About

I am a freelancer. That is the whole reason this exists.

If you work for yourself, you know the problem.

The work is good. The clients are happy. And still, nobody outside your circle has heard of you.

Meanwhile, most platforms decide who gets seen using algorithms you cannot see, reviews you cannot control, and profiles you filled in years ago.

So I wanted something simpler.

Your rank is what you pay.

That is the whole algorithm.

No reviews. No ratings. No curation. No mysterious search ranking. No gatekeeper deciding whose work deserves to be seen.

If you are willing to pay to be seen, you move up.

If someone wants your spot more than you do, they can take it.

And you can take it back.

It is deliberately blunt. Every leaderboard is influenced by money somehow — advertising, commissions, promoted listings, platform incentives. This one just makes the transaction explicit.

Why by category?

Because a single leaderboard would be pointless.

A photographer should not have to compete with a software agency for the same position. A motion designer should compete with motion designers. A copywriter with copywriters.

So every discipline gets its own board: design, video, code, copy, 3D, audio, and the rest.

That also keeps the top of smaller categories within reach. This is supposed to be something an independent freelancer can actually use, not another billboard reserved for companies with big marketing budgets.

Credit where it belongs

This idea is not mine.

outbidlancer.lol is built on the idea behind outbid.lol, created by Jonathan Wilke, an indie hacker from Germany and the creator of supastarter. His board ranks products: startups, apps, side projects, tools.

He launched it in August 2026, and the idea immediately took off. It worked because the idea is clean: one rule, no hidden mechanics, and the leaderboard itself is the product. I saw it, thought about it for about five minutes, and realised I wanted the same mechanism for the people I actually work alongside: freelancers. I am one, so it is the niche I can speak for.

So I built this version.

The mechanics are his. The audience is different.

Thank you, Jonathan. Go check out the original. It deserves the traffic.

The rules

Your rank is what you pay. Nothing else counts.

• The minimum bid is $5.
• Taking #1 costs $5 more than the current #1.
• Every other position costs $1 more than the person currently holding it.
• Your total spend accumulates. If someone passes you, you only need to bid enough to take the position — you do not start again from zero.
• Anyone can outbid you at any time.
• Positions are temporary by design.
• All payments are final. There are no refunds.

You are buying a position that someone else can take from you. That is the deal, and you see it before you pay.

Clicks

Every click passes through a counting route before reaching your site.

The same visitor counts once every 30 minutes, and known crawlers do not count.

We do not store IP addresses. We use a salted, rotating hash solely to prevent duplicate clicks.

The number you see is intended to represent real people who clicked through to you.

Moderation

Listings go live as soon as payment clears.

There is no approval queue and no human deciding whether your work is good enough.

The only things we remove are listings that are illegal, impersonate someone else, or use images without the right to do so. Those are removed without a refund.

That’s it.

Who runs this

I am Daniele Arcuri.

I’ve spent most of my working life freelancing. These days I also build apps, and this is one of them.

If you want to see what else I’m making, you’ll find it on my site. If you want to talk about this project, challenge the idea, report something, or just say hello, I’m at @danielebuilds or hello@outbidlancer.lol.

I built this because I wanted it to exist.

That’s probably the simplest explanation.