Getting clients · 22 August 2026
How to find clients without Upwork or Fiverr
Pick one trade and one city, list the businesses in it that visibly need what you sell, and contact them directly. That is the whole method. Everything else is detail.
It works because those businesses are not shopping. Nobody has posted a job, nobody is comparing forty proposals, and you set the price. It is harder than bidding, and it is worth several times more per client.
1. Narrow until it feels too narrow
"Small businesses" is not a target. "Dentists in Leeds" is.
A narrow list is what lets one message sound like it was written for the reader — and then be sent two hundred times. You can reference what their competitors are doing, what a patient searching for them actually sees, what the going rate is in their trade. None of that is possible when your list is everyone.
Narrow on three axes at once: trade, place, and the problem you can see.
2. Filter for a problem you can name
The best prospect is one whose gap you can describe in a sentence they will recognise. Ranked roughly by how easy the conversation is:
| Signal | Why it converts | How many worldwide |
|---|---|---|
| Only a Facebook page | Already believes being findable matters; just took the free option | 1,149,821 |
| No website at all | Largest group; you have to make the case for a site before making the case for you | 31,627,706 |
| Website that scores badly | Already pays for one. A measured score turns opinion into evidence | — |
Whichever you choose, you now have a first sentence that is true only of them. That is the entire difference between a reply and a deletion.
3. Lead with the specific thing
Compare these two openings:
Deleted
"Hi, I'm a web designer with 5 years of experience building beautiful, responsive websites for small businesses. I'd love to discuss how I can help grow your business online."
Answered
"I searched for a plumber in Wakefield this morning and you came up fourth — but there's no site to click, just a phone number. The three above you all have one. Want me to show you what yours would look like?"
The second one cannot be mail-merged from nothing. It required you to do step 2. That is why it works, and why most outreach does not.
4. Do it a hundred times before deciding
The maths is unforgiving at small numbers and generous at large ones. At a 5% reply rate and a 20% close on replies:
| Contacts | Replies (~5%) | Clients (~20% of replies) | How it feels |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 1 | 0 | "This doesn't work" |
| 50 | 2–3 | 0–1 | "Maybe it works" |
| 200 | 10 | 2 | "This is a business" |
| 500 | 25 | 5 | Pipeline |
5. Keep the platforms running while you build
This is not a reason to delete your Upwork account. It is a reason not to depend on it. Bid in the morning, send twenty direct approaches in the afternoon, and in three months the proportion of your income that a platform can switch off has fallen a long way.
What the platforms cost while you do that is set out in what Upwork and Fiverr actually cost you.
Where the list comes from
Ours: 74,223,561 business locations across 405 countries, filterable to the ones with no website and a phone number. But the method is the method — a well-built spreadsheet from any honest source beats a bought list of ten thousand strangers.
Questions
How do I find clients without Upwork or Fiverr?
Pick one trade and one city, build a list of businesses in it that visibly need what you sell, and contact them directly with something specific to them. The list is the part most people get wrong: "small businesses" is not a list, "dentists in Leeds with no website" is.
How many businesses should I contact?
A hundred before you judge whether it works. At a realistic 5% reply rate, twenty contacts produces one reply and feels like failure. Two hundred produces ten conversations and two or three clients, and feels like a business. Almost everyone who says outreach does not work stopped somewhere around thirty.
Is it better to call or email?
Email scales and calling converts. For local businesses with no website, the phone is often the only reliable channel — 81.8% of records carry a phone number against 42.6% with an email address. A common pattern is email first, then call the ones who opened and did not reply.
What if I have no portfolio?
Build the thing you are selling, for free, for one business, in exchange for permission to show it. One real local business you can point at beats ten template mockups, and the conversation with the second prospect is completely different once you can say "I did this for the barber on the high street".
The list this article is about
22,407,542 businesses with a phone number and no real website, filterable by country, city and trade. Ten free, no card.
Start free See the data