How to Build a Freelance Marketplace Like Upwork on WordPress

An Upwork-style site works differently from a Fiverr-style one. On Fiverr, freelancers list fixed services and buyers order them. On Upwork, a client posts a project, freelancers send proposals with a price, the client hires one, and the money is paid in stages as the work is approved. The site takes a cut along the way.

A job board plugin won't get you there. WP Job Manager runs on more than 70,000 sites, but it handles job listings and applications. It has no proposals with prices, no money held between client and freelancer, and no commission. You need a theme or plugin built around projects and payments.

We tried four ready-made options and our own Freelancer Marketplace theme. For each one we looked at proposals, milestones, hourly work and, most of all, how freelancers actually get paid. All figures were checked on the products' own pages and demos on 1 October 2026.

At a glance

Workreap

Workreap by AmentoTech is the most direct Upwork copy we found. Clients can post projects with fixed milestones or as hourly projects with invoicing, and they can hire more than one freelancer on the same project. There's a dispute screen, freelancer recommendations and a wallet for employers. The homepage of the demo even shows a dashboard with menu items for identity verification, disputes and invoices.

Payments run through WooCommerce. Freelancers withdraw what they've earned, and recent changelog entries mention fixes to PayPal and Payoneer withdrawals. The admin can set a custom commission for any user.

Workreap has 4,087 sales, the most of any freelance theme here. It also has the lowest rating, 3.95 from 234 reviews, so read the recent comments before you buy. It costs $69 and was updated on 8 September 2026. Envato's licence FAQ says that if the item is used in a part of the site people pay to use, you need the Extended Licence, which for Workreap is $2,600.

Pros

• Hourly projects as well as fixed milestones
• Several freelancers on one project
• Disputes built in

Cons

• Lowest rating of the paid themes here
• Extended Licence is $2,600
• Payouts are still withdrawal requests

Exertio

Exertio by scriptsbundle covers both projects and services. Clients post projects and invite freelancers to bid. Freelancers list services and send custom offers. It has chat, job alerts and Zoom meetings, and you can add milestones to a project.

The wallet can be turned off completely, and then services are bought directly. Payouts can be created by hand or automatically, and you can add a processing fee to each one. Disputes work for both projects and services. Hourly is a price type you can hide if you only want fixed-price work.

It costs $79, the Extended Licence is $3,200, and it has 1,354 sales with a 4.44 rating from 72 reviews. The last update was on 22 August 2026. The demo homepage reads "Buy Expert Services for Any Job Done" and suggests searches for React Native, Flutter and plumbers.

Pros

• Projects and services on one site
• Automatic or manual payouts with fees
• Disputes on projects and services

Cons

• Most expensive Extended Licence here
• Hourly is a price label, not time tracking
• Smaller user base than Workreap

Freeio

Freeio by ApusTheme mixes a freelance marketplace with a job board. It has jobs, services, projects and resumes, all with their own search. The item page is clear about the money. When a client accepts a proposal, they pay the admin. The freelancer sees the amount, less commission, as pending in their wallet. When the client approves the finished work, it moves to their available balance and they can ask to withdraw it.

That's the same model nearly every WordPress freelance theme uses, and Freeio explains it better than most. We couldn't find milestones or hourly projects mentioned on the item page. A disputes system was added in a recent update.

Freeio costs $59 and has 1,777 sales with a 4.38 rating from 63 reviews. It was last updated on 29 June 2026. The Extended Licence is $2,600. The demo still says "Millions of people use freeio.com" under the search box, so plan to rewrite the demo text.

Pros

• Lowest price here
• Clear pending and available balance
• Job board and freelance marketplace in one

Cons

• No milestones or hourly work listed
• Extended Licence is $2,600
• Demo copy needs replacing

HivePress

HivePress is a free listings plugin on WordPress.org with more than 10,000 installs and a 4.9 rating from 221 reviews. Its TaskHive theme turns it into a services marketplace. It leans closer to Fiverr than Upwork. Freelancers list services with pricing tiers and extras, while clients can post requests with a budget and get offers back.

Selling comes from HivePress's Marketplace extension, which creates a hidden WooCommerce product for each listing. You can charge commission to sellers, buyers or both. Sellers request payouts of their earnings. Buyers can open a dispute, and sellers can issue refunds. Sellers also confirm delivery with files and a revision limit.

TaskHive costs $89 for one site with its bundled extensions, or $99 a year for every HivePress theme and extension on unlimited sites. The demo runs version 1.2.1, tested up to WordPress 7.1. The HivePress plugin itself was updated on 26 August 2026. Because these are GPL products sold on HivePress's own site, there's no Envato licence question.

Pros

• Free core plugin you can try first
• Disputes, refunds and revision limits
• No Extended Licence to think about

Cons

• Service-first, so less like Upwork
• No milestones for long projects
• Relies on several extensions working together

PremiumPress (ours)

Our Freelancer Marketplace theme puts two kinds of listing on one search. Clients post projects with a fixed budget, a range or a rate per hour, plus a deadline and skills. Freelancers who switch on "Available for hire" can also post ready-now tasks that clients buy straight away.

Proposals are sealed. Each freelancer sends one, with a price, delivery time and a cover letter, and can edit or withdraw it. The client picks a winner, which doesn't have to be the cheapest, and the others are declined automatically. Clients can also invite a freelancer from their profile to bid on an open project.

After the award, the client pays the full amount through checkout and then releases it milestone by milestone. Each release credits the freelancer's share to a payouts ledger and the site keeps its commission. That's 30% by default, you can change it, and it's frozen for each project when the job is awarded. Freelancers ask to withdraw by PayPal or bank and you mark the request paid. Each job gets a private contract room with chat and a workroom for files up to 50 MB. Reviews are blind until both sides have left one.

We should be clear about the gaps. The money sits in your own gateway account, so it isn't held in escrow by a third party. There's no time tracking, so hourly work has to be paid as milestones. There's no dispute screen, and refunds are made by hand in your gateway and then logged. Gateways are add-on plugins. The theme costs $99 once for unlimited sites you own and has 30 homepage designs across 10 niches. More on the Freelancer theme page.

Pros

• Projects and instant tasks on one search
• Milestones with a commission rate fixed at award
• Private workroom and contract chat per job
• Unlimited sites on one licence

Cons

• No time tracking for hourly work
• No dispute system
• Payouts and refunds are manual

Escrow and fees

Every option above follows the same pattern. The client pays the site owner. The site records what each freelancer is owed. The freelancer asks for a withdrawal and the owner sends it. None of them hands the money to a licensed escrow company, so whatever the menu calls it, you are the one holding it.

That has two practical effects. First, the money for open projects sits in your Stripe or PayPal balance, and you need to keep it there until the work is approved. Second, holding money for other people can bring legal duties in some countries. Speak to an accountant or lawyer before you call your service escrow.

What about Stripe Connect?

Stripe Connect is the usual way platforms pay sellers automatically. Stripe's own manual payouts documentation says plainly that it doesn't provide escrow services or support escrow accounts. What it does offer is delayed payouts. You can hold funds in a freelancer's connected account, but you must pay them out within 90 days in most countries, two years in the United States and ten days in Thailand. For a project that runs longer than that, you'd still need milestones.

We didn't see Stripe Connect mentioned for project payments on any of the product pages we checked. If automatic payouts matter to you, budget for a developer.

Setting your fees

You can charge the freelancer, the client or both. Workreap lets you set a commission per user. Exertio adds a processing fee when payouts are made. HivePress can charge sellers, buyers or both. Our theme takes 30% from the freelancer by default and adds a buyer protection fee of 5% plus 0.70 on instant task purchases. Both can be changed or switched off.

A 30% cut is high for a new site with no clients yet. Think about starting lower to attract freelancers and raising it once work is flowing.

First freelancers

A new marketplace is empty on both sides. Clients won't post if no one good is there, and freelancers won't join if no work is posted. Start with the freelancers.

Pick a narrow field you know, such as Shopify developers in one country or translators for one language pair. Then recruit the first 20 or 30 people yourself. Message people whose work you've seen, ask in the communities they already use, and offer them a lower commission for their first year. Check each profile by hand before it goes live.

Next, post real work. If you have paid projects of your own, run them through the site. Ask a few businesses you know to post one small job each. Use the invite feature to send each project straight to two or three suitable freelancers so nobody waits for proposals.

Finally, ask both sides for reviews after the first jobs. A site with ten honest reviews looks far more alive than one with a hundred empty profiles.

Final thoughts

For the closest copy of Upwork, with hourly projects, disputes and several freelancers on one job, Workreap has the most features. Check its reviews first. Exertio suits a site that sells both projects and fixed services and wants payouts with fees. Freeio is the cheapest and adds a job board, though it lacks milestones.

If your marketplace is more about packaged services than long projects, HivePress with TaskHive avoids Envato's licence question and has disputes and refunds built in.

Our theme suits owners who want sealed proposals, milestone payments and a private workroom on unlimited sites for one payment. You'll handle payouts, refunds and disputes yourself, and there's no time tracking.

FAQ

Sources

• WordPress.org: HivePress and WP Job Manager, with installs, ratings and update dates from the WordPress.org plugins API.
• Stripe's manual payouts documentation on escrow and holding periods, linked in the payments section above.
• PremiumPress Freelancer Marketplace theme. Features are described from the released 12.0.42 build.

Checked on 1 October 2026.