Toptal vs Upwork vs Teilur Talent: Pricing & true costs compared

Published on
Apr 12, 2024
Written by
Maria del Mar Agudelo
EDITED by
Juan David Rodríguez
Read time
5 Minutes
Category
Transparency Research

Choosing the right platform for acquiring remote tech talent is crucial for businesses aiming to integrate the best skills seamlessly into their projects. This comparison provides an objective look at Toptal vs Upwork vs Teilur Talent, focusing on key factors such as pricing transparency, talent quality, and service adaptability. This insight helps businesses make informed decisions by understanding the unique offerings of each platform.

Overview of Each Platform: Insights into Teilur Talent, Toptal, and Upwork

Teilur Talent

Teilur Talent stands out for its straightforward price plan and focus on Latin American IT talent. This technique ensures that a major portion of the payments go directly to the talent, promoting both cost-effectiveness for businesses and fair recompense for experts.

Key features and services offered:

  • Specialization in Latin American talent: Ensures a deep understanding of the regional talent pool.
  • Transparent fair pricing: Guarantees that candidates receive at least 80% of the client's investment, promoting fair compensation.
  • Team integration focus: Developers become integral parts of client teams, aligning with company goals and values.
Teilur Talent website

Toptal

Toptal offers access to a broad network of freelancers globally, focusing on flexibility and a high-quality talent pool.

Key features and services offered:

  • Global freelancer network: Provides access to freelancers across various disciplines worldwide.
  • Selective vetting process: Only the top 3% of talent is admitted, ensuring quality and expertise.
  • Flexible engagements: Supports different working arrangements with adaptable pricing.
Toptal website

Learn more about: Toptal Alternative

Upwork

Upwork is known for its vast range of pre-planned jobs and hourly engagements but lacks the pricing transparency of Teilur Talent.

Key features and services offered:

  • Broad talent pool: Offers a wide array of freelancers for different projects.
  • Project-based engagements: Clients can purchase pre-defined projects or hire freelancers by the hour.
  • Lack of transparent pricing: It charges a 10% fee on freelancer revenues, but total pricing for acquiring employees isn’t transparent.
Upwork website

Learn more about: Upwork Alternative

Pricing & Fees comparison: Toptal vs Upwork vs Teilur Talent

Understanding actual costs is critical for team expansion, and transparent pricing allows for informed decision-making. Here, we compare Toptal, Upwork, and Teilur Talent's price and fees.

Feature Comparison
Feature Teilur Talent Toptal Upwork
Pricing and fees Transparent pricing strategy with no minimums; over 80% of payments go to talent. See prices clearly using our calculator below. $90 to $170+/hr, includes fees, flexible Net 10 billing. Fees vary, typically 10% on revenues, not fully disclosed.
Talent Quality and vetting process Customized selection with AI, ensuring cultural fit and specific skills. Stringent process, admits only top-tier professionals globally. Broad candidate pool, relies on client ratings/reviews.
Global reach and accessibility Specializes in Latin American talent, nearshore advantages for the US. Global reach, diverse project needs. Global reach, diverse talent across regions and time zones.

Pricing and Fees:

  • Teilur Talent: Structures pricing on a per-candidate basis, ensuring transparency and fairness, with detailed pricing based on the last accepted offer by candidates.
  • Toptal: Offers talent at rates ranging from $90 to $170+/hr, inclusive of Toptal's fees, providing flexibility with Net 10 billing terms.
  • Upwork: Fees vary with project length and type, typically adding a 10% fee on freelancer or agency revenues, with pricing details often not fully disclosed.

Talent quality and vetting process

  • Teilur Talent: Focuses on a customized selection process using AI technologies, ensuring candidates meet specific interview requirements and fit culturally with the hiring company.
  • Toptal: Maintains a stringent vetting process, admitting only top-tier professionals to meet diverse project demands globally.
  • Upwork: Offers a broad pool of candidates with variable vetting processes, depending more on client ratings and reviews than a standardized selection method.

Global reach and accessibility

  • Teilur Talent: Specializes in Latin American tech talent, providing nearshore benefits for American companies.
  • Toptal and Upwork: Both platforms boast a global reach, offering talent from various regions and time zones to cater to a wide range of project requirements.

Conclusion: Evaluating Toptal vs Upwork vs Teilur Talent 

This comparison highlights the unique strengths and potential limitations of Toptal, Upwork and Teilur Talent, in remote tech talent acquisition. Teilur Talent offers a highly transparent pricing model and a focused approach on Latin American talent, making it ideal for businesses that value clear costs and regional expertise. Toptal provides high-quality global freelancers with flexible engagements, while Upwork offers broad accessibility but lacks transparent pricing, which might be a concern for budget-conscious businesses.

When selecting a platform, evaluate your unique demands and long-term goals to ensure it meets your project's requirements. If you're curious about how Teilur Talent's price plan suits your budget:

Explore our calculator below to get a comprehensive picture of prospective costs—no hidden fees and no surprises.

Need help with cost expectations? 

Costs vary depending on the final offer our candidate accepts. 80% of what you pay goes to the candidate, and the remaining 20% is our fee. We’ve put together some examples of price ranges with all fees included, to help you establish clear pricing expectations for the services we offer.

Pillars
Colombia
Argentina
Mexico
Brazil
Group 1. Coordinators, data analysts, tech sales

$1,500 - $2,000

$1,500 - $2,000

Group 2. Product, designers, growth marketers

$2,000 - $3,500

$2,000 - $3,500

Group 3. Developers and Sr. tech talent (4+ years)

$3,500- $5,000

$3,500- $5,000

Group 4. Sr. software & data engineering (7+ years)

$5,500- $8,500

$5,500- $8,500

1:1 recruiting support

via integration

Talent focus
Pillars
Colombia
Argentina
Mexico
Brazil
Group 1. Coordinators, data analysts, tech sales

$18,000 -$24,000

$18,000 -$24,000

Group 2. Product, designers, growth marketers

$24,000 -$42,000

$24,000 -$42,000

Group 3. Developers and Sr. tech talent (4+ years)

$42,000-$66,000

$42,000-$66,000

Group 4. Sr. software & data engineering (7+ years)

$66,000-$102,000

$66,000-$102,000

1:1 recruiting support

via integration

Talent focus

*Transparent pricing refers to understanding how much a company takes as a percentage of how much a client pays for hired talent. These prices are estimates and always depend on the final offer the candidate takes.

Need help with cost expectations?

Our hiring costs vary depending on the candidate's accepted offer. Use our calculator to estimate costs for different roles.

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At Teilur, Inc, we are committed to accuracy and fairness in all our content. Our discussions and comparisons, particularly those concerning other businesses in the recruitment industry, are grounded in the best interpretations made by our dedicated staff, based on publicly available information. We hold a deep respect for the unique qualities of each organization within our field and strive to offer valuable insights rooted in our core beliefs about the recruitment industry's workings. If you encounter any factual inaccuracies in our content, we encourage you to reach out to us at content-research@teilurtalent.com with the specific URL in question. Your feedback is invaluable, and we are committed to reviewing and addressing your concerns.

Got questions? We've got answers.

1

How is Teilur Talent different from other tech recruiting companies in LATAM?

At Teilur Talent, we take a mission-focused approach to recruiting, ensuring that our candidates are aligned with your company's vision and goals. Unlike other tech recruiting companies in LATAM, who may focus solely on technical skills, we prioritize the cultural fit and dedication of our team members to your company. For this reason, we do not support project contractor or freelancer roles. Instead, we focus on fully devoted team members who will help you achieve long-term success. If you are looking for freelancers to complete one-off projects, you probably are better off going to companies like fiver.com, toptal.com or upwork.com.

2

How does Teilur Talent attract and retain the best talent compared to other companies?

At Teilur Talent, we offer our candidates competitive salaries that are 2x to 3x higher than what tech companies would pay locally. This allows us to attract top talent and retain highly motivated and loyal team members. Additionally, we focus on finding candidates whose values align with the purpose, visoin, and mission of our clients. This approach ensures that our engineers and tech talent are not just coding and completing task—rather, they become part of a greater purpose, which gives them meaning and helps us attract and retain the best talent.

3

What are the typical tech roles that Teilur Talent recruits for?

At Teilur Talent, we specialize in recruiting for a wide range of tech roles that are typically in high demand. These include positions such as DevOps engineers, QA analysts and engineers, back-end and front-end developers, data scientists, product managers, business developers, and technical sales positions. Essentially, we recruit for most roles that are needed in B2B and B2C tech-focused businesses.

4

What are Teilur Talent's fees and pricing structure?

At Teilur Talent, we believe in transparency. We charge a flat rate fee of 20% of what the client pays. This way, our clients know exactly what they are paying for and how much the candidate gets. As an example: If a client hires a software engineer for $60,000 per year ($5,000 per month), Teilur's monthly fee would be $1,000 (20% of $5,000). We don't believe in hidden fees or unwanted surprises, so we disclose all costs upfront to both candidates hired and companies. When exploring other alternatives, make sure they are transparent about their pricing. We believe this is paramount for the benefit of all parties involved in this new era of remote work.

5

What is the candidate screening process at Teilur Talent, and how do you ensure a good fit for my company?

At Teilur Talent, we take candidate screening very seriously. We use a multi-layered approach to find the best candidates for our clients, starting with screening thousands of candidates from our internal and proprietary networks. We leverage AI technology to assess whether a candidate matches the technical skills required for a given job opening. We also perform additional personal evaluations to ensure that the candidate has the soft skills, culture fit, and English language skills required to excel in their new role. Our rigorous screening process ensures that only the best candidates make it through to our clients, saving them time and helping them find the best talent for their teams.