Why Companies Hire Freelancers: 15 Top Benefits

According to workforce experts, freelancers are becoming the backbone of modern work; by 2027, freelancers are expected to make up more than half of the American workforce. This means many of the workers you need may only be available on a per-project basis.

And that’s a good thing, because companies benefit from hiring freelancers. Here are the top business-boosting reasons.

Why companies are hiring freelancers

Companies hire freelancers to gain a competitive advantage. With freelancers, companies can stretch their workforce budgets, get more innovative work done, and access the specialized skills and fresh perspectives required to keep their customers engaged.

The top reasons companies hire freelancers are to:

1. Reduce hiring risk
2. Save on workforce costs
3. Adapt to workforce changes
4. Meet short-term deadlines
5. Amplify productivity
6. Increase team diversity
7. Find, hire, and onboard easily
8. Test ideas faster
9. Level-up AI capabilities
10. Protect teams from burnout
11. Work with the best talent
12. Reach new and larger talent pools
13. Tap skills without a long-term commitment
14. Gain workforce flexibility
15. Receive high-quality work
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1. Reduce hiring risk

The average cost of hiring a new employee is around $4,700. If the employee doesn’t work out, you don’t just lose the time and money spent on recruiting and training. A bad hire could also affect a team’s morale and productivity.

You avoid those high upfront costs when you work with freelancers; if anyone doesn’t work out, you can quickly find someone else.

You can further reduce risk by hiring talent through freelancer marketplaces. Upwork, for example, helps you hire and work with talent safely through features and services like talent profiles, identity verification, worker classification services, and only paying for work you approve.

Plus you can make better hires with Uma™, Upwork’s Mindful AI. In seconds, Uma can help you write job posts that attract the right talent and suggest the best matches for your job.

2. Save on workforce costs

Sometimes, you only need a specific skill to handle a task for a project. Instead of tying up budgets with a full-time hire, save money by contracting a freelancer who specializes in the skill you need, to get the task done.

Freelancers are also a cost-effective way to maintain workflows while you’re searching for the ideal employee. When you calculate the cost of leaving positions vacant, it’s more than just unfinished work. The impact can also lead to lower productivity, missed opportunities, and poorer customer service.

Tip: When comparing the cost of hiring a freelancer versus an employee, look beyond the hourly rate. Employees have many overhead costs that freelancers don’t.

3. Adapt to workforce changes

The younger generation will soon make up most of the workforce. And trends suggest that many of them will only be available as freelancers.

More than half (53%) of Gen Z freelancers already spend most of their workday on freelance projects. These are workers with the sought-after skills and experience you’re looking for.

Compared to employees, freelancers are more likely to have a postgraduate degree and work across multiple complex projects. And they’re adopting new technologies like gen AI at higher rates (61%) than their full-time employed peers (41%).

4. Faster deliverables

Short-term deadlines don’t scare freelancers, as many are used to jumping into a project and getting straight to work. And they’ve done similar work with other businesses, so they may not need as much time to do the work as an employee would.

Of course, a freelancer’s speed is only helpful if you can find them quickly. Genpact Studios, an in-house creative agency, often works on such short deadlines that they count on finding freelancers on Upwork. Sunetra Vijaykar, the company’s assistant vice president said:

“After we post something, we don’t even have to wait 24 hours for a response — it’s just incredible.”

5. Amplify productivity

Compared to employees, freelancers may complete deliverables more quickly because they usually work remotely. So they generally don’t get pulled into meetings or interrupted by co-workers, which allows them to focus on their work.

You can amp up productivity further by intentionally choosing freelancers in different time zones to create a workflow that follows the sun. Nimble tech startups have been doing it for years to meet tight deadlines

Amway discovered how efficient freelancers are when they delivered a global video series in remarkable time and under budget. The project changed how the company gets work done every day.

6. Increase team diversity

It’s been well-studied that diverse teams improve problem-solving, creativity, and customer engagement. Since freelancers usually work remotely, you can increase diversity by hiring people from talent pools that weren’t available to you in the past.

A digital marketing leader at a global nutritional sciences company sees working with diverse freelancers as a competitive advantage:

“If we don’t embrace the talent diversity available, and use Upwork to maximize it, we would be doing a disservice to our objective of creating winning consumer experiences. Because those experiences are being delivered to people who are very diverse too. In marketing, digitizing doesn’t create a winning brand—everyone must digitize. The brands that win are the ones that empathize with their consumers better.”

7. Find, hire, and onboard easily

Freelancer platforms, such as Upwork, are purposefully designed to make quick work of finding, hiring, and onboarding talent, no matter where they’re located. For instance, Upwork clients find qualified talent within three days on average—sometimes, even faster.

And if you’re hiring freelancers at scale, Upwork can help you do it all accurately and safely. Such as when Chargebee, a SaaS company, was growing so fast that its recruiters didn’t even have time to post all of its open jobs.

When they learned Upwork Enterprise could help with everything from drafting job descriptions and shortlisting talent to classifying them, the company made freelancers a regular part of its workforce.

8. Test ideas faster

With freelancers, you can quickly assemble teams to test proof of concept so that full-time employees can remain focused on higher-value projects.

CompuVision, an IT support company, regularly uses freelancers to test ideas and build out the winners. Ryan Vestby, the company’s chief growth officer explained:

"We can reach into the talent cloud to contract specialists from around the globe to test several ideas at a time. When we find something worth building out, we may assemble a hybrid team of employees and [independent] talent to create the product. The flexibility to try things quickly before having to really go deep into it has been really valuable.”

9. Level-up AI capabilities

Most companies don’t have all the skills in-house to keep up with changing technology. Take AI, for example. Nearly half (49%) of hiring managers plan to get AI projects done with help from freelance specialists.

Even if you’re not looking for a generative AI modeler or machine learning expert, many freelancers are accustomed to using gen AI in their regular workday. Compared to employees, freelancers are more than twice as likely to use generative AI frequently in their work.

Find your next AI expert on Upwork
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10. Protect teams from burnout

Bringing in freelancers to shoulder some of the workload and supply expertise where needed can reduce employee stress, increase their engagement, and improve team morale.

Ken Circeo, Senior Media Production Specialist at Microsoft, uses freelancers to keep his team engaged while scaling production:

“Using Upwork has helped us attract and retain top talent here on my team at Microsoft. We can concentrate on strategizing, knowing that we’re scaling our production using freelancers from around the entire world. We can use our time and scale our work, scale ourselves, and scale our team.”

11. Work with the best talent

Research shows that one characteristic of high-performing companies is they want to work with the best talent for a project. They don’t have biases about whether a person is classified as an employee or independent contractor. They welcome and treat external experts as valued team members.

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12. Reach new and larger talent pools

Most freelance talent work remotely, so you can access talent pools in locations that weren’t available to you previously. Upwork gives you instant access to a vast marketplace of talent located in more than 180 countries and who offer more than 10,000 skills.

Hasan Kemal, Head of Business Development and Partnership at Riot Games, contracts UX/UI designers, business analysts, and copyeditors. He explained:

“Working with on-demand talent gives us agility and a pool of nearly unlimited knowledge, as we always have the correct experts at hand.”

13. Tap skills without a long-term commitment

Freelancers offer you the greatest flexibility because they don’t have the overhead costs of an employee and you’re not tied to the worker long-term.

You can contract talent for as long as it takes to get a project done, whether that’s a few hours, days, or months.

Upwork even enables you to book a consultation with an expert to brainstorm ideas, plan a project, and more.

14. Gain workforce flexibility

No matter how well-thought-out your plans, surprises happen. Freelancers enable you to respond quickly to surprises and jump on opportunities when you don’t have the in-house resources to do so.

In fact, it’s this flexibility that enables Kevin Conway, Director of Renewal Strategy at iCIMS, to get the help he needs. He explained:

“Upwork helps solidify the business case to get more help, as the company continues to evolve. I can go to my COO and say, ‘Here's what I can cover with the help I have currently. Here's what I need to get over the hump and this is how much it will cost through Upwork. Then we can reevaluate this in a few months and either grow our workforce or shrink it back.’”

15. Receive high-quality work

Freelancers are known for delivering high-quality work for three main reasons:

• Most freelancers work with multiple companies, so they usually have a wider and deeper knowledge than full-time employees.
• Freelancers do what they do because that’s what they enjoy most. And they have the freedom to choose projects that excite them the most.
• Freelancers have an incentive to deliver high-quality work, as they’re self-employed. The better their work quality, the more likely they’ll attract new customers and keep the old ones coming back.

Of course, not every freelancer is a perfect fit for a specific project. Learn how to choose the best talent with tips from the free guide, “Hiring and Working with Independent Talent.”

Popular freelancing services used by companies

Companies often turn to freelancers to help solve challenges. Although the most in-demand skills may change each year, these are some of the most common freelance services used by companies:

1. Writers and editors. Create and polish emails, video scripts, articles, and e-books.
2. Website designers. Update an existing website or build a new one to improve customer experience.
3. Website developers. Integrate a new API, fix a bug, and optimize your site to look great across multiple devices.
4. Mobile app developers. Enable push notifications, create a mobile game, and optimize app performance.
5. Digital marketers. Improve social media engagement, optimize campaign performance, and develop SEO strategy.
6. Graphic designers. Update a company logo, illustrate an e-book, and design product packaging.
7. Customer service representatives. Scale teams during seasonal volume spikes, offer live chat in different languages, and onboard new customers.
8. Virtual assistants and admin support. Schedule meetings and reply to emails, handle light research, update databases.
9. Software developer. Conduct testing and QA, set up cloud infrastructure, and write a script to automate repetitive tasks.
10. Data science and analysts. Build machine learning models, create visual data dashboards, and segment data to gain new insights.

Hire freelancers on Upwork

Join Upwork for free and instantly access one of the world’s largest global marketplaces of quality freelance professionals. With talent located in 180 countries and offering more than 10,000 skills, you’re sure to find the exact match for your project needs.