Reviews and expert opinion Toptal

Is Toptal the Real Deal?

Toptal pitches itself as a global network of world-class talent – yep, it’s pretty confident. Of the 100,000 or so people who apply each year to join Toptal as freelancers, apparently only 3% make the cut.

You can only hire developers, designers, finance experts, project managers, and product managers. That said, there are 200 types of developer specialties alone, so if you’re looking for someone with a super-specific niche, this is the place for you.

While Toptal claims to be the best in the world, it doesn’t come cheap. And although that’s because it says it’s got THE best freelancers, I can understand why you’d be skeptical – I was, too.

So I decided to take Toptal for a spin. I checked out its customer support, its pricing, and the features it wants you to pay for, so you won’t spend a dime without knowing what you’re getting into.

It’s not a budget option by any means. But if like me, you’ve hired cheap freelancers in the past and not got exactly what you bargained for, you know that you often get what you pay for. If you’re ready to invest in your business and the people you hire, then Toptal may well be the answer.

Rigorous 5-Week Screening Process

The freelancers you’re matched with on Toptal have been on one hell of a journey to get to you. Before a freelancer gets anywhere near a client, they go through a rigorous screening process. There are five steps, and it can take up to five weeks to make it all the way.

If a freelancer doesn’t make it through round one, they can say goodbye to Toptal. Pass every round, and they’re in. Think of it like the X Factor of the professional world… but without the live shows… or multi-million-dollar record deal.

So, what are the five steps?

1. Language and Personality – a comprehensive English language and communication evaluation
2. In-Depth Skill Review – a test of an applicant’s technical knowledge and problem-solving ability
3. Live Screening – an interview by Toptal screeners including live exercises
4. Test Projects – candidates are assigned a test project that can take 1-3 weeks to complete
5. Continued Excellence – A Toptal freelancer must maintain a high standard of work to remain in the network, so every assignment is essentially another test

And there you have it. Only the top 3% make it through, so you can rest assured any freelancers Toptal matches you with are very experienced in their field. Each successful applicant has their own LinkedIn-style profile where you can see their previous work, their experience, and whether they’re available.

But you won’t have to sift through hundreds of profiles, because Toptal can do the matching up for you; that’s what it does best. So tell it what you want, sit back, and let it send you a shortlist of candidates.

No-Risk Trial

Every time you start working with a new freelancer, Toptal gives you a trial period of up to two weeks to decide whether it’s a successful match for you. If you’re not completely satisfied, you won’t be billed for the time and you can move on to the next match. You’ve got the full two weeks to decide whether the initial freelancer is a good fit without being billed for it.

Then, it’s up to you whether you want to call it a day or ask Toptal to find you more matches. Once it finds you another freelancer, you start another two-week trial.

Hundreds of Specific Skills to Choose From

Although Toptal only has five main freelancer categories – designers, developers, finance experts, product managers, and project managers – each category is broken down further into specialties. If you click through to see the skills directory, you’ll find more than 200 types of developers alone.

From Uber Developers to Chrome Extension Developers, you’re almost sure to find a freelancer with a niche that will fit your criteria. And if you don’t see what you’re looking for, you can schedule a call with one of the team and they’ll start the search for you. Toptal says it takes between one and three weeks to locate, screen, and take on a new expert with confidence.

Speedy and Efficient Matching

With its slightly unusual callback system, Toptal aims to match you to the right freelancer within 48 hours of your call. And thanks to its highly selective process, it reports a 98% success rate from trial to hire. So if it’s crunch time and you’re in desperate need of extra resources quickly, this is a good platform to use.

Toptal Keeps Things Simple, but In Its Own Unique Way

Toptal keeps everything as simple as possible. But it’s a little different from the other platforms out there because it basically does all the work for you. Below are some of the ways Toptal manages the recruitment process.

It All Starts with a Phone Call

The whole Toptal process is centered around requesting a callback and speaking to Toptal staff over the phone. Already, that makes it a very different system to most platforms out there, and that’s not a bad thing, as long as you don’t mind picking up the phone.

To set up the call, all you need to do is click Hire Top Talent and answer a series of simple questions about the skills you’re looking for, the length of the project, and your budget.

Eventually, you’ll land on a contact page where you’ll enter your details and request a callback. You can choose a time and day or request a callback “Now”. You can pick a callback from 7.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, in your chosen time zone. Within 10 minutes I got an email confirming the details of my callback with a member of the Toptal Team.

If dealing with this kind of thing over the phone isn’t your style and you’d rather just sort it out online, Toptal probably isn’t going to be the platform for you. But talking about your needs over the phone with a Toptal recruiter allows them to ask you all the important questions and discuss your brief, guidelines, and deal breakers. If you’re looking for a long-term contractor, you’re probably more likely to get the right freelancer with this approach.

Once you’ve had your call, you’ll get a status report and then the matches, if there are any, will start rolling in. And if there aren’t any matches, the team will “work tirelessly” to find you one.

Extensive User Profiles

Your Toptal recruiter will do most of the hard work for you by finding and sending over the best matches, but you can still search through the results and learn A LOT about each freelancer. Every candidate has an in-depth, CV-style profile featuring a bio, education, skills, certifications, employment history, location, and project highlights.

Need 24/7 Support and Live Chat? No Chance

For a freelance platform that claims to have the top developers in its network, Toptal’s customer support page and system are pretty basic.

There’s a straightforward FAQ page (but with only 18 questions and answers), a mailing address for its Delaware, San Francisco, and New York offices, a phone number (but only for sales inquiries), and a simple contact form to fill in. There’s no information on opening hours and no live chat, so if speed is what you’re looking for, you’re not going to get it here.

The support page says to call the sales line or email customer support for “immediate assistance”, or to use the contact form for all other inquiries. To test the response time, I sent an inquiry to the email address and through the contact form.

I asked if they could give me approximate costs for a designer who specializes in chatbots for a short-term project. As promised, I got a quick response in just four minutes – a friendly response from Nina to say my question had been sent to the right department who would be in touch soon.

I waited just half an hour more for someone to contact me, and got a detailed and helpful response, this time from Michal.

Michal took the opportunity to tell me more about Toptal, and thankfully within the rest of the info, I found the answer to my question, plus some added extras. Michal gave me the average price for the type of freelancer I was looking to hire, told me about their process and mentioned that prices vary depending on the location of the freelancer – a piece of information I wasn’t able to find on the website which was useful to know.

If you want an “immediate” response, you’re unlikely to get it from Toptal – live chat and 24/7 customer support are not how Toptal does things. But they were quick and efficient at replying to my email query.

Getting the Best Doesn’t Come Cheap

Toptal requires an initial deposit of $500, which gets applied as credit to your first invoice. If you decide not to move forward with any freelancers then that deposit is 100% refunded. Helpful if you want to see if the system will work for you, but a fairly large upfront cost for small businesses. That said, there are no other fees, so if you can make that initial investment, there’s little risk.

And then that’s it. Going forward, you just pay for your freelance resource with no recruitment fee. But what are the freelancer rates?

Now here’s where you’ve got some serious weighing up to do. You’ve got to remember that Toptal is offering the BEST (or at least, pretty intensively vetted freelancers). And the best in the world isn’t going to come cheap. Every freelancer comes with a high price tag – but if the screening process is as good as Toptal says it is, hopefully they’ll be worth every cent. Real experts may be more efficient and potentially cost you less in the long run.

Toptal offers a handy pricing table as a guide, but the prices vary immensely – from $60 an hour for a developer, up to as much as $8,000 a week for a full-time finance expert (yeah, I think I’m in the wrong job too).

Plus there’s that two-week, no-risk trial I mentioned in the Features section, so if you’re not happy, you don’t pay, which is reassuring when there’s a lot of money at stake.

You can hire freelancers on an hourly basis, per day, per project, part-time, or full-time.

You’ll be billed twice a month, but Toptal says it can be flexible, which is refreshing for a platform like this and super helpful for smaller businesses – plus, you’re able to review all charges before they’re processed. It issues every invoice with Net 10 payment terms (i.e. the full payment is due within 10 days of the invoice being issued). It might be a quick turnaround for you, but it’ll keep your freelancers sweet.

It accepts all major credit cards, ACH payments, bank wires, and PayPal.