According to Forbes, Pakistan is the fourth fastest growing freelancing market in the world with almost one million freelancers who contributed 47% growth in freelance earnings this year as compared to last year.
People from all around Pakistan, even far-flung locations, have been able to work remotely and contribute to the country’s economy, thanks to contemporary technology, digital media, and high-speed internet connections.
If you’re planning to start your freelancing career in Pakistan, we’ve got you covered on the most useful sites to get started as a Pakistani freelancer together with hashing out the future of Pakistani freelancers.
Freelancing Websites in Pakistan
Before peering into the future of Pakistani freelancers, let’s look into the best freelancing websites in Pakistan that can help you get your career off the ground.
- TaskShift
Freelancing in Pakistan has become easier through TaskShift, the fastest growing freelance site that offers an unparalleled freelancing platform to its users.
Their commission rate is as low as 3%, enabling freelancers to keep 97% of their earnings from each project.
For example, if a job pays $10, TaskShift will only deduct $0.3 from the total, leaving $9.7 in your account. Don’t you think their commission rate is incredible?
Furthermore, this site allows users to build their relevant portfolio and create their own offers without having to charge higher rates, which ultimately, put off potential clients. With this feature, your enticing portfolio will attract customers in a matter of days.
- Guru
Guru is another freelance site that links freelancers and small businesses with clients in exchange for a commission on each successful project.
It’s a good place to start, but it’s more slanted towards technical and developer prospects. Writing and design tasks are available on Guru, but they are few and far between.
Guru offers five membership plans to select from – Basic, Basic+, Professional, Business, and Executive with different price ranges.
- Freelancer.com
Freelancer.com is a renowned online marketplace that connects freelancers with employers through the process of job posting and bidding.
The employers post jobs and freelancers bid on those projects waiting for their proposals to be approved, but this is a time consuming task for both parties.
Freelancers are granted a certain amount of bids to use on the site, which are regularly updated.
The following are the service fees for freelancers on this site:
- For hourly tasks, a fee of 10% from the total amount is levied.
- For fixed-rate projects, a 10% fee is charged from the winning offer when the project gets is accepted by the freelancer
- Fiverr
Fiverr allows its freelancers to create their own gigs with relevant portfolios as per their skills.
They deduct around 20% of your earnings. This implies that for every $5 transaction, you will get $4. Similarly, if your gig is bought in for $10, you earn $8, and so on.
Moreover, you’ll have to pay $0.30 to PayPal at the time of cash withdrawal.
Consider the following figures for a $5 gig:
$5 for the gig minus $1 for Fiverr’s commission minus $0.42 for PayPal costs equals $3.58.
- UpWork
If you have a high command over your skill and professionalism, this platform might be a good fit for you.
Upwork has a big number of freelancers, hence there is a lot of competition out there. Unless you’re an Upwork star, applying on a project with 30 bids is usually not worth it.
To optimize your feedback rating, you’ll need to understand the art of making good proposals, and you may need to bid lower than your pay rate at times.
As a freelancer, you’re charged a sliding fee based on your lifetime billings with each non-Enterprise client. This includes any and all contracts you’ve ever had with that customer. For hourly or fixed-price contracts, the service prices stay the same.
- 20% for $0-$500
- 10% for $500.01-$10,00
- 5% for $10,000.01 or more
The Future of Freelancing in Pakistan
Pakistan has come to be one of the most financially appealing countries to outsource IT projects in the world, with over 6,000 IT enterprises and one million freelancers.
The freelancing sector in Pakistan now generates over half a billion dollars in income.
However, if the number of freelancers in Pakistan continues to rise at this rate and the government takes other efforts to make freelancing more accessible, income is expected to exceed $2.4 billion in the next five years.
The Takeaway
As the internet gets more powerful, the number of freelancers in Pakistan is growing because being a freelancer does not need a degree in software engineering or IT.
Traditional desktop functions, such as technical assistance, data entry, and even a virtual personal assistant job can make you a successful Pakistani freelancer in 2021.
