Alternatives · Open freelance marketplaces
An Upwork alternative for large projects: one scope, one price, one accountable party.
Upwork is a marketplace: you post a job, compare proposals, contract freelancers or agencies hourly or at a fixed price, and pay a marketplace fee on top. For a large project the selection, coordination and quality control stay with you. Ship in Hours replaces that with one written scope, one fixed price and tested code delivered to you.
Two ways to buy
A marketplace gives you choice. A fixed-price build gives you a result.
A marketplace is efficient at finding people. It does not decide what to build, in what order, or whether the pieces fit together. That work is the project.
Freelancers and agencies, selected and managed by you
According to Upwork's own fee page (checked 9 November 2026), clients pay a 5% marketplace fee on payments to freelancers (3% for eligible US clients paying by ACH) plus a one-time contract initiation fee of 0.99 to 14.99 US dollars per new contract; a Business Plus plan carries a 10% fee with additional services. Contracts can be hourly or fixed-price; the client posts the job, evaluates proposals and manages the work.
- Post a job, receive proposals, interview, contract
- Hourly or fixed-price contracts with individual freelancers or agencies
- Marketplace fee and contract initiation fee on the client side
- The client coordinates several freelancers and owns integration and quality
Sources, checked 9 November 2026:
A defined scope at a fixed price, delivered as tested code packages
AIPOS OÜ sells a result, not people or hours. The architecture and specification are designed in-house by AIPOS OÜ and agreed with you in writing; a multi-agent system then builds, tests and documents production code around the clock. Twenty-four hours of its work equals four to eight weeks of a small software company, measured on AIPOS OÜ's own production systems.
- A written scope description before any money changes hands
- A trial build: a real piece of your plan, delivered within 72 hours of written confirmation, for a fixed 9,900 euros
- The full scope at one fixed price, quoted in writing after the trial; the trial price deducted in full
- Architecture and specification by AIPOS OÜ, agreed with you before any code is written; the multi-agent system builds, tests and documents 24/7
- Every change tested and reviewed by an independent review agent before you see it; delivered as a tested package at every milestone
- Full intellectual property to you; remote only; all communication in writing
24/7 from sign-off
Your project starts. It never stops.
Whichever route you compare it with, the delivery model is the same: from the moment your scope is signed off, an autonomous development system works on it 24/7 — no nights off, no weekends, no handovers. Months of team output, delivered in days.
Starts within hours
Work begins within hours of your written scope sign-off. No recruiting, no onboarding, no waiting for a sprint to open.
Runs around the clock
Autonomous and continuous until delivery: no nights off, no weekends, no handovers, no pauses.
Progress you can see daily
Every change is tested and committed in AIPOS OÜ's own secure development environment. You receive a written progress report every day, and tested code of your product is delivered at agreed milestones — in full after final payment.
Architecture agreed first
The architecture and specification are designed in-house by AIPOS OÜ and agreed with you in writing before any code is written.
Choose this if you need serious development capacity fast, without hiring a team.
Side by side
A freelance marketplace versus a fixed-price build.
The comparison is structural on purpose: it describes how each model works, not how good any individual provider is. Prices and durations on the other side vary by provider and market, so they are stated only where published.
| Dimension | Upwork | Ordering from Ship in Hours |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | Access to freelancers and agencies; you select and contract each one. | A defined scope delivered as tested, documented code at one fixed price. |
| Fees | Marketplace fee on payments plus a contract initiation fee, per Upwork's fee page. | None beyond the fixed price. The trial build price is deducted in full from the main project. |
| Selection effort | Writing the job post, reading proposals, interviewing, checking work history. | None. You describe the project once and receive a written scope description. |
| Coordination | You integrate the work of several contractors and resolve conflicts between them. | One party delivers the whole confirmed scope as tested packages. |
| Architecture | Yours, or the strongest freelancer's. | Designed in-house by AIPOS OÜ and agreed with you in writing before any code is built. |
| Quality control | Per contractor; escrow and dispute processes exist on the platform. | Test suite plus an independent review agent before every merge; every outgoing change scanned. |
| Speed | Depends on proposals received and each contractor's availability. | Trial build within 72 hours of written confirmation; 24/7 build cycles afterwards. |
| Security of your codebase | Each contractor's own machine and practices. | Separate disposable environment per project in AIPOS OÜ's infrastructure; no connection to your systems; every delivery scanned and reviewed. |
| Intellectual property | Governed by the platform's contract terms and each contract (read them at the source). | Full IP in the deliverables transferred to you. |
Where each route fits
When each option is the better choice.
Most large organisations end up using both. The question is which parts of the plan go where.
You need many small, independent tasks
- Short, separable tasks with no integration between them
- A single specialist for a narrow job, directed by your own lead
- A very small budget where selecting people yourself is acceptable
- You want to choose and manage each individual
You need one coherent system delivered
- A platform, subsystem or MVP where the pieces must fit together
- A fixed budget and a date agreed before work starts
- No time to select, brief and coordinate several contractors
- A team that wants tested code to review, not people to manage
The process
What switching to a fixed-price build looks like.
There is nothing to onboard and nobody to interview. The sequence is identical for every project and every country.
Describe the project
Send the project description, technology, approximate scope and deadline through the form. You receive a written scope description for a trial build.
Trial build, 72 hours
After your written confirmation, a real piece of your plan is delivered within 72 hours as tested, documented code with full IP. Fixed price 9,900 euros.
Fixed quote for the full scope
You judge the result on the preview link and in the delivered package. If you continue, you receive one fixed price for the whole scope; the trial price is deducted in full.
Continuous delivery
The system builds, tests, reviews and documents in 24/7 cycles until the scope is complete. Scope changes are agreed in writing before they are built.
Trust & delivery standards
Your systems stay untouched. Your product arrives tested.
All development happens in AIPOS OÜ's own secure environment. We never connect to your code hosting, servers, cloud accounts or development environment, so no outside party enters your systems and your supplier and security risk stays small. You receive tested code as a clean package, not half-finished changes in your main branch, and you follow progress every day without watching any technical tools.
How the code is built and handed over
- Tests and independent review. Every change passes the automated test suite and an independent review agent before it is merged.
- Documentation, tests, history. You receive the documentation, the tests and the complete git history of your product's code.
- No dependency on our tools. Code and intellectual property transfer to you without any dependency on AIPOS OÜ's tooling: the product builds, tests and runs from the delivered package with publicly available tools.
- 30 days of free fixes. Defects found within 30 days of hand-over are fixed free of charge, within the written scope description.
How you verify the work without seeing our environment
- Specification first. A written specification with measurable acceptance criteria, prepared by AIPOS OÜ and confirmed by you before development starts.
- A written report every day. By e-mail: what was done, which tests passed, where the work stands against the criteria, the next step, and whether anything needs your answer.
- Preview at every milestone. A password-protected preview link where you try your product working, at every milestone.
- Code you can audit. At every milestone, a test report and the product's code at that point as a file package: run it yourself or have an independent developer audit it. The complete code follows final payment.
- Written acceptance. You accept in writing against the agreed criteria. 50% is paid on scope confirmation and 50% only after acceptance; then 30 days of free defect fixing within the written scope. All communication is by e-mail.
Company details, security, warranty, payment and VAT terms in one place: Trust & delivery standards. The binding wording is in the terms of service.
Prices
Two steps, both at a fixed price.
You see the price before any work starts. There is no hourly billing and no staff rental. The trial build is a real piece of your plan, and its price comes off the main project in full.
A real part of your development plan, delivered within 72 hours of your written scope confirmation as a preview link, a test report and a code package. Full intellectual property to you. 50% on sign-off, 50% after written acceptance; 30 days of free defect fixing. Deducted in full from the main project.
The first three clients receive the trial build for 4,900 euros in exchange for a public reference once the work is delivered.
The whole scope at one fixed price, delivered in days and weeks. Every change is tested and committed. Every project is built on a software architecture and technical specification designed in-house by AIPOS OÜ — reviewed and agreed with you in writing before development begins.
Questions
Questions from buyers who have used marketplaces for larger work.
Why not just hire an agency on Upwork at a fixed price?
You can, and for some scopes it works. The difference is what sits behind the price: with Ship in Hours the architecture and specification are designed in-house by AIPOS OÜ and agreed with you in writing, the system builds and tests around the clock, every change passes an independent review agent, and the trial build lets you verify all of that on your own code within 72 hours before committing to the main project.
Do you charge platform or marketplace fees?
No. There is one fixed price per confirmed scope, stated in writing before work starts. The trial build costs 9,900 euros and is deducted in full from the main project.
How do I know the quality without reading proposals and reviews?
By the trial build. Instead of judging proposals, you judge delivered, tested, documented code on the preview link and in the delivered package after 72 hours. That is the evidence the main-project decision rests on.
Can the system work alongside freelancers we found on a marketplace?
Yes. Scopes and interfaces are separated in writing so streams do not collide. The code is built in AIPOS OÜ's own environment and delivered to you as tested packages that your team reviews and integrates through its normal process.
What if our project is too small for you?
The minimum engagement is the trial build: a real, bounded scope for 9,900 euros. Small, isolated one-off tasks are a better fit for a marketplace, and we say so on every page.
Are the fee figures about Upwork accurate?
They are taken from Upwork's own fee pages as published on 9 November 2026 and linked above. Fees change; verify them at the source. We state nothing about Upwork that it does not publish itself.
Read before you decide
Guides for this decision
Alternatives to hiring developers for a large project
Six ways to add capacity compared on speed to start, cost structure, management load, quality, ownership and what is left when the project ends.
Read the guideHow to write a software scope that can be fixed-priced
The format of a scope document that leads to a fixed price instead of an estimate, with before-and-after examples of vague wording.
Read the guideSecurity when AI agents build your software
The threat model for autonomous coding agents building a client's software and the controls that address it, from isolation and zero access to client systems to scanned deliveries and provider terms.
Read the guidePost the project here instead, and get a scope back, not proposals.
Describe the project in the form. You receive a written scope description for a trial build at a fixed price. No proposals to read, no fees to add.