September 2026 snapshot · 72 AI answers Leader emerging

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 77 and the #1 spot in 63% 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. When the models DO search the web, see which sources they cite. Methodology.

Upwork leads, but Toptal is right on its heels.

Upwork and Toptal are separated by only 7 points overall, yet they win differently: Upwork gets the first-pick nod 63% of the time while Toptal is actually mentioned more often and scores higher on Claude. Fiverr holds a distant third with a consistent but unremarkable presence across all three models, and Freelancer.com has essentially no traction as a first choice across 72 answers. The category has no settled answer yet, which means brand investment in AI visibility could shift rankings meaningfully in the next snapshot.

AI-generated analysis of the September 2026 measurements.

#	Brand	Visibility Score	Trend (3 mo)	Mention rate	Avg. position	#1 pick rate	Models
1	Upwork	77 ±5.2	flat	83%	1.8	63%	ChatGPT #1 Claude #2 Gemini #1
2	Toptal	70 ±4.2	flat	86%	2.9	11%	ChatGPT #2 Claude #1 Gemini #2
3	Fiverr	58 ±2.9	▲ 6	67%	2.3	6%	ChatGPT #3 Claude #3 Gemini #3
4	Contra	33 ±5.5	flat	54%	4.9	4%	ChatGPT #4 Claude #5 Gemini #4
5	Freelancer.com	22 ±4.2	▲ 6	32%	4.3	0%	ChatGPT #5 Claude #6 Gemini #11
6	99designs	18 ±4.3	flat	38%	6.1	0%	ChatGPT #14 Claude #4 Gemini #6
7	Gun.io	16 ±2.4	flat	33%	6.2	0%	ChatGPT #11 Claude #11 Gemini #5
8	Dribbble	14 ±3.5	▼ 8	28%	5.8	7%	ChatGPT #9 Claude #9 Gemini #9
9	PeoplePerHour	14 ±4.3	flat	24%	5.0	0%	ChatGPT #6 Claude #7 Gemini
10	Behance	11 ±2.3	flat	19%	5.6	0%	ChatGPT #7 Claude #12 Gemini #12
11	LinkedIn	10 ±5.2	flat	24%	6.7	1%	ChatGPT #12 Claude #8 Gemini #13
12	Braintrust	10 ±4.4	flat	17%	5.3	0%	ChatGPT #8 Claude Gemini #8
13	Guru	9 ±2.8	flat	17%	5.9	0%	ChatGPT #10 Claude #10 Gemini #14
14	MarketerHire	8 ±2.9	flat	13%	4.7	4%	ChatGPT #13 Claude Gemini #7
15	Lemon.io	6 ±2.5	flat	17%	7.5	0%	ChatGPT #15 Claude #13 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), Mayple (5), Worksome (4.4), Freelancer (4.4), A.Team (4.3). 80 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 23/100: 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 →

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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

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.