Building a simpler way for freelancers to run their business without upfront costs
Hey freelancers 👋
We're building HustleHub because we've seen so many freelancers struggle with juggling too many tools — landing pages, bookings, payments, client portfolios — and paying monthly fees before you’re even earning.
With HustleHub, you can:
✅ Start for free
🔒 4% platform fee locked for life for the Founding Members — you only pay once you make money
💬 Give feedback and influence what we build next
This way, you can run your freelance business without the stress of upfront costs or tool overload — a huge difference from other platforms.
We’re in early beta, actively onboarding our 100 Founding Members, and iterating fast. I’d love to hear from you:
- What tools are you currently using?
- Where do you feel paying upfront is holding you back?
- What feature would make you want to switch?
Open to feedback, questions, or just chatting about freelancing workflows 🙌
The 'paying monthly fees before you're even earning' problem is real and underappreciated. Most freelancer tools are priced as if you already have a sustainable business, which means the people who need them most - early-stage, still building client pipeline - are the ones least able to afford them.
The tool overload piece is the part I see more often. Freelancers end up with Notion for projects, a spreadsheet for invoices, email threads for client history, and a separate calendar for tasks. Nothing talks to each other. The weekly review is mentally exhausting because you're reconstructing your own business state from scratch every Monday.
I'm building a Notion OS for solopreneurs and freelancers at $0-5K MRR - six linked databases: clients, projects, tasks, revenue, decision log, weekly review. One $10/mo Notion workspace that replaces 4 separate tools. The ops layer HustleHub doesn't cover.
What's the most common first tool freelancers are using when they find you - are they on spreadsheets, or already paying for something like Dubsado or HoneyBook?
Most come from spreadsheets and email threads honestly, that's the majority. A smaller but vocal group comes from Dubsado or HoneyBook specifically frustrated that they're paying $40-50/month for complexity they don't use. The spreadsheet folks usually hit a wall around client 8-10 when manual follow-up starts costing them actual money. Curious what made you ask, are you building something in that ops layer or mapping the space?
The 'you only pay when you make money' model is smart positioning for early-stage freelancers — it removes the biggest adoption objection (monthly fee before you have revenue). It's similar to how Stripe's pricing works, which is why Stripe became the default for startups.
To your questions: the most common tool stack I see freelancers mention is: Notion (project tracking), Wave or FreshBooks (invoicing), Calendly (booking), and then separate payment processing. The pain point isn't usually the tool cost per se — it's that these tools don't talk to each other, so the moment a client misses a payment, you're manually tracking what's owed and following up via email.
The feature that would make me switch from existing tools: automated invoice follow-up. When you send an invoice and the client doesn't pay on time, the awkward manual follow-up email is the most disliked part of freelancing. A system that sends reminder sequences automatically (Day 3, Day 7, Day 14 after due date) on your behalf would be a genuine unlock for freelancers who avoid invoicing conflict.
That gap is particularly interesting given your client-focused model — you'd have the data on when invoices are unpaid, and the email infrastructure to send reminders.
That's exactly what Back Office does, heze - after a session or invoice goes out, it triggers a follow-up sequence automatically at the intervals you set, no manual chasing required. It's honestly the feature our users mention most when they talk about what changed their day-to-day. A lot of them were copying and pasting "just following up" emails for years before this. Are you currently doing those reminders manually, or do you have some other workaround cobbled together?