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An escrow-protected freelance marketplace. Hiring is free — no subscription, no posting fees. Freelancers keep 100%: commission is 0%. Milestones are funded into escrow before work starts, released on approval. One proposal = one bid, flat.
Hey Product Hunt
Let me answer the obvious question first, because I'd ask it too: if freelancers keep 100% and clients pay nothing to hire, how does Open Lance make money?
Bids. When a freelancer sends a proposal, it costs one bid — flat, whether the job is $200 or $20,000. You buy bids in packs, or get a recurring allowance with Open Lance Ultra. That's the whole model. We never touch your escrow and we never take a percentage of your work.
I built this because the math on existing platforms stopped making sense to me. You lose a chunk of every invoice, you wait days for money that's already been approved, and on some platforms you spend more and more just to be seen — so the freelancer with the biggest budget outbids the one with the best reputation. That last part bothered me most. Flat bidding fixes it: everyone gets the same shot.
How it works: the client funds each milestone into escrow before work begins, so the freelancer can see the money is there. On approval, it releases — instantly, if both sides opt into instant release. Clients only ever pay for work they've approved, and if something goes wrong there's neutral mediation. Fixed-price, hourly with a work diary, fixed-scope Drop-Ins, and monthly Dedicated Hire all run on the same escrow rails. Payments are on Stripe Connect.
We're early, and I'd rather hear the hard questions than the nice ones. If you've freelanced or hired freelancers, tell me what's broken about how you do it now — that's genuinely what I'll be working on next.
Regards,
-Sami
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About Open Lance on Product Hunt
“Hire for free. Freelance at 0% commission”
Open Lance was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 0 upvotes and 1 comments, placing #153 on the daily leaderboard. An escrow-protected freelance marketplace. Hiring is free — no subscription, no posting fees. Freelancers keep 100%: commission is 0%. Milestones are funded into escrow before work starts, released on approval. One proposal = one bid, flat.
Open Lance was featured in Hiring (15.4k followers), Freelance (31.3k followers) and Payments (13.2k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 18.8k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Open Lance?
Open Lance was hunted by Sami Ullah. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
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Sami Ullah