Build a professional profile you can send to anyone, apply to real projects, manage your clients, and keep working on the platforms that already earn you money. The core platform is free and takes 0% commission.
Freelancers join by invitation rather than open signup. That keeps the directory small enough to be worth reading and means clients are not wading through hundreds of empty profiles. If you do not have an invitation, you can introduce yourself and request one.
Your public profile lives at its own address and is written for someone deciding whether to hire you. It shows your headline, what you do, your skills, portfolio pieces, availability and any external profiles you want to point at.
It is a page you can put in an email signature, a proposal or a LinkedIn bio — not a listing that only exists inside a marketplace search.
Most freelancers already have work coming from somewhere — Fiverr, Upwork, a personal site, referrals, an agency relationship. Nothing here asks you to give that up.
You can link to those profiles directly from your 202 Collective profile. The point of this platform is to be the central page that ties your working life together, not another marketplace demanding exclusivity.
There is no commission. If you invoice a client through the platform with Stripe, a flat $5 platform fee applies to that invoice — and it is waived entirely on Premium. If you invoice or get paid your own way, that costs nothing.
Connecting Stripe is optional. Plenty of members never connect it and use the platform purely for their profile, clients and project management.
Members share work, ask questions, and talk about the parts of freelancing nobody puts in a portfolio — pricing awkward jobs, chasing invoices, deciding when to say no.
The community is members-only by default. You can choose to share an individual post publicly if you want it to be readable on the web, and nothing you write is published outside the platform unless you do.
Is it really free? The core platform is free: your profile, portfolio, applications, client management, projects, tasks and community access. Premium ($9.99 a month) adds early access to new projects, a custom codename, a search boost, and waives the $5 platform invoice fee.
Why is registration invitation-only? Because a directory full of empty profiles is worth nothing to the clients using it. Invitations come from existing members and teams, and you can request one by introducing yourself.
Do I have to stop using Upwork or Fiverr? No, and you can link to them from your profile. 202 Collective is built to sit alongside the platforms you already use rather than replace them.
Do I need Stripe? No. Stripe Connect is optional and only matters if you want clients to pay invoices through the platform. Arranging payment directly with your client is free and always will be.
What happens to my profile if I stop using the platform? You can switch your public profile off at any time from your profile settings, which removes it from the directory, from search indexing and from the sitemap.
How many members are there? The platform is in early release and the community is deliberately small — this is the ground floor rather than an established marketplace. If that is what you are looking for, the founding members page explains what early membership involves.
Request an invitation, build your profile, and use it wherever you already talk to clients.