Hiring
How to Hire a Freelancer
The decisions that actually determine whether a freelance hire works out: what you are buying, how the work is structured, and how you judge the people who reply.
18 September 2026
Resources
Practical guides for hiring and freelance work
How to hire well, how to win work, and how the money side actually functions. Written from how Open Lance behaves, and useful even if you never sign up.
Start here
One entry point for each side of a contract, and the guide that explains what happens to the money in between.
Freelancing
How to Write a Freelance Proposal
What a client is actually reading for, a structure that fits in six short paragraphs, and the openings that get proposals skipped.
18 September 2026
Payments
How Freelance Escrow Works
What escrow does for each side, the sequence money actually follows from funding to withdrawal, and the points where people are surprised.
18 September 2026
Latest guides
Newest first, by the date each guide was last revised.
Hiring
How to Write a Freelance Job Post
A job post has one job: let a stranger quote the work without a meeting. Here is the structure that does it, with a weak brief rewritten.
18 September 2026
Hiring
How to Scope a Freelance Project
Scope is the agreement about what is included. Here is how to write one that survives contact with the work, including the parts people leave out and pay for later.
18 September 2026
Hiring
How to Review Freelance Proposals
How to get from a pile of replies to two people worth talking to, without confusing polish for competence or speed for enthusiasm.
18 September 2026
Freelancer Hiring Guides
Practical advice for defining a project, writing a brief people can quote against, reading proposals, choosing an engagement model and splitting work into milestones.
Guides for Freelancers
How to win work without underselling it: proposals that answer the brief, pricing you can defend, and a profile that gives a client a reason to reply.
Freelance Payments and Escrow
What happens to the money between agreeing a price and being paid, and where each side carries risk when it is handled badly.
Freelance Reputation
Reputation is the asset that takes longest to build and is easiest to leave behind. What it is made of, and how much of it moves with you.
Trust and Safety in Freelance Work
What protects each side of a freelance contract, what those protections do not cover, and what to do when something goes wrong.
Looking for product instructions?
These guides are about the work. For step-by-step help with your account, contracts, payouts and settings, the help centre covers the product itself, and how it works is the short version.