18 Top Gig Economy Platforms From India In 2021
Do you love Jazz?
You may say yes, while a tad confused on how Jazz and gig economy are intertwined. Let me tell you!
Let’s rewind time.
It’s the early 1900s.
Often, jazz musicians referred to their solo performances as gigs. Slowly with time, the catchphrase branched outside the music industry, and people started looking for temporary jobs or ‘gigs,’ both short-term & long-term; be it for outdoor chores, product deliveries, photography, creative writing, and what not!
This rise in the number of temporary jobs gave birth to what we fondly call now as Gig Economy.
What is Gig Economy?
India is en route to being one of the sought-after hotspots for the gig economy; IBEF projects the country to have over 350 million gig jobs by 2025. India currently has over 15 million freelance works employed across various sectors.
In simple words, we can define gig economy as,
A market opportunity where any temporary jobs or tasks are taken up by an individual for an organization, usually for short durations. Gig workers typically are freelancers, contractors, or independent consultants who extend their expertise, on a part-time or full-time basis, for any organization in need.
Even then, there exists a gap between gig hirers and workers; how can the two meet, greet, and collaborate?
Today, let’s look at some of the best gig economy platforms that bridge this gap and facilitate the two parties to come under a roof.
Note: Like all our blogs, we aren’t ranking these gig enabling platforms, simply curating them for you. Oh, and we do understand that this isn’t an exhaustive list; which is why you must stay tuned for more updates on this listicle! 🙂
Going in loud with the Made in India mantra, here are the different categories and the key gig-enabling players in it.
Top Cab-Service Gig Economy Platforms
Ola : I say Hola, you say Ola!
My apologies for that terrible try at rhymes & puns. On a more serious note, the gig economy platforms’ list would definitely be incomplete without Ola Cabs. A decade-old, this gig economy platform employs over 1.5 million cab drivers and is the most sought-after taxi app alongside Uber.
Rapido : Similarly, disrupting intra-city travel with bike taxis is Rapido. Their ‘Captains’ help more than 10 million commuters dodge traffic jams and reach destinations on time. Rapido has completed more than 100 million rides, and operates across 100+ cities. This gig-economy-driven platform is India’s first and fastest-growing Bike taxi app and has touched more than 25 Million+ app downloads.
Carzonrent: This platform helps users to reach their destination, as they prefer, be it a high-end Merc or an elegant hatchback!
- Timely airport pickup? Check!
- A plethora of cars to choose from? Check!
- With/Without chauffeur cabs? Check!
Carzonrent has, in all sense, evolved & adapted with growing technology from the 2000s.
Quick Ride: “ We are on a mission to remove 1 million cars from the roads, every day! “ This is the mission of the carpooling platform, Quick Ride, which brings together verified working professionals from all walks of life to travel together, at the desired time and to a preferred location. The benefits are multi-fold:
- Lesser carbon pollution,
- Affordable travel rates for ride seekers,
- Extra income for ride givers.
Built for both individuals and corporates, the app currently has over 4 million users.
Best Delivery & Hyperlocal Gig Economy Platforms
Woohoo! This is one category we all definitely love. Cheers to the delivery superheroes who bring us food, staples, and groceries even in the middle of the night.
Swiggy : Remember the diabetic uncle who sneaks gulab jamuns without his wife’s knowledge?
His partner in crime is none other than the food-tech platform Swiggy, one of the fastest Indian companies to enter the unicorn club. As of Feb 2021, this gig economy platform that started with just 6 delivery persons now have more than 1,30,000 (2,20,000 before the pandemic) and has crossed the milestone of more than a million daily deliveries.
Zomato : Have you heard of Foodiebay? Maybe not. What about Zomato? Duh!
The idea to start a food portal where people could order their meals at leisure struck the founders when they saw colleagues stuck in long queues to order lunch. From 2008, this gig platform has come a long way, gone IPO recently as you know, and entered the unicorn club a decade later in 2018.
Dunzo: If Nike says just do it, here we say just Dunzo it.
This hyperlocal delivery platform has helped users get essentials goods and services for the past 5+ years. This gig platform has grown 40X in the last two years. Dunzo has recently collaborated with NITI Aayog, World Economic Forum, and Apollo Hospitals and launched drone services, as part of the ‘ Medicines from the sky ‘ project in Telangana.
Porter: An on-demand courier delivery service platform with roots in 12 cities, Porter aims to simplify hyperlocal intra-city delivery with 2,3, and 4-wheeler deliveries, based on requirements. Not just this, this gig platform also provides house shifting services and has tailored solutions for both individuals and businesses. The platform has over 1,50,000+ registered driver-partners and more than 4 million customers.
Popular On-demand Home Services Gig Apps
Urban Company: Salon at home? House repair jobs? Painting services?
Urban Company would nod a yes to all of the above. This on-demand home service platform currently has 35,000+ trained professionals, and delivers 7,50,000+ services monthly, with an international presence across 4 countries as well.
Housejoy: Just like the name, this gig economy platform aims to deliver home services by trained professionals, are insured, and also have the option for re-work. TLDR; makes house chores a joy! Housejoy has served over 1Million+ customers and has over 65,000 professionals. The various services you’ll find on the gig-driven platform are home cleaning, repair, virus fumigation, appliance service & repair, home salons, and more!
Helpr: This gig-enabling platform steps in as the next-door helper provides a variety of necessary services such as cleaning services, pest control services, courier services, and relocation and at present runs fully-fledged in the city of Bengaluru.
Mr Right: Carpenter, plumber, electrician… the list goes on when it comes to the services provided by Mr Right to help you find the right home service. In addition, the app facilitates appliances repair, deep cleaning services, and more! With a few details, this gig platform onboards professionals with a proven track record in the services; and has more than 60,000 gig workers.
Creator-centric Gig Economy Platforms
Now that we’ve covered some of the exponentially scaling categories, let’s take a look at the landscape in the creator economy.
Workflexi is a gig economy platform that connects businesses or individuals with gig workers that are specialized in facets, both technical, non-technical, & creative, like IT skills, Accounting, Taxation, Digital marketing, Interior designing, Baking, Creative skills such as photography, dancing, singing, sketching, cinematography, etc.
The platform delivers on-time payments by avoiding settlement delays that are common for platforms dealing with payment gateways and traditional payment transfers. Furthermore, the platform has also the traditional hassles related to payment gateways, such as chunky transaction fees, and has saved more than 90% overheads.
When we had a chat with Sandesh Kangod, Founder & CEO at Workflexi, here’s what he had to say.
“We wanted a payment process that is instant for our gig workers and couldn’t find a payment gateway that could do that for us. We also wanted companies to transfer money from their current account to the wallet, and with Decentro that’s possible.”
Sandesh Kangod, Founder & CEO at Workflexi
Flexiple
What if your business that has a gig requirement had access to the top 1% of talented freelancers? Flexiple is a gig economy platform that pre-screens freelancer developers and designers.
The platform has a multi-level assessment system with pass rates that vary from 45.4% to less than 1%. This ensures only the crème de la crème of the talent greets businesses that sign up to hire for gigs. Some of them include technical prowess, communication skills, background checks, and performance consistency.
The platform also offers a 1-week trial period to enable companies to assess the synergies with the gig workers before plunging in, for free! Moreover, a business can get the ball rolling for their projects in a week with Flexiple. It comes with 3 plans:
- Individual Contributor $30–50/hour
- Multi-faceted Contributor $50–80/hour
- Leader & Diverse Contributor $80+/hour
When we had a chat with Karthik Sridharan, Co-founder & CEO at Flexiple, here’s what he says about bridging the gap between business and gig seekers!
“At Flexiple, we believe the future will involve high-quality talent and top companies partnering on specific projects they find mutually interesting & relevant. A trusted network where such intellectual exchange can happen is what we are building.”
Karthik Sridharan, Co-founder & CEO at Flexiple
One Impression
One Impression is an influencer marketing platform that aims to make the lives of marketers easier.
The platform is home to over 14 Million+ influencers right from celebrities, micro-influencers, IG legends, and TikTok stars. One Impression comes with OneDoctor, an AI tool, that combines an intensive algorithm to determine the best influencers for a project. OneDoctor uses the data to ensure the highest reach for a brand.
When we had a chat with Apaksh Gupta, Founder & CEO, One Impression, he said,
“More often than not, influencers find themselves relying heavily on agencies to help them kick start their career, especially for financial services. Together with Decentro, we aim to transform the lives of many such influencers. With worries about financial services gone, our clients can focus more on new age content and grow swiftly.”
Apaksh Gupta, Founder & CEO, One Impression
Refrens
Refrens is a business network built as a bridge for freelancers, agencies, and businesses to connect with each other. This gig economy platform currently has over 50,000+ freelancers & agencies that cater to a wide range of services like development, IT services, marketing, design, and writing.
In addition, this gig marketplace also offers free invoicing, payments, and expense management systems for businesses & freelancers.
By August 2020, Refrens says it had over 25,000 freelancers from 50 countries and has served businesses in 128 countries.
When we had a chat with Naman Sarwagi, Co-founder at Refrens, here’s what he has to say about Refrens being a part of the gig economy revolution.
“Refrens was started with the idea of helping freelancers find more work and then manage their client relations. We believe a freelance designer should be designing and not be worried about collecting payments, managing taxes, or be worried about where his next client will come from. There are 200Mn Freelancers and small agencies in the world, we are building for them.”
Naman Sarawagi, Co-founder at Refrens
Gigzoe
GigZoe is a marketplace for small businesses to find and hire the perfect freelancer for their immediate gigs. The platform provides a wide array of services such as taxes, accounting, business registration, video animation, website development, ecommerce services, content services, among others.
Getting started with Gigzoe is simple. In addition, the platform also enables small businesses to pay their gig workers in installments, thereby reducing their burden. There’s also a community where users can interact with each other, ask questions, and get their queries resolved.
95% businesses struggle to outsource services. 70% of the offline contractual projects end in delivery conflicts. Gigzoe has built an end to end contractual hiring marketplace for both short term & long term projects and aims to be the biggest and most trusted B2B services marketplace & freelance talent company for Indian talent. Our vision & mission is to create economic opportunities for the independent talent and to empower businesses to start & grow their business by hiring from top pool of independent indian talent.
Ranu Gupta, Founder & CEO at Gigzoe
Truelancer
Truelancer is a global marketplace for freelancers & businesses. The gig-powering platform enables a company to post their requirements, recruit freelancers & consultants, and get the job sorted. Truelancer is home to over 600,000+ freelance professionals.
This platform comes with a Safe Deposit where it collects funds from businesses and transfers it to users only after the final project has been approved & completed. Be it SEO experts, content writing, web development, design, or sales & marketing, Truelancer has it all.
When we had a chat with Dipesh Garg, CEO & Founder at Truelancer, here’s what he says.
“Our mission is to help freelancers & SMEs find work wherever they are, connect with clients anywhere in the world, and get paid faster and more reliably. Our USP in India is that we are providing Remote Opportunities to freelancers to work with Large Enterprises.”
Dipesh Garg, CEO & Founder at Truelancer
Empowering Gig Economy Players
At Decentro, we’re happy to do our bit to catalyze this exponential growth of gig economy platforms in India. With our API infrastructure in tandem with some of the best banking partners and licensed institutions in the country in the backend, we empower gig players in the following ways.
Verify & Onboard Freelancers & Gig Workers with KYC
Verifying the identity of users before onboarding them to your platform is crucial to avoid fraud and losing a customer’s trust on your platform. To take care of this issue, your gig platform can leverage Decentro’s KYC APIs. A single-API endpoint for multiple documents such as PAN, Driving License, Aadhaar Card, and more to help you onboard gig workers and hirers, 95% faster!
In case you need to run verifications on the companies that onboard as gig hirers, our CKYC APIs are always on standby!
Simplify Payment Collections & Payouts by 5X
One of the most crucial pain points faced by the majority of the companies out there is regarding payments. Are you making your customers wait for payment settlements? Or, levying payment gateway charges on them even for the simplest invoices? With Decentro, you can reduce the collection costs by 5X, and automate it for any recurring payments.
Streamline your payouts and avoid settlement delays with white-labeled UPI IDs. Take care of payment reconciliations and automate the process once and for all with virtual accounts.
Extend Neobanking Services On Your Gig Platform
Provide neobanking services to your gig workers and freelancers in the form of savings account, prepaid cards, and credit cards. You can either co-brand it or completely white-label and thus, reflect your brand’s identity naturally. Enable your gig workers to perform and avail simple financial services on your platform, without hassle, with our APIs for neobanks. Set-up a smooth cashflow within your platform, one that enables your gig entrepreneurs to do their best, and worry only about the things that matter.
Provide Lending & Credit Solutions
Provide credit to your gig hirers and help them when in need. Launch your custom BNPL solutions within weeks using our plug-and-play banking APIs. Assess the creditworthiness of your gig workers before giving them credit, from credit bureaus using our Credit Score Check APIs. Plug into Decentro’s lending ecosystem and enable instant loan approvals and same-day disbursals.
A 2017 EY study found that 24% of the world’s gig workers come from India. Amidst the sea of potential, we’re happy to enable our customers such as Workflexi and One Impression to surf the gig wave, streamline payments for their customers, and operate 10X more efficient!
Oh, and we aren’t talking about waiting for months and burning a hole through your wallet for such a financial integration. Let us take care of it for you; go-live timelines within weeks and that too at 90% reduced expenses.
Intrigued? Here’s more about our APIs for gig platforms like yours!
Wish to get your gig platform listed on the blog? Drop us a ‘Hey’ at hello@decentro.tech.
Until we see you next time!
Cheers!
Originally published at https://decentro.tech on October 8, 2021.
