The Best Freelance Job Boards for Paying Gigs

Have you ever wondered where you can find good freelance jobs? By “good,” I mean jobs that:

• Pay well
• Pay on time
• Look good in your portfolio
• Are ongoing
• Will further your career

Spoiler alert: It’s not on Upwork. (I’ve been on an anti-Upwork crusade lately, sorry.)

To help you find better freelancing jobs, I’m sharing the best freelance job boards I’ve found, all of which are gold mines of high-paying gigs.

Mediabistro

Mediabistro has all sorts of “media” jobs, from executive positions all the way down to internships. However, it features a nice filtering option that lets you show solely freelance writing jobs—you can even specify that you’re looking for jobs where you can work from home.

It typically doesn’t have a ton of new gigs every day, but I think Mediabistro is worth checking out on a semi-regular basis.

BloggingPro

As you may have guessed, BloggingPro is a good place to find blogging jobs. Similar to Mediabistro, they don’t have a ton of job listings, but the gigs they do have are almost always remote and paid. Win-win.

Indeed

On the other end of the spectrum is Indeed, which will bring up hundreds of results when you type in “freelance writer” (leave the location field blank). It’s a lot to sort through, and unfortunately, it will also give you results that have the search term in the job description—so full-time positions that work with freelancers will often show up, too.

However, if you can look past these negatives, there are generally good jobs to be found on Indeed, including ones in more specific niches like grant writing. Just be sure to double-check that the job is paying, as you’ll occasionally come across ones that pay in “exposure.” Last time I checked, my landlord won’t accept exposure in lieu of rent.

FreelanceWriting.com

FreelanceWriting.com is a nice one-stop-shop for all your freelance job needs. It pulls relevant jobs from the sites listed above (as well as Craigslist and a few others), letting you browse them all in one place. This can streamline job-seeking process a bit, but you do have to apply via the original job positing.

Career Pages

Is there a publication you really, really want to write for? (For me, it’s PureWow, but they’ve been ignoring my tweets for years. It’s fine. I’m fine.) If so, I’d recommend you check out the company’s career page.

Many publication list freelance positions along with their full-time jobs, so bookmark the job listing pages of your dream pubs. I have a whole bookmark folder full of career pages that I check in on from time to time.

Ed2010

When I was first starting out in my career, I got a crazy number of jobs off ED2010. I’m talking InStyle, Martha Stewart, Taste of Home, and more. While small, this job board gets a lot of listings from big-name magazines—and who doesn’t want those?!

Honorable Mention: Facebook

As of recently, I’ve also started finding freelance writing jobs via Facebook—but not through the “jobs” section.

Instead, there are a lot of groups dedicated to freelance writers, and many members will post jobs that they’ve come across. Sometimes editors will even look for writers in these groups, and I’ve gotten some cool opportunities that way.