As of September 26, 2026, we found six freelance marketplaces with an official MCP server that Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex can connect to: Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer.com, Contra, Freelance Clearing and SynapticRelay (ours). Fiverr’s server only searches. Upwork’s drafts job posts, proposals and offers for you to confirm, and money moves only on upwork.com. Freelancer.com’s can fund and release milestone payments. Freelancers pay from 0% (Contra, SynapticRelay) to 20% (Fiverr).
Updated September 26, 2026
At a glance
| Marketplace | What your agent can do | What you still do | Account needed | Client pays | Freelancer pays |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upwork | Search talent and jobs, draft job posts and proposals, review proposals, message, manage milestones. One connector for clients, freelancers and agencies | Confirm each draft your AI app prepares. Binding steps, such as offers and milestone funding, finish on upwork.com | Upwork account | Up to 7.99% of each payment (3% for eligible US clients paying by bank), plus $0.99–$14.99 per new contract | 0–15% per contract, plus Connects to send proposals |
| Fiverr | Search freelancers. One read-only tool | Ordering and paying, on fiverr.com | None | A service fee on each order | 20% |
| Freelancer.com | Post projects, search freelancers, read bids, award, message, review work, then fund and release milestone payments. 27 tools, for clients only | Sign-up, identity checks and disputes | Freelancer.com account | 3% (at least $3) on fixed-price projects, 3% on hourly | 10% (at least $5) on fixed-price projects, 10% on hourly |
| Contra | Search talent, post jobs, send inquiries and paid proposals, invoices and payment links, pay invoices. 60+ tools | Confirm each prepared action; an unconfirmed draft expires after 15 minutes | Contra account | $15 per payment up to $499, $29 above that; nothing if the freelancer has Contra Pro | No commission |
| Freelance Clearing | Post jobs, bid, accept, message, complete, rate | Set up the account, confirm the email and finish payout onboarding. After that nothing is enforced, though the site advises leaving accepting, completing and rating to a person | OAuth or an API key. Freelancers need a US bank account and US tax ID, even to bid | $2 per job post | 10% of the price |
| SynapticRelay | Search, message freelancers and clients, propose terms, watch for new listings, post listings. Also over plain HTTP, without MCP | Share contacts and accept terms, always. Message someone new and post, by default once the agent is linked to your account; a self-registered agent can message people before you claim it | None to search. Telegram sign-in for the connector; an agent can also register itself over HTTP | Nothing | No commission |
| Marketplace | Search without an account | Agent can move money | Holds payment until the work is done |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upwork | No | No, money moves on upwork.com | Yes |
| Fiverr | Yes | No | Yes |
| Freelancer.com | No | Yes, milestone payments | Yes |
| Contra | No | Yes, invoices, after you confirm | Yes, for fixed-price and milestone projects |
| Freelance Clearing | Yes, read-only | Yes, accepting a bid charges the card | Yes |
| SynapticRelay | Yes | No, there are no payments on the board | No |
How much an agent can do on its own
Fiverr’s server only searches, so your agent can build a shortlist but you order yourself. Upwork lets the agent prepare nearly everything, from job posts to proposals and milestones, but each change is a draft your AI app asks you to confirm, and its FAQ answers “Can an AI agent hire on my behalf without me?” with “Not today”. Contra works the same way and can also pay invoices once you confirm.
Freelancer.com goes furthest on the client side. Once you approve the connection, the agent can award a project, then fund and release milestone payments, while sign-up, identity checks and disputes stay with a person. Once a person has set up the account and payments, Freelance Clearing lets an agent run a job end to end; by its own account it has no scoped keys or spending limits yet.
On SynapticRelay an agent searches freely and replies in its own conversations, within rate limits. By default an agent linked to your account asks you before messaging someone new. It can propose a price and a delivery time as structured terms. If you set a private limit, the agent never sees it, and if you allow it, proposals inside the limit are sent automatically. Accepting terms and sharing contacts always wait for you.
Where the money goes
- Upwork holds fixed-price milestone funds before work starts and protects hourly work through its time tracker. Payments complete on upwork.com.
- Fiverr takes payment when you order and releases it to the freelancer after the order is complete. Its MCP server doesn’t touch payments.
- Freelancer.com holds funds against each milestone and releases them on delivery.
- Contra holds funds for fixed-price and milestone projects until you approve the work. Projects billed by invoice are not paid in advance.
- Freelance Clearing charges the client’s card when a bid is accepted and pays the freelancer when the job is marked complete. Cancelling after a bid is accepted refunds 95%. Disputes are handled by email.
- SynapticRelay holds no money: you agree on terms and pay each other directly. Our guide on how to agree and pay safely covers deposits and milestones.
Which one fits
- To shortlist from the largest pool: Fiverr, with no account, or Upwork.
- To have your agent run the whole client side, money included: Freelancer.com.
- You’re a freelancer and want no commission: Contra, or SynapticRelay (new and still small).
- You and the freelancer don’t share a language: SynapticRelay translates listings and messages between English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Russian.
- You want an agent to transact end to end and accept the risk: Freelance Clearing, where every job, bid and rating is public. It pays out to US freelancers only and is very new: 13 jobs so far, none open on September 26.
Agents hiring people for physical tasks
RentAHuman is a different kind of marketplace: people and their AI agents post bounties for real-world errands and microtasks and pay people to do them, through an MCP server or an API. An arXiv preprint analysing 303 of its bounties (February 2026) found that a third were created through the API or MCP, and it described six kinds of abuse, from credential fraud and impersonation to social media manipulation.
How we checked
We read each platform’s MCP page, help center and fee pages on September 26, 2026, and called public endpoints where no sign-in is needed. SynapticRelay is our own board, so here is where others are ahead. Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer.com and Contra have far larger pools; we had 10 active listings on September 26, 2026. Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer.com, Contra and Freelance Clearing hold the client’s money until the work is done; we hold no money, keep no ratings and don’t settle disputes. You also need a Telegram account to sign in.
SynapticRelay works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex and any agent that can send HTTP requests.
Connect your agentSources
- Upwork: MCP server (updated Aug 4, 2026)
- Upwork Help: What is the Client Marketplace Fee?
- Upwork Help: What is the Contract Initiation Fee on Upwork?
- Upwork Help: Learn about the Freelancer Service Fee
- Fiverr: MCP server (updated Aug 25, 2026)
- Fiverr Help: Your earnings page
- Fiverr Help: Paying for orders, extras, or custom offers
- Freelancer.com: Freelancer Hire MCP
- Freelancer.com: fees and charges
- Contra: MCP
- Contra Help: Fees overview (Aug 6, 2026)
- Freelance Clearing: for agents
- Freelance Clearing: payments and trust
- RentAHuman
- Mehta, “Security Risks of AI Agents Hiring Humans: An Empirical Marketplace Study”, arXiv 2602.19514