— About

Built by freelancers who got tired of applying.

In 2024, our co-founder spent 90 minutes every morning refreshing Upwork and Indeed for half-decent contracts. He shipped one line of client code per day. So he built Freelanly. Now 10,000+ freelancers in 90+ countries run their outreach this way.

We started with one belief: the freelancer's biggest cost isn't taxes or tools — it's the time spent looking for the next gig. A typical full-time freelancer loses 8–12 hours a week to job-hunting. That's a full billable day. Every week.

The job-board industry doesn't want to fix this. Their business model depends on you refreshing the same feed 30 times a day. Their feeds depend on listings that have already been seen by 500 people.

We're building the opposite of a job board. A feed that catches openings before they hit the boards, writes the email for you, and sends it — so you can be back to the work that pays.

Freelanly is a tool, not a community. We don't sell ads to recruiters. We don't sell your data. Our only customer is you, the freelancer, and our only metric is whether you book more work with less time on the application treadmill.

If we ever stop doing that — leave. Take your data with you. We'll help you set up a competitor.

“I built Freelanly because I'd lost three good contracts to someone who replied two hours earlier than me. That's it. That's the whole insight.”

— Daniil V., Founder & CEO

— Timeline

Two years. Two co-founders. 10,000+ users.

Mar · 2024

One-day side project

Daniil scripts a LinkedIn scraper to find React contracts before they hit Upwork. Uses it personally for 3 weeks. Lands 2 retainers.

Oct · 2024

First 100 users

Posts on Indie Hackers. First 100 paying users sign up in a week. AI cover-letter feature ships, becomes the #1 reason people stay.

May · 2025

The auto-apply engine

Maya joins as CTO. Builds the rules engine, the throttling system, the unified inbox. The product becomes a tool, not a hack.

Today

10K+ freelancers · 90+ countries

500+ applications go out daily. 8% reply rate, on average. No outside funding. Profitable since month 9.

— What we believe

Three rules we won't break.

— 01

Your time is the product.

Every feature is judged by one question: does it give the freelancer an hour back? If not, we don't build it. Even if it would look great in a launch tweet.

— 02

No dark patterns. Ever.

One-click cancel. One-click data export. No hidden upsells, no "are you sure you want to leave" four-step downgrade flows. We compete on the product, not the friction.

— 03

Reply rate, not application count.

Spam tools optimize for volume. We optimize for replies. If we ever start bragging about "100,000 applications sent" instead of reply quality, fire us.

— The team

Four people. No middle managers.

Daniil Volkov

— Founder, CEO

Ex-freelance React dev. Built v1 in a week. Still answers support emails.

Maya Okafor

— CTO

Built the rules engine and the inbox. Previously at Plain & Linear.

Ravi Thakkar

— Head of AI

The cover-letter model lives in his head. ML/NLP, 6 years at Anthropic before joining.

Sofia Chen

— Design & growth

Designed this site. Runs the freelancer community calls. Replies in your inbox.

— FAQ

Everything else.

Does this actually work, or is it just AI spam?

It's outreach, not spam. Every application is personalized to the specific job and sent from your real inbox — not a bulk-mail server. The median Pro user sends ~280 applications/month and gets ~22 replies. That's an 8% reply rate, well above industry baseline for cold outreach.

Will hiring managers know it's AI?

No — and we test for this regularly. Cover letters reference specifics from the job post, your portfolio, and (when public) the hiring manager's background. They read like a thoughtful 3-minute write-up because, structurally, they are. We've A/B tested against human-written letters and reply rates are within 1.5%.

Can I edit applications before they're sent?

Always. Two modes: Review (drafts queue up and wait for your OK) and Auto (we send for you, with a 60-minute recall window in case you change your mind). Most Pro users start in Review for a week, then flip to Auto.

What happens to my data if I cancel?

You can export everything — applications, replies, contacts, templates — to CSV with one click. We hard-delete the rest of your data within 30 days of cancellation, unless you ask us to keep it. We never sell or share data with third parties.

Does Freelanly work for full-time roles, not just freelance?

Yes — about 30% of our users are looking for remote full-time roles. Same engine, same filters, just check "FT roles" in your preferences. The AI cover letter adjusts tone accordingly.

Will I get banned from LinkedIn / my email provider?

Applications go out from your inbox via OAuth, at human cadence — never more than 25/day, spread across business hours, with randomized timing. We've sent millions of emails this way; zero account suspensions on the email side. For LinkedIn, we only read public hiring posts (no auto-DM, no auto-connect), so there's no policy violation.

Is there a free trial?

Yes. The Free plan gives you 10 AI applications/month, forever. Pro has a 7-day full-access trial with no credit card required up front. If you don't book at least one interview during the trial, we'll extend it on request.

How is this different from Upwork or Indeed?

Upwork is a marketplace — you compete with 500 other freelancers per job, pay a 10% fee, and the rate gets squeezed downward. Freelanly is direct outreach to companies hiring outside marketplaces. No middleman fees, no race-to-the-bottom rates, and the contracts are usually 2–3× higher.

Do you have a freelancer Slack / community?

Yes — a Discord with ~3,000 active members, free to join with any plan. Members share contracts they've passed on, review each other's portfolios, and run a weekly "what's working in your inbox" call.

How do I contact support?

Email hello@freelanly.com — replies usually within 4 hours on weekdays. Pro & Agency plans get live chat in the app. There's no support phone line; we believe written support produces better answers.

— One last thing

Less reading. More replying.

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