Toptal Reviews & Product Details

The best things I find on the Toptal platform (as a QA Engineer) are: - hourly rates are dictated by myself, and I am always aware if those are high, I will be less likely able to find the project - working schedule is in my hands - I can pick if I need an hourly job, semi-daily or full-time engagement - there are always active jobs on the Dashboard - independence - personal experience is that Toptal engineers are more skillful than ones that are met on the projects, so there is no limit to how high you can go in the hierarchy (leading roles) - big Slack community - you are always paid for your work, Toptal takes care of the charging part (if, for any reason, the client is late with the payments, or has different payment cycles)

Engineers coming from Toptal are mostly considered expensive Engineer can't discuss the salary updates Freelancers are not treated as employees ( of course, this is not Toptal's fault, but the downside of the outsourcing)

Income problems are solved. Not that I had ones, but my income increased 3 times since I chose to work only for the Toptal and leave the company environment. It is also improved my learning curve.

Consistent freelancing gigs! Occupy more 85% of the year! Most years I'm working 10+ months continually

For long term engagements toptal could provide additional benefits to the talent and pay! Since they bring a client that's make sense they take their cut from the first few months! But if it's longer term than that cut should be reduced.

Connecting freeelancers with clients in a much better way!

The number of available jobs is great. The quality of projects is pretty high too. Most of the jobs have great flexibility in work schedules. Payments are always on time. Another great thing is the Toptal community, where you can discuss ideas, get help with technical problems, and also be able to develop professional skills.

Frequently changing project owners from Toptal's end makes freelancers have to explain the background of project/client history every time there is a need to adjust projects. The vetting process is a bit debated, where sometimes very talented people are left out.

Reliability of remote work is a major problem every freelancer has to go through. Toptal solves this specific problem. You can find jobs of your desired length, I have worked on the same project for many years. Another big problem in the freelance world is the ability to learn new skills when you freelance. I have seen people needing to do jobs with very specific skills to have a reliable income. But with Toptal, you can look for projects which are a good fit for your current skills, but also offer great learning opportunities.

Toptal is a great platform to work with remote clients. Getting a great opportunity to explore my skills.

Well I can say there are no such issues with Toptal. It works smoothly and is just perfect.

Work with real-time problems faced by big companies and help them to resolve. Also it helps financially as well to grow.

Toptal has completely revolutionized the way I work and live. The ability and stability of earning a really high salary through excellent service and project automation is unique. I've never experienced something like this and would highly recommend it to all experts who are seeking for equal opportunities and a bright future through remote work and fair pay.

There is nothing to dislike so far... :)

I improved my skills, expanded my network, and helped companies to build their digital presence.

I’ve had the chance to work with more than 60 clients who were carefully chosen to match my working style. Toptal takes care of the client and takes care of the talent, which makes you feel in good hands all the time. I don’t have to worry about contracts, payments, or any other business aspect, which lets me focus on the best I do—design.

Nothing bad about it. I'm pretty happy with the company, the projects, and the opportunities they give me. I would recommend them 100 times and choose them again.

They usually connect me with amazing clients and projects from all around the world. I don't have to take care of payment, contracts, or any business stuff, and I can only focus on designing.

Toptal does all the legwork for you that otherwise would have consumed a lot of your time - finding leads, vetting clients, securing payments - so that you could focus on what you can do best as a professional.

I wish there were a bit more transparency on the fee structure and rate negotiations while interviewing as well as during the engagement. In the long-term engagement, you may end up being locked into a rate much lower than your market value without a clear path to making an adjustment, even though both the client and the freelancer have a mutual understanding that the time is right.

Through TopTal the freelancer has the reach to hundreds of different clients and projects, all aggregated in an easy-to-use dashboard. You pick and choose what you want to work on (given, of course, that you pass the interview with the client). Also being part of TopTal network improves your visibility outside the network through TopTal's outreach and gives you the clout of a "certified" professional in your field.

- Setting my own rate (and being able to change it any time) - Setting my own hours and availability (either full-time, part-time, or up to 10 hrs per week) - Not having to go after clients to get paid (I get paid by Toptal every 2 weeks no matter what) - The support I get from the internal team when things go south (I had once a client that wanted my phone number and was making me feel really uncomfortable, they jumped on a call with me as soon as I raised the issue, we went through the possible options and closing off the engagement was always a possibility for me) - Community initiatives & learning opportunities (constant events, internal and external training, and more) - Being part of the "Top 3%" has opened new opportunities for me outside Toptal too (acts as a trusting factor for potential employees and clients)

There's nothing that I dislike, honestly. I've been at Toptal since 2016 and loving it. I've been doing it full-time or part-time and I love the flexibility. I've heard people complain about mostly 2 things: the time it takes to get a client when you join, and the lack of transparency on the rates with clients. In my honest opinion, the time that it takes to get a first client has to do with expectation management. I think some people come into Toptal with the thought that you'll have your freelance clients all lined up, and that's not the case. You're still a freelancer and will have to do your work in terms of understanding what your rate should be, how to position your profile, and even balancing Toptal with other outside engagements. Toptal should just be another one of your income streams, not the only one. You know the saying: don't put all your eggs in one basket! This is true for everything, but especially for freelancing. That said, I've seen more initiatives from the Toptal community to help people figure out their rates and positioning, which is great because it's definitely a tough part of all of this. The other issue - lack of transparency - has never really bothered me. They need to make money, it's a business. I set up my own rate and can change at any time. What I choose, is 100% what I get paid. Everyone knows that they're charging more to clients than what they pay us, but no one knows how much. I'm totally ok with that because, at the end of the day, I get what I asked for + all the freelance annoying things removed from my day.

Like I mentioned, as a freelancer you need to take care of a lot of things. Toptal makes that process easier for me. I still need to do my accounting since it depends on where you're based, of course. But I don't have to go out there looking for new clients and pitching projects, I don't have to build out proposals and negotiate prices, I don't have to nudge clients to get paid. I just choose how much I want to earn, apply to the jobs that are interesting to me, and try to do my best work.

Good clients and job matching system....

Sometimes not a lot of jobs available for a certain skillset

Toptal has allowed me to find fully remote contracts that pay well.

The diversity of the projects I work on.

I can say i don't have any real diskiles

I work with clients anywhere from brand creation, through to digital design, through to Webflow / WordPress development. I can offer an end-to-end brand delivery.

The fact that I'm able to do what I love without worrying about how to get paid, as well as working with top clients from around the world remotely.

Nothing to dislike based on my experience.

Toptal has allowed me to help different clients worldwide build their products with excellent user experience. One of the benefits I've realized is working with very big brands and learning new things everything from a very supportive community.

Hassle-free creative work! As a designer, you can focus on doing your best creative work without worrying about missed payments, late invoices, or your sales pipeline. Toptal handles all of them.

I haven't had any issues. I did have a couple of friends apply to the platform, and the process was ok - till the last interview. It seems those interviews can get somewhat biased based on the person that interviews you. However, you do get another chance to take that interview again in 3-6months.

Excellent sales pipeline with plenty of jobs to choose from. Streamlined custom calendar and inverview setup for you and clients.Big plus is the automatic time-zone converter for both interviews and workhours.

It's worth joining Toptal just for the community - the best of the best in many disciplines are a Slack message away. There truly is no comparison between Toptal and other 'freelancer' platforms. Toptal isn't a 'race to the bottom' marketplace where the lowest bidder wins the day. If you can walk the talk, Toptal recruiters will hook you up with clients that are happy to pay a fair price for your skills. Toptal isn't a faceless machine. It's all about the people and some of the best people I've worked with have been Toptal people

Slightly contradicting my earlier point about 'race to the bottom' marketplace, Toptal is a global network and consequently, there will always be similarly skilled people living in lower cost-of-living countries that can do the same job for less. When it comes to deciding your billing rate, you're largely left to your own devices, without knowing what the going rate is. Set it too high and you could sit on the shelf for a long time, too low and you're losing income unnecessarily. I'd like to see a 'zone of possible agreement' feature. Maybe I'll suggest that to the team!

I've been a freelancer for 20+ years. Often working with agents that have no technical skill and couldn't care less which one of the resumes they sent to a client gets picked, as long as they get their percentage. Toptal doesn't work like that. Everybody involved in the organization has a deep knowledge of their clients and the technical skills they're recruiting for. They work with their talent pool to find opportunities to deliver value to organizations large and small. With Toptal you feel that your skills and experience are valued. That's rarely the case with traditional recruitment agents and it's certainly not the case with online freelance marketplaces.

it let us flexibility, want to work from anywhere, want to freelance without having to worry about finding clients

Very strict criteria for having an approved profile. Sometimes its seems impossible for getting a profile to be approved by a reviewer.

I am a freelance software developer. I make web and mobile apps. I get paid well for my work

I have been using Toptal Tracker approx since 4 months.And it's been awesome experience with this application I had with any other. Even if I was offline due to some kind of technical issue, it will track anyway. Overall, I have never faced an issue with this application, however every application has some bugs we all know. Even though they are doing very well to make it very easy for users and also making strong backend. I can feel it.

Almost nothing. Except it has not full-screen option on desktop and there is android or iOS app. Although it's totally there decision to develop it.

It was very awesome experience, I don't have any other words to say except it was tremendously awesome.

I really liked how responsive the developers were and the quality in the people on the platform.

Price was a little high and they take too much from the developers.

Looking into developing my own software and I was able to find people based on their specialty so I could segment who I wanted to work with.

Everyone is supportive and they have proper guidelines for everything

Hoping to get more clients so that there can be consistency in work load.

Remote working, flexibility in work

While working with Toptal I found more opportunities as compared to others. They have big clients and they provide easy way to forward your application to them.

The only thing which I didn't like much was the unresponsiveness of the matchers on few occasions. Ideally it should be a two way conversation.

I worked on data problems and toptal gave me the opportunity to work remotely for big clients. It s a game changer in the industry.

Very well-developed processes: hiring, matching, onboarding, supporting, and communication are on a very high level. People and colleagues are responsive and very professional. Short questionnaires are great: straight to the business and with an evident intention of recognizing, hearing and solving the issues.

We could potentially pay more attention to the texting in the profiles. Other than that, I see no issues at all so far. I love the company, the approach, mission, processes and culture. = )

For me, efficiency and effectiveness are a high value: I would say Toptal is helping me land on the best matching project in the shortest time possible. Rates are fair.

You don't have direct contact with customers and you are safe with your payments

Finding new engagement takes time, for my case it was about a month

Yo have coaches, matchers, who help you to get hired and continue working for the company you want