How to Vet a Freelancer: A Scorecard That Works

Hiring the wrong freelancer rarely fails on day one. It fails in week three, when a deadline slips without warning, or the first real deliverable looks nothing like the portfolio. Looking back, the signs were usually there. Nobody wrote them down.

Vetting is mostly about writing things down. Same questions for every candidate, same scorecard, decision at the end rather than after the first friendly call.

Why star ratings tell you so little

Profiles with 4.9 stars from 80 clients look safe. On most marketplaces, though, clients and freelancers rate each other, and leaving a harsh review can invite one back. Projects that end in a dispute are sometimes closed without feedback at all. The result is a rating scale where almost everyone sits near the top.

The written reviews are more useful than the stars. “Great communication” tells you nothing. “Built our Stripe subscription flow in two weeks and documented the edge cases” tells you a lot. Look for projects that resemble yours in size and type. Our breakdown of freelance platform fees also covers how the big marketplaces handle reviews and disputes.

Build a weighted scorecard before the first call

Set the weights before you meet anyone. Otherwise you will quietly adjust them to favour the person you liked most.

• Paid test task35 %
• Relevant work samples25 %
• References15 %
• Communication in first call15 %
• Price and availability10 %

Our recommendation for software, design and marketing work. For pure advisory roles, give communication more weight.

Price sits at the bottom on purpose. It is easy to compare, so it gets too much attention anyway. If two candidates are level on skill, price decides. Before that, it should not. Our overview of freelancer hourly rates shows what is normal by field.

Score each criterion from 1 to 5, multiply by its weight and add up. Someone scoring 4.2 clearly beats someone at 3.6. Between 3.9 and 4.0 there is no real difference, and the conversation decides.

Portfolio: what did they actually do?

A portfolio shows what someone was involved in. It does not show what they did. The question to ask about every sample is: “Which part of this was yours?” A designer who worked inside an agency on a well-known retailer’s redesign may have drawn the icon set. That is real work, just not the whole design.

How you check depends on the field:

With developers, ten minutes of walking through their own code beats any self-description. Ask why something was built the way it was. People who cannot explain their code usually did not write it alone. If you lack the technical background to judge, get a second opinion. OnlineBuilders, for example, offers a free initial technical consultation.

References: phone them, do not just read them

Written testimonials are always glowing. Ten minutes on the phone reveal far more, provided you avoid questions like “Were you happy?” These work better:

• Did they hit the agreed deadline? If not, when did they tell you?
• What went wrong at some point, and how did they handle it?
• Would you hire them again for something bigger?
• Did the final invoice match the quote?

Listen for hesitation. A slow “yes, I suppose so” to the rehire question says more than the rest of the call.

Verify the business in ten minutes

These checks cost almost nothing and prevent awkward invoicing and tax problems later.

• Full legal name and address for invoices
• UK limited company: listed on Companies House, status active
• UK VAT number: confirmed with HMRC's checker
• EU VAT number: confirmed in VIES
• US contractor: signed Form W-9 on file before the first payment
• A website or profile that has existed for more than a few months

UK contractors often trade through a limited company, which you can look up for free on Companies House. EU VAT numbers can be checked in the European Commission’s VIES service. Sole traders and freelancers working under their own name will not appear in company registers, and that is normal.

If you hire someone based in Germany, one more point matters. Someone who works only for you, on fixed hours and inside your team, can be reclassified as an employee. Our guide to false self-employment in Germany explains the test.

What the first call tells you

The first conversation is not a job interview in the classic sense. You are watching how someone works, not how well they present. Good freelancers usually spend more time asking than selling. They want to know who decides, what already exists, what happens if the deadline moves.

Pay attention to how they talk about past problems. Blaming every difficulty on former clients is a pattern, and you may be the next one in the story. Specific answers beat polished ones: “We cut the import feature to hit the launch date” is more convincing than “I always deliver on time”.

Note the response time to your emails before and after the call, too. Nobody needs to reply within minutes. But if it takes four days to confirm a meeting while they are trying to win your business, it will not get faster once they have it.

Red flags worth walking away from

Some problems do not get better after the contract is signed.

• Not a single question about your brief, but an instant fixed price.
• Work samples you cannot trace, or that look like purchased templates.
• Pressure to decide fast because they are “only free this week”.
• A demand for 100 percent payment up front.
• Vague answers about who will actually do the work.

The second and the last often appear together. Some profiles belong to middlemen who pass jobs on to others. That can work, but you should know before you sign.

The paid test settles it

Everything above is circumstantial. The real evidence comes from a small, paid, real task with a clear result. It carries more than a third of the scorecard because it is the only criterion that shows how someone handles your actual project. Our guide to the paid test project covers scope and budget, and the list of questions to ask a freelancer before hiring helps with the call before it.

Your next step: copy the five criteria and their weights into a spreadsheet before you open the first profile. Fill in the scores straight after each call, while the details are still fresh.

Step by step

1. Write the scorecard first Decide criteria and weights before you speak to any candidate.
2. Check the work samples Ask what the freelancer personally did on each project and look at live results or code.
3. Phone two references Ask past clients about deadlines, problems and whether they would hire again.
4. Verify the business Confirm legal name, company registration where relevant and VAT or tax details.
5. Run a paid test Give your top two candidates a small real task with a clear definition of done.

Questions people ask

How long should vetting a freelancer take?

For a project worth a few thousand dollars or pounds, plan on one to two weeks including a short paid test. Most of that is waiting for replies. Your own time is closer to three or four hours per serious candidate.

Can I run a background check on a freelancer?

Formal criminal or credit checks need the person's consent and a legitimate reason, and the rules differ by country. For most creative and software work, verifying identity, business registration and references is enough.

What if the freelancer has no reviews yet?

New freelancers can be excellent and cheaper. Lean harder on the test task and on work samples you can verify, and start with a smaller first milestone.

Should I hire the freelancer with the most experience?

Not automatically. Relevant experience beats total years. Someone with three years building exactly your kind of product is often a better fit than a generalist with fifteen.