5 Easy websites you can use to hire a freelance website designer or developer

Statistics show that having a poorly designed website can often make or break a business.

Starting an online business or even a physical one offline is expensive, let's face it, it's a constant struggle to not blow up your budget every month due to numerous unforeseen factors. From rent payments (if you have a physical location), to accounting, utilities, advertising, you name it, there's a price to pay. But yet even after you've put out all those fires you've almost forgotten that "Shoot I still need a website too!" Now here comes another expense that you aren't excited about, the cost to contract with a web designer or developer.

Depending on your needs and the project web designers/developers can be pricey, but their valuable talents and expertise are sometimes NECESSARY when developing your online presence. Statistics show that having a poorly designed website can often make or break a business. So with that being said, for the most part, you will NEED to hire a web designer or developer for your website building needs in order to establish your online presence the right way.

How much does a Web Designer/ Developer cost?

I'm glad you asked! The short answer is A LOT. Sorry to be so blunt but it's true. But think about it these people went to school and most likely spent a ton of money to learn this stuff, don't you think they should be compensated fairly for that expense? I do. But there has to be some sort of middle ground and thankfully there is, Freelance Web Designers/Developers. Now don't get me wrong-a freelance web designer or developer isn't cheap by any means, but compare it to the prices a "digital marketing agency" or web design tech company will charge you, freelance outperforms almost EVERY single time in my opinion.

According to Entrepreneur, a typical web design or development project taken on by a "digital marketing agency " will run you about $1,000 - $3,000 just to retain their services. (notice I use air quotes a lot because they're all the same digital or a physical location it doesn't much matter in my opinion lol) Now, on the other hand, a month-long or couple months-long project can run you in the 10's of 1,000's of dollars. Now if you had chosen a high-quality freelance web designer or developer from a company like Fiverr for example, according to Entrepreneur that would run you about $50-100 per hour.

Sound good? I know it does to me! I'll take it! But Fiverr isn't the only freelance web designer/developer market place out there, here's a list of my top 5:

Fiverr - Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelance services. Founded in 2010, the company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and provides a platform for freelancers to offer services to customers worldwide. Source Wikipedia

Upstack - For more of the development side of things. Founded in 2017, Upstack works with fast-growing companies to help them harness remote talent to grow their team and get their product to market faster. They have a fast-growing network of the top technical talent covering the most in-demand skills including Node.JS, Angular, React, iOS, Android, etc...Source LinkedIn

Gun I. O. - Headquartered in Nashville, TN, Gun.io finds, vets, and places senior engineering talent on technical teams around the world. They were born from the Open Source community as a way to connect open source developers with amazing gigs. Source. GUNIO

Wix Arena - Wix Arena is an online marketplace for talented web designers, known as Wix Experts. No matter what kind of website you need - landing page, online store, portfolio and more - a Wix Expert can make your vision come to life. Source Wix

Toptal - Founded in 2010, Toptal is an exclusive network of the top freelance software developers, designers, finance experts, product managers, and project managers in the world.

Top companies hire Toptal freelancers for their most important projects. Source Toptal

So before you break out that wallet or pocketbook and shell out 1,000's if not 10,000's of your HARD EARNED money. Give a freelance web designer or developer a try first.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to share!