What hiring costs, and what the fees are for
Posting, searching and receiving proposals are free. What you do pay is an escrow handling fee on each funding and a one-time contract initiation fee, both itemised before you confirm. This explains each, what is never charged, and how to keep the total down.
Hiring on Open Lance has no subscription, no membership and no charge for access. This article sets out exactly what you do pay and why, because a fee you understand is much less irritating than one you discover.
What is free
- Posting a job, and posting as many as you like.
- Searching for talent and viewing profiles.
- Receiving and reading proposals.
- Inviting freelancers to apply.
- Messaging, interviewing and shortlisting.
- Sending an offer, and having it declined.
- Your wallet, and holding a balance in it.
You can run an entire search, interview five people and decide not to hire anyone, without paying anything. Nothing is charged until money is committed to actual work.
What you pay
The escrow handling fee. A percentage of the amount being funded, plus a small flat amount, charged each time you fund escrow.
It covers the real cost of taking and holding a card payment: the processor's percentage, their per-transaction charge, the cost of cross-border settlement where it applies, and the exposure of holding money that can be reversed by a card issuer weeks later. The flat component exists because a per-transaction cost does not scale with the amount — processing a $50 payment costs nearly as much as processing a $500 one, and no percentage compensates for that.
The contract initiation fee. A one-time amount when a contract is first funded. Once per contract, not per milestone. A five-milestone project pays it once.
Both are itemised on the funding screen before you confirm, and both appear on your receipt. The live figures are the ones on your screen — this article deliberately does not quote them, because they are configurable and an article stating a number would be wrong the day it changed.
What is never charged
No cut of your escrow. The amount you fund for the work is the amount that reaches the freelancer, less their own commission which is between them and Open Lance. Fees are added on top, visibly, not taken out of the middle.
No charge for an unaccepted offer. Funding is returned if an offer is declined or expires.
No charge for unused funded time. Unused hourly buffer and unused monthly reserve come back to your wallet.
No monthly fee, ever. There is no client subscription.
No fee for holding a balance.
Paying in your own currency
If you are not paying in US dollars, the amount shown to you already includes the cost of a cross-border payment. Your card is charged in your currency, so your bank does not add a conversion of its own on top.
The practical effect is that the price you see while browsing is the price you pay, with no second conversion appearing on your statement. See Paying in your own currency.
What it looks like in practice
Fund a milestone and you are charged the milestone amount, plus the handling fee, plus the initiation fee if it is the contract's first funding. One charge, itemised.
Fund the second milestone and you are charged the amount plus the handling fee. No initiation fee — that was once.
On hourly, the weekly buffer plus the handling fee, each week. On a Dedicated Hire, the monthly reserve plus the handling fee, each cycle.
Every one produces a receipt, and hiring produces invoices. See Invoices and receipts.
Keeping the total down
Fund in sensible chunks. The flat component of the handling fee is charged per funding, so ten tiny fundings cost more in fixed charges than three larger ones. This is not an argument for one enormous milestone — milestones are your main protection — but it is an argument against splitting a project into fifteen micro-stages.
Use your wallet. Money already in your wallet is applied first, and a funding covered entirely by wallet balance involves no new card charge.
Do not pay off-platform to avoid fees. It is worth saying plainly: without the fee there is no escrow, no dispute process, no mediation and no record. You are not saving a percentage, you are removing the guarantee. And it breaches the terms, which risks the account. See Staying safe on Open Lance.
Why fees exist at all
A marketplace where money moves has real costs: payment processing, holding funds securely, mediating disputes, verifying identities, and having people available when something goes wrong.
The alternative model — charging for access, or for the ability to contact people — makes the platform worse in a specific way: it makes money whether or not anybody does any work. Charging on funded work means Open Lance only earns when an actual engagement happens, which aligns the platform with both sides getting to that point.
If a charge looks wrong
Check the receipt first: it itemises everything and states what each line was for. Most surprises are the initiation fee on a first funding, or the handling fee on a weekly refill someone had forgotten was automatic.
If it still does not make sense, open a support ticket with the receipt number. That number turns a search into a lookup and gets you an answer in one reply. See Contacting support.
Comparing the total cost
If you are comparing Open Lance against another way of hiring, compare the whole thing rather than one number.
Against another marketplace, the figures to compare are what you pay on top of the work, what the freelancer loses from their side, and what protection you get. A platform that charges the client less but takes twenty per cent from the freelancer is not cheaper — it is charging the same money and hiding it, and the freelancer prices accordingly.
Against hiring directly, the fee buys escrow, dispute resolution, verified identity, a payment record and reviews. Direct hiring has none of those, which is fine until it is not.
Against an agency, the difference is usually large and in Open Lance's favour, because an agency margin is a multiple rather than a percentage.
Where the money goes
For completeness, since people ask.
The escrow handling fee substantially covers real external cost: the card processor's percentage and per-transaction charge, cross-border settlement, and the exposure of holding reversible money. The margin on it is thinner than people assume, particularly on small payments where the fixed cost dominates.
The contract initiation fee covers the cost of creating and administering an engagement rather than a transaction.
Neither is a share of your escrow. The money you fund for the work is the money that reaches the freelancer.
A worked example
To make it concrete, imagine a fixed-price project with three milestones.
When you send the offer and it is accepted, you are charged the first milestone amount, plus the escrow handling fee on it, plus the one-time contract initiation fee. That is one card charge, itemised, with a receipt.
When the first milestone is approved and you fund the second, you are charged that amount plus the handling fee. No initiation fee this time.
Same again for the third.
So across the whole project you paid the work amount, three handling fees, and one initiation fee. Nothing was taken out of the money that reached the freelancer.
If the project had ended after the first milestone, you would have paid for that milestone only. The other two were never funded and never charged.
Fees on the other side
For completeness, because clients often ask what the freelancer pays.
Freelancers pay a commission on what they receive, deducted at release. The rate depends on their subscription and on the kind of work. They also pay a small flat amount per withdrawal, and they pay to apply to jobs.
None of that comes out of your escrow — it is deducted from their side of the same transaction. The reason to know about it is that it is part of how they price, and a freelancer on a zero-commission subscription can quote you slightly better than one who is not.
Budgeting for a project
If you are planning a budget, the practical rule is: the work amount, plus the handling fee on each funding, plus one initiation fee per contract.
The fees are visible before every charge, so you never have to estimate. But if you are getting approval for a budget internally, adding a modest allowance on top of the work amount will cover it comfortably.
Common questions
Is there a fee to post a job? No.
Do I pay anything if nobody is hired? No. Nothing is charged until work is funded.
Are fees refunded if a contract is cancelled? The work amount comes back; fees already charged on a processed payment do not.
Is there a discount for volume? There is no client subscription or volume tier. What reduces your total is funding in sensible chunks rather than many tiny ones.
Related
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