients the highest service level.

For a complete step-by-step to getting started, be sure to check out our guide: How to Become a Freelancer.

Start freelancing now

Becoming an independent professional allows you to work when, where, and with whom you want. And that’s just the beginning. Ultimately, freelancing gives you the flexibility to tailor your work to your life and not the other way around.

After almost nine years of being a freelancer, the pros far outweigh the cons for me. If you’re looking for a career change, I highly recommend giving freelancing a go—even if it’s part-time to start with. It may take some time and hard work to get started, but the rewards are definitely worth it.

As the world’s marketplace, Upwork is a great place to launch your freelance business and learn the ropes. When you create a profile on Upwork, you plant your business in an environment that’s purpose-built to connect you with potential long-term clients. Upwork will make it easier for you to promote your most in-demand services, showcase your best work, embrace new client relationships with confidence, and watch your consistent efforts pay off.

Sign up for a freelancer account on Upwork and start building your freelancing business today.