Community standards

FreelancerPeople is a premium marketplace where buyers hire skilled professionals and sellers build real businesses around the work they do best. These Community Standards describe the conduct we expect from everyone who uses the platform — whether you are buying a packaged service (a "SERVE"), negotiating a custom contract, sending a proposal, leaving a review, or simply browsing. They exist so that good-faith people can find each other, agree on terms, exchange work and payment safely, and leave the experience with their reputation and money intact.

By creating an account or using FreelancerPeople, you agree to these standards. They sit alongside our Terms of use, Privacy Policy, Payment terms, Refund & Cancellation Policy, and IP & copyright policy, and they apply across every part of the marketplace. Where this page sets a higher bar of conduct than the minimum required by those documents, the higher bar applies. We may update these standards as the platform grows; material changes will be reflected in the "last updated" note above.

1. Our shared expectations

A healthy marketplace depends on a simple, mutual promise: do what you say you will do, communicate honestly, and treat the person on the other side of the transaction as a real professional. Buyers commit to describing their needs clearly, funding work in good faith, and reviewing deliverables fairly. Sellers commit to representing their skills accurately, delivering what was agreed, and standing behind the quality of their work.

These standards apply to every interaction on FreelancerPeople, including the actions below. They also apply to private messages, contract workspaces, the Resolution Center, and any other channel we provide.

Creating and maintaining a profile, SERVE listing, or job post.
Sending messages, custom offers, or proposals.
Funding orders through your wallet and the escrow system.
Delivering work, requesting revisions, and accepting deliveries.
Writing reviews and responding to them.
Raising or responding to a dispute.

When you fall short of an expectation, what matters most is how you respond. Honest mistakes handled with good faith are part of doing business. Deliberate deception, repeated bad conduct, or attempts to harm another member are what our Trust & Safety team acts on.

2. Be professional & respectful

Every member of FreelancerPeople deserves to be treated with courtesy, regardless of their location, language, level, or how large or small the order is. Professionalism here means more than politeness — it means engaging in good faith, honoring the commitments you make, and resolving disagreements like adults rather than weaponizing the tools the platform gives you.

In practice, that includes the following:

Keep communication constructive, even when a project goes sideways or expectations were missed.
Respect agreed scope: buyers should not expand the brief without a new or revised offer, and sellers should not under-deliver against what was promised.
Do not use reviews, disputes, order cancellations, or chargebacks as a threat to extract something the other party never agreed to.
Do not retaliate against someone for declining a request, leaving honest feedback, or reporting a problem.

Pressure tactics, intimidation, and bad-faith brinkmanship damage the marketplace and are treated as conduct violations by our Trust & Safety team.

3. Honest, accurate profiles & no impersonation

Trust on FreelancerPeople starts with people being who they say they are. Your profile, SERVE listings, portfolio, and proposals must describe real skills, real experience, and work you are genuinely able and authorized to deliver. Misrepresenting your identity, credentials, or capabilities undermines every buyer's ability to hire with confidence.

The following are not allowed:

Impersonating another person, business, or brand, or claiming affiliations, certifications, or endorsements you do not hold.
Presenting someone else's portfolio, samples, or case studies as your own.
Operating multiple accounts to evade enforcement, inflate standing, manipulate rankings, or dodge a restriction placed on a previous account.
Providing false information during identity checks. Because withdrawals require KYC identity verification, the details you submit must be truthful and match the account that will receive payouts.

Our Marketplace Team reviews listings and content for accuracy, and our Trust & Safety team investigates suspected impersonation or fraud. Accounts found to be deceptive may be restricted, and any pending payouts may be held by our Payment Team pending review.

4. Authentic reviews only

Reviews are one of the most valuable signals on FreelancerPeople. Buyers rely on them to choose a seller, and sellers earn their reputation through them over time. For that signal to mean anything, every review must reflect a genuine, completed transaction and an honest opinion of the work.

The following forms of review manipulation are strictly prohibited:

Creating fake orders or arranging transactions solely to generate reviews.
Buying, selling, trading, or otherwise exchanging reviews or ratings.
Coercing, pressuring, bribing, or threatening someone to leave, change, or remove a review.
Offering refunds, discounts, or extra work in exchange for a positive review, or conditioning a review on the other party's rating.
Posting reviews through related accounts, friends, or any party who did not genuinely engage in the work.

Our Trust & Safety team uses a combination of automated detection and manual investigation to identify review manipulation, including coordinated patterns across accounts. Reviews found to be fake or coerced may be removed, and members who manipulate reviews — whether they are giving or receiving them — face enforcement action up to and including loss of selling privileges or account removal.

5. Keep work, payments & communication on-platform

FreelancerPeople is designed so that the entire engagement — discovery, agreement, payment, delivery, and dispute resolution — happens in one place. Keeping your activity on-platform is not a formality; it is what makes our protections work. When work and payment stay on FreelancerPeople, both sides are covered by the safeguards built into the system.

This matters because:

Order payments are held in 100% escrow — your funds are secured when you pay and released to the seller only after delivery and your review window, whether the contract is fixed-price or weekly-billed hourly.
The wallet, escrow records, and message history create a clear, time-stamped account of what was agreed, which the Resolution Center relies on if something goes wrong.
Buyer protection, refunds, and seller payout guarantees only apply to transactions completed through the platform.

For these reasons, you should not solicit or accept off-platform payment, move an in-progress engagement to outside channels, or share contact details to take a deal elsewhere in order to avoid the platform fee that is shown before you confirm an order. Off-platform deals remove escrow protection entirely, leaving both parties exposed with no recourse through FreelancerPeople. Our Trust & Safety team treats attempts to circumvent the platform as a serious violation.

6. Clear, timely communication

Most problems on a marketplace are not caused by bad intent — they are caused by silence and ambiguity. Setting expectations early and keeping the other party informed prevents the vast majority of disputes. We expect both buyers and sellers to communicate clearly and respond within a reasonable time.

Good communication looks like this:

Buyers share complete, accurate requirements up front and respond promptly when a seller asks for clarification or submits a delivery for review.
Sellers describe scope, timelines, revisions, and deliverables honestly in their SERVE or custom offer, and flag delays as soon as they foresee them rather than after a deadline passes.
Both sides confirm changes to scope, price, or timeline through a revised offer or contract amendment — not through vague verbal agreement.
Keep the conversation professional and on-topic; the messaging system is for coordinating work, not for spam, solicitation, or pressure.

Reaching out to a buyer is contingent on the buyer connecting first — by messaging or by placing an order — so that no one receives unsolicited sales pressure. Once a connection exists, both parties are expected to keep each other reasonably informed through to completion.

7. Zero tolerance for harassment, hate, or discrimination

FreelancerPeople is a global, professional community, and there is no place on it for harassment, hate, or discrimination. We do not tolerate conduct that targets, demeans, or excludes people based on who they are.

Strictly prohibited behavior includes, but is not limited to:

Slurs, hateful, or dehumanizing speech, or any attack based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or similar characteristics.
Refusing service to or treating someone differently on the basis of those characteristics.
Sexual harassment, unwanted advances, sexually explicit messages, or sharing intimate content without consent.
Threats, stalking, doxxing, or targeted harassment, including coordinated pile-ons.
Bullying, intimidation, or sustained hostility toward another member or our staff.

These violations are handled with priority by our Trust & Safety team and frequently result in immediate and permanent account removal. Harassment of our staff is treated the same way as harassment of any member.

8. Safety & no off-platform pressure

Your safety — financial and personal — is a core reason FreelancerPeople exists. We design the platform so that you never have to take an engagement off-platform, share more personal information than necessary, or accept pressure to do something you are not comfortable with.

To keep the marketplace safe, the following are prohibited:

Pressuring another member to move a transaction, payment, or conversation off-platform, or to bypass escrow protection.
Requesting unnecessary personal, financial, or identifying information, or attempting to phish for credentials or payment details.
Posting, requesting, or delivering anything illegal, fraudulent, malicious (such as malware), or that infringes others' rights.
Using FreelancerPeople to facilitate scams, money laundering, sanctions evasion, or any activity that endangers other members.

If anyone pressures you to leave the platform, asks for payment outside the wallet, or makes you feel unsafe, stop and report it. You will never be penalized for declining an off-platform request or for protecting your own safety. If you believe someone is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first, then notify our Trust & Safety team through the steps below.

9. How to report a problem

If something feels wrong, tell us — early reporting helps us protect you and others. The right channel depends on the kind of problem you are facing, and using the right one gets your issue to the team that can resolve it fastest.

A disagreement about an order, delivery, or refund: open a case in the Resolution Center. This is where disputes over fixed-price and hourly contracts are reviewed, and where escrowed funds, refunds, and releases are decided based on the evidence and message history.
Conduct violations — harassment, hate, impersonation, review manipulation, off-platform pressure, or anything in these standards — should be reported to our Trust & Safety team using the report option available on profiles, listings, messages, and reviews.
Account, access, billing, or general help can be raised with our Support team through the Contact page.
Payment, payout, wallet, hold, or clearance questions are handled by our Payment Team, who you can reach through Support.

When you report, include as much detail as you can — order or contract references, usernames, dates, and any relevant messages. Reports are reviewed confidentially, and you should not take enforcement into your own hands by retaliating against the other party.

10. Consequences & enforcement

Enforcement of these standards is carried out by our Trust & Safety team — never by other members. We aim to be proportionate: the response to a first, minor, good-faith mistake is different from the response to deliberate fraud or repeated abuse. We also consider context, intent, history, and the harm caused.

Depending on the severity and pattern of a violation, our Trust & Safety team may take one or more of the following actions:

Issue a warning or require corrective action, such as editing a misleading listing.
Remove specific content, including manipulated reviews, false claims, or non-compliant listings (content review is also supported by our Marketplace Team).
Limit account features, such as the ability to sell, send offers, post jobs, or message other members.
Pause payouts or place funds on hold while an investigation is underway — these payment actions are carried out by our Payment Team.
Suspend or permanently remove an account for serious or repeated violations.

Enforcement decisions apply equally to everyone: your standing on the platform — including your seller level — neither shields you from action nor changes the standards you are held to. Where a violation affects a specific transaction, related funds are resolved through escrow and the Resolution Center under our Refund & Cancellation Policy. If you believe an enforcement decision was made in error, you may ask our Support team to have it reviewed.

11. Questions & contact

These standards are here to keep FreelancerPeople a place where serious professionals and serious buyers can work together with confidence. If you are unsure whether something is allowed, the safest path is to ask before you act.

For general questions about these Community Standards or your account, reach our Support team via the Contact page. To report conduct that breaches these standards, use the report option throughout the platform to notify our Trust & Safety team. For order disputes, open a case in the Resolution Center. You may also want to review our Terms of use, Privacy Policy, and Payment terms for the full framework that governs your use of FreelancerPeople.