Freelance demand: what clients post, budget and bid on
We searched Freelancer.com for 29 kinds of software project and analysed the 212 unique projects that came back: what clients ask for, what they budget, and how many freelancers compete for each job.
What this means if you’re hiring
Half of USD fixed-price projects budget less than $140. Marketplaces like this are built for small, well-defined tasks, not product builds.
The median project drew 45 bids and the busiest over 1,461. Expect to sift through a lot of proposals, many priced to win rather than to deliver.
Only 57% of projects are budgeted in US dollars; 57 are in Indian rupees. Searches for software work also return design, writing and marketing jobs.
Competition and budgets by project type
One row per search we ran on Freelancer.com. Click a column to sort.
| Search | Results | Avg bids | Median bids | Median USD fixed budget | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bug fixes | 20 | 183 | 98 | $140 | 6 |
| Redesign | 20 | 146 | 102 | $632 | 4 |
| Go | 20 | 133 | 86 | $500 | 7 |
| API integration | 20 | 129 | 90 | $500 | 6 |
| Node.js | 20 | 128 | 86 | $500 | 7 |
| Next.js | 20 | 128 | 86 | $262 | 6 |
| React | 20 | 126 | 82 | $500 | 5 |
| Flutter | 20 | 126 | 82 | $262 | 6 |
| Python | 20 | 122 | 82 | $500 | 8 |
| Web app | 20 | 113 | 64 | $500 | 10 |
| MVP | 20 | 107 | 62 | $500 | 7 |
| AI app | 20 | 99 | 52 | $500 | 10 |
| SaaS | 20 | 94 | 68 | $500 | 6 |
| Security | 20 | 89 | 67 | $320 | 4 |
| E-commerce | 20 | 88 | 68 | $500 | 5 |
| Chatbot | 20 | 88 | 68 | $500 | 5 |
| Dashboard | 20 | 87 | 63 | $450 | 6 |
| Marketplace | 20 | 86 | 63 | $500 | 5 |
| CRM | 20 | 86 | 63 | $320 | 6 |
| Mobile app | 20 | 81 | 57 | $100 | 12 |
| Performance | 20 | 81 | 58 | $500 | 7 |
| Cloud migration | 9 | 79 | 35 | $500 | 4 |
| Full stack | 20 | 79 | 40 | $320 | 8 |
| AWS | 20 | 78 | 56 | $1,125 | 5 |
| Legacy migration | 20 | 73 | 49 | $140 | 9 |
| Internal tool | 20 | 55 | 26 | $82 | 14 |
| Machine learning | 20 | 52 | 26 | $140 | 10 |
| Automation | 20 | 51 | 35 | $140 | 11 |
| DevOps | 20 | 45 | 18 | $500 | 8 |
28 of 29 searches hit Freelancer.com’s 20-result limit, so result counts don’t measure demand. Budgets use only USD fixed-price projects (the midpoint of each stated range) and are shown where a search returned at least three; other currencies are not converted. The same project often appears under several searches.
Most requested skills
Skills requested, top 20
Next 10
Skills are tagged by the client; a project can list several. Counted once per unique project (212). Software searches also surface design, writing, translation and CAD jobs, which is why those skills appear.
Projects with the most bids
The 25 most-contested projects, each counted once.
| Project | Bids | Budget (as listed) | Skills | Searches |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NEED A LOGO | 1,461 | AUD 8–15/hr | Website Design, Graphic Design, Logo Design +2 | 1 |
| Laravel Bug FIx | 491 | GBP 750–1,500 | PHP, MySQL, Laravel | 2 |
| Build Full Insurance Platform Website + Dashboard (Next.js / Node.js) | 383 | GBP 50–1,000 | PHP, Website Design, Graphic Design +5 | 1 |
| E-Commerce AI System Development | 378 | USD 14–35 | Content Writing, Customer Service, Data Analysis +5 | 2 |
| Item Photo Collection | 374 | USD 10–30 | Photography, Photo Editing, Image Processing +2 | 1 |
| Laravel User Authentication System | 351 | USD 250–750 | PHP, Software Architecture, MySQL +2 | 4 |
| Educational Website Development & Design | 331 | USD 30–250 | PHP, Website Design, Graphic Design +7 | 1 |
| Modern Blog Website Setup | 313 | AUD 250–750 | PHP, Website Design, WordPress +5 | 8 |
| WordPress Revamp for SherwoodPizza.ca Website | 308 | CAD 25–50/hr | PHP, SEO, WordPress +7 | 12 |
| SEO-Friendly Drywall & Concrete Website | 304 | USD 30–250 | PHP, Website Design, Graphic Design +7 | 6 |
| Low-Income Carsharing Program Website | 300 | USD 750–1,500 | PHP, Website Design, Graphic Design +5 | 2 |
| GeniusGenie Mobile App Revamp | 294 | USD 1,500–3,000 | PHP, Mobile App Development, iPhone +5 | 19 |
| Pictures & Screenshots Collection | 268 | USD 10–30 | Graphic Design, Photography, Mobile App Development +7 | 2 |
| Luxury Black-Gold Watch Site Revamp | 263 | USD 30–250 | Website Design, Graphic Design, User Interface / IA +5 | 1 |
| Looking for wordpress expert | 258 | USD 2–8/hr | PHP, Website Design, WordPress +2 | 1 |
| Frontend Development for Modern Web Application | 236 | USD 15–25/hr | Python, Frontend Development | 1 |
| Java, Qt developer | 230 | USD 25–50/hr | C Programming, Java, JavaFX +2 | 8 |
| Complete MVP Mobile App | 218 | EUR 36/hr | Graphic Design, Mobile App Development, Android +6 | 1 |
| Build a premium landing page for my book Dominium: Our Hidden Reality. | 215 | GBP 250–750 | PHP, Website Design, Graphic Design +7 | 7 |
| Full-Time Full-Stack Engineer | 215 | USD 250–750 | NoSQL Couch & Mongo, Node.js, Express JS +5 | 1 |
| Migrate & Revamp E-commerce Site - wordpress | 215 | USD 30–250 | PHP, Website Design, SEO +7 | 1 |
| SiteGround to WordPress Blog | 215 | USD 250–750 | PHP, SEO, WordPress +5 | 1 |
| SaaS Project ( SaaS for multi-agent live chat integration with What... | 211 | USD 250–750 | JavaScript, Mobile App Development, MySQL +2 | 5 |
| Dark and Atmospheric WooCommerce Customization | 210 | USD 8–15/hr | PHP, SEO, WordPress +6 | 9 |
| Dating app | 202 | USD 1,500–3,000 | Mobile App Development, iPhone, Android +7 | 1 |
Budgets as listed by the client, in their currency. “Searches” is how many of our category searches returned the project.
About the data
We ran 29 searches on Freelancer.com in March 2026 (“build saas”, “react”, “legacy migration” and so on), collecting up to 20 projects each: 569 results in all, which reduce to 212 unique projects once duplicates across searches are removed. 184 of them were posted in 2026; the rest are older listings still returned by search.
This is a snapshot of one marketplace, not the whole contract market. It tells you what the low end of the market looks like: many small, loosely specified jobs and a lot of competition for each. For contract rates for experienced US developers, see the rate calculator and the stack pages.
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