Thunderdome B2B SaaS AI Visibility Index

← All categories

July 2026 snapshot · 72 AI answers Contested

Freelance & Talent Marketplaces: AI Visibility Ranking

Marketplaces for hiring freelance and contract talent. Right now, Upwork is the brand AI assistants recommend most, with a Visibility Score of 72 and the #1 spot in 51% of answers. Head-to-head: Upwork vs Toptal →

These rankings are measured from what the three models know from training, not a live web search. The live-web grounded surface is rolling out across the index. Methodology.

Two clear leaders, then a cliff to the remaining three.

Upwork and Toptal dominate with scores above 70 and mention rates above 81%, but Upwork converts that presence into first-pick status far more aggressively, landing the top spot in 51% of answers versus Toptal's 19%. Fiverr holds a distant third with a 58 score, and everything below it barely registers. The strangest signal is 99designs, where Claude scores it at 34 but ChatGPT gives it just 3.3, a gap that suggests the models have almost nothing in common when they think about that brand.

AI-generated analysis of the July 2026 measurements.

# Brand Visibility Score Mention rate Avg. position #1 pick rate Models
1 Upwork
72
±2.8
82% 2 51% ChatGPT #1 Claude #1 Gemini #2
2 Toptal
71
±5.2
86% 3 19% ChatGPT #2 Claude #2 Gemini #1
3 Fiverr
58
±4.2
72% 3 8% ChatGPT #3 Claude #3 Gemini #3
4 Contra
28
±4.9
44% 5 4% ChatGPT #4 Claude #7 Gemini #4
5 99designs
18
±4.3
36% 6 0% ChatGPT #13 Claude #4 Gemini #9
6 Freelancer.com
18
±3.8
26% 4 0% ChatGPT #6 Claude #5 Gemini #12
7 Dribbble
17
±4.2
32% 6 4% ChatGPT #7 Claude #8 Gemini #7
8 Braintrust
17
±4.3
25% 4 0% ChatGPT #5 Claude #13 Gemini #6
9 Gun.io
14
±4.2
26% 6 0% ChatGPT #10 Claude #12 Gemini #5
10 PeoplePerHour
11
±2.8
19% 5 0% ChatGPT #8 Claude #6 Gemini
11 Behance
9
±3.3
18% 6 0% ChatGPT #9 Claude #11 Gemini #11
12 LinkedIn
9
±4
19% 7 1% ChatGPT #11 Claude #9 Gemini #13
13 MarketerHire
8
±3.8
11% 4 4% ChatGPT #12 Claude Gemini #8
14 Guru
7
±2.8
13% 5 0% ChatGPT #14 Claude #10 Gemini #14
15 Mayple
6
±2.6
7% 3 1% ChatGPT Claude #14 Gemini #10

The ± under each score is the reliability band: how much the number would move if we re-ran the identical measurement. It is tight because each prompt is sampled multiple times. It is not the same as how much the ranking depends on which prompts we ask — a separate, wider figure shown on hover.

Just below the cutoff: Arc.dev (5.6), Working Not Working (5.4), OnlineJobs.ph (5.1), Lemon.io (5), A.Team (4.3). 86 brands were scored in this category; the leaderboard shows the top 15.

Visibility Score: position-weighted presence across all measured answers, 0 to 100. A score of 100 means the brand was the first recommendation in every answer. Every point in a trend line is a live monthly measurement; there is no modeled or backfilled history. Full methodology.

Openness 28/100: the share of this category's recommendation weight not held by the leader.

Compare brands in Freelance & Talent Marketplaces head-to-head →  ·  Explore the prompt tree →

Get alerted on big movements

We rerun the index every month. Drop your email and pick what to watch in Freelance & Talent Marketplaces: the whole category or specific brands. Free, unsubscribe anytime.

Or watch specific brands:

Do the models agree?

Per-model Visibility Scores for the top 10. A long gray bar means the three assistants disagree about the brand. Hover a row for exact values.

ChatGPT Claude Gemini
0 25 50 75 100 Visibility Score · 0 = never mentioned, 100 = always the first recommendation Upwork Toptal Fiverr Contra 99designs Freelancer.com Dribbble Braintrust Gun.io PeoplePerHour

Where they land in the answer

When a brand is mentioned, where does it appear? Box shows the middle 50% of positions, the thick line is the median, whiskers are the extremes. Hover a row for the detail.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Position in the answer · 1 = the first product recommended Upwork Toptal Fiverr Contra 99designs Freelancer.com Dribbble Braintrust Gun.io PeoplePerHour

What each model recommends first

ChatGPT

gpt-5.3-chat-latest

1 Upwork
72
2 Toptal
71
3 Fiverr
61
4 Contra
34
5 Braintrust
27

Claude

claude-sonnet-4-6

1 Upwork
80
2 Toptal
76
3 Fiverr
65
4 99designs
34
5 Freelancer.com
28

Gemini

gemini-3-flash-preview

1 Toptal
65
2 Upwork
64
3 Fiverr
49
4 Contra
28
5 Gun.io
25

The questions we asked

Each model answered every prompt 3 times in July 2026. Prompts are brand-neutral so no vendor gets seeded into the question.

  1. Best overall
    What's the best platform for hiring freelancers? See who wins it →
  2. Use-case fit
    We need a contract designer and a part-time developer fast. Where should we look? See who wins it →
  3. Top tools in 2026
    What are the top freelance talent marketplaces in 2026? See who wins it →
  4. Startup & small team
    Which freelancer platform is best for a startup on a budget? See who wins it →
  5. Enterprise pick
    Which freelance talent platform should a large enterprise standardize on, considering security, compliance, and scale? See who wins it →
  6. Feature-led ask
    I need ongoing freelance marketing help, not a one-off gig. What do you recommend? See who wins it →
  7. If you could pick one
    If you could only use one freelance marketplace, which one and why? See who wins it →
  8. Budget & alternatives
    What's the best alternative to the biggest freelance platforms? See who wins it →