The Best Alternative to Freelancing Platforms for Hiring Full-Time Talent in Latin America

You post a job on Upwork. Within 6 hours, you’ve got 200 proposals. Half are automated spam sent within seconds. The other half? You’re now spending hours reading through profiles, checking reviews, trying to figure out who’s legit and who’s an agency hiding behind a friendly face.

You shortlist a few candidates. Interview them. You hire one. Three weeks in, your work keeps getting delayed because they’re juggling 7 other clients. Or they ghost entirely because they got a better offer.

If you actually need full-time support—or close to it—there’s a much faster path to finding top Latin American talent that doesn’t involve sorting through hundreds of proposals: working with a Latin American hiring partner.

These specialized staffing firms handle the entire process from vetting to payroll, giving you the same payment and compliance simplicity as a platform, but with candidates who’ve been screened for your specific needs and who are looking for full-time roles, not juggling multiple clients.

What Freelance Platforms Do Well (And Where They Fall Short)

Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal, and Freelancer.com are solid platforms for what they’re built for. They’re not bad—they’re just designed for a different use case than building a full-time team.

• Upwork is the broadest marketplace with 10,000+ skills and flexible engagement models. Great if you’re comfortable screening talent yourself and want maximum optionality. The challenge: you’re doing all the vetting work.
• Fiverr excels at well-defined project packages with fixed deliverables and 48-hour turnarounds. Perfect for “I need 10 social posts by Friday.” Not ideal for “I need someone who’ll learn our brand voice and manage our social presence for the next two years.”
• Toptal offers the most rigorous vetting (3% acceptance rate) and premium talent, particularly for specialized technical roles. They’re excellent if you need a senior architect for a complex project. The tradeoff: premium pricing, and you’re still hiring someone who may be balancing multiple clients.
• Freelancer.com provides the lowest barriers to entry with minimal fees and ultra-fast bidding (80% of jobs get bids within 60 seconds). Good for budget-conscious projects. The reality: you get what you pay for, and their 3.7/5 G2 rating reflects quality control challenges.

The common thread: These platforms are built around freelancers—people who, by definition, work with multiple clients simultaneously. That model works great for project-based work. It breaks down when you need someone for more than 20 hours a week who will become truly part of your team.

What Are the Alternatives to Upwork and Toptal for Hiring in Latin America?

Specialized Latin American staffing and recruiting companies like Near handle the entire recruitment process, from vetting to payroll, making them a strong alternative to hiring through freelance platforms. 

There’s a whole category of specialized Latin American hiring partners that many companies don’t know about. These aren’t job boards where you do your own screening. They’re full-service recruiting firms focused specifically on connecting US businesses with full-time LatAm professionals.

The model is straightforward: you tell them what you need, they find vetted candidates who match, you interview a shortlist, you hire. They handle payroll, compliance, benefits, and ongoing support.

And with these companies, payment and compliance are just as easy as using a freelance platform. You’re not figuring out international wire transfers or tax forms. You get one invoice. The hiring partner handles everything else. Same simplicity, better outcomes.

Why Staffing and Recruiting Companies Are a Better Choice for Full-Time LatAm Hires

Staffing companies save you 10-20 hours of screening time, deliver candidates who are actually vetted for culture fit, and handle payment and compliance just as seamlessly as any platform—while giving you people who are committed to your company full-time.

When you try to build a full-time team through freelance platforms:

• The time sink is real. You post a job on Upwork and get 200 proposals. Even if you screen efficiently, you’re burning 10–15 hours just to get to a shortlist. Then you’re conducting your own interviews and hoping the reviews are legitimate. That’s before you’ve hired anyone.
• Freelancers are spread thin. The person you hire is also working for other companies. When you need something urgent, you’re competing for their attention. When their biggest client calls, your work gets delayed. It’s not malicious—it’s just the freelance model.
• Ghosting is common. A freelancer finds a better offer or gets overwhelmed with projects, and they disappear mid-task. You’re back to square one, screening another 200 proposals.
• Converting to full-time is awkward and expensive. You find a great freelancer and want to hire them directly. Most platforms charge buyout fees. The freelancer might not even want full-time work—that’s why they’re freelancing. And if they do convert, you’re now figuring out international payroll and compliance on your own.

What LatAm staffing and recruiting agencies handle differently:

You get pre-vetted candidates delivered in days, not hundreds of unscreened proposals. These candidates have usually already been interviewed, reference-checked, and screened for communication skills and cultural fit.

They’re committed to your company, not juggling five clients. They learn your systems, compound their knowledge over time, and actually integrate into your team.

Payroll, compliance, benefits, equipment—all handled. No questions about local labor laws, no figuring out how to provide health insurance in another country.

Replacement guarantees. If someone doesn’t work out, most companies offer a replacement at no additional cost. On most freelance platforms, if your hire ghosts, you start over and pay again.

When to Use a Freelance Platform vs a Staffing and Recruiting Company for Hiring in Latin America

Use a freelance platform when you genuinely need short-term or part-time support. 

We’re not here to bash freelance platforms. They’re genuinely useful for specific scenarios. The question is: which approach fits your actual need?

Use a freelance platform to hire in LatAm when you need:

• Project-based work with defined deliverables. A website redesign, 10 social media ads, a one-time data migration. Clear scope, clear endpoint.
• Part-time ongoing work (under 20 hours/week). You need 5–10 hours weekly and can’t fill a full-time role.
• Short-term needs (under 3 months). A maternity leave cover, a seasonal campaign, a one-off project.
• Testing if you even need the role. You’re not sure this position will deliver ROI, so you want to try it out first.

Work with a LatAm hiring partner when you need:

• 30-40 hours/week of consistent support. You have enough work to keep someone busy full-time.
• Someone who will integrate into your team long-term. You want people who learn your business, grow with you, and compound their impact over months and years.
• You want to avoid the screening time sink. You’d rather interview 3 great candidates than sort through 200 proposals.
• Retention and reliability. You can’t afford to have someone ghost or constantly compete for their attention.

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What Are the Top LatAm Hiring Partners to Consider Instead of Freelance Hiring Platforms?

Firms like Near, Virtual Latinos, BairesDev, Revelo, and Tecla focus specifically on connecting US businesses with LatAm talent, each with different specializations. 

If you’ve decided a hiring partner makes more sense than a freelance platform, here are a few companies that specialize in connecting US businesses with Latin American talent with full payroll and compliance support.

• Near specializes in high-performing remote talent across all business functions—finance, marketing, accounting, sales, operations, and engineering. Built for companies seeking premium talent fast.

• Virtual Latinos focuses specifically on virtual assistants, administrative support, and customer service roles. If you need a VA or EA, they’re worth talking to.

• BairesDev specializes in software development with a large bench of engineers. Good option if you need temporary dev capacity on a staff augmentation model or project-based technical work. 
• Revelo operates a platform-driven model for hiring developers across Latin America, with a 400K+ pre-screened network. They’re built for companies that want tech talent with month-to-month flexibility. 
• Tecla focuses exclusively on engineering roles with comprehensive EOR services. If you need immediate technical impact with all legal compliance handled, they’re a strong option. 

To see how these and other firms compare—especially for hiring for specific roles—check out our guides to the: 

• Best staffing firms in Latin America
• Best companies to hire virtual assistants in Latin America
• Best staff augmentation companies in Latin America
• Best companies to hire sales reps in Latin America

How Near Approaches Full-Time LatAm Hiring

You’re here because you need to hire, and you need it to work. Not eventually—now. You don’t have weeks to burn screening candidates who won’t work out, and you can’t afford to get this wrong twice.

Near exists for exactly this situation. We’re a full-service LatAm recruiting partner built for companies that need great talent fast and don’t have time for the usual hiring headaches.

Here’s our model:

• No fee until you hire. You don’t pay anything upfront. Once you make a hire, you choose between a one-off placement fee or a monthly fee, depending on whether you want us to handle ongoing payroll and compliance.
• 3-5 day shortlists of vetted candidates. We pre-screen for technical skills, English proficiency, communication ability, and cultural fit. You look at 3-5 strong profiles, not 200 maybes.
• A dedicated recruiter who learns your company. Your recruiter takes time to understand your culture, your communication style, your actual needs. They’ll advise against a hire if red flags emerge. This isn’t transactional placement—it’s partnership.
• 97% placement success rate. 97% of the roles we work on get filled successfully. Once placed, 80% of our hires stay 2+ years. These aren’t freelancers looking for the next gig—they’re professionals building careers.
• 180-day guarantee. If a placement doesn’t work out in the first six months, we find you a replacement at no additional cost. You’re not starting over and paying again.
• We handle everything. Recruiting, payroll, compliance, benefits administration, equipment provision if needed. You get one invoice. We handle the complexity.
• Cross-functional coverage. We recruit across engineering, finance, accounting, sales, marketing, customer support, operations, product, design—any business function that can be done remotely. One partner as you scale multiple departments.
• Transparent salary benchmarking. We show you what candidates are earning in the market. You decide what to offer. No hidden markups, no games. Just honest data so you can make informed decisions.

We have a 4.9 rating on G2 with 90+ reviews. Our clients return for multiple hires once they see the caliber of talent we find them: A-players who help level up the rest of the team.

For example,  AvantStay's VP of Sales started with one SDR through Near. The quality was so strong they expanded to 10, and are now doubling to 20—adding $20M in ARR along the way. 

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How Much Does It Cost to Hire Full-Time Talent in Latin America?

Full-time salaries in LatAm are typically 30-70% lower than US equivalents, with hiring partners offering better economics than hourly freelance rates. 

Here’s what the numbers look like in practice.

A social media manager in Latin America typically earns $18K to 36K annually. According to Upwork, the median hourly rates for the same role run $14-35/hour on the platform. If you needed 40 hours/week, that translates to $29K to $72K annually—about double the full-time rate.

In general, according to our State of LatAm Hiring Report, which analyzed 2000 placements, US companies save $35,000 to $55,000 per role by hiring in Latin America rather than domestically.

When you work with a hiring partner, pricing structures vary. Some charge one-off placement fees, others charge monthly fees that include payroll and compliance management. The candidate’s salary is typically transparent with the best partners—you see exactly what they’re earning, and the partner’s fee is separate.

For comprehensive salary data across roles, see our LatAm vs. US Salary Guide.

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Making the Right Choice for Hiring in Latin America

The question isn’t whether freelance platforms or LatAm staffing and recruiting companies are “better”—they’re built for different scenarios.

Freelance platforms excel at finding talent for project-based work or part-time support, and testing new roles with minimal commitment. If that’s what you need, they’re excellent tools that give you maximum flexibility.

LatAm staffing and recruiting companies make sense when what you really need is full-time support and you want people who’ll stay long-term—and you want to avoid spending days screening proposals. 

The companies that get this right early save themselves considerable time. While others spend weeks screening proposals and dealing with freelancer churn, they’re building teams of dedicated professionals who grow with the business—often for the same cost as working with freelancers.

If you think a hiring partner approach might fit your needs, we’re happy to walk you through exactly how it works. We’ll show you salary benchmarks for your specific roles and explain our process with no pressure—just information to help you decide if it’s the right fit.

Schedule a free, no-commitment consultation call.