Best Online Consulting Platforms & Marketplaces

Economy, legal issues, IT, and several other niches strive for independent consultants. According to Forbes, there are 5 top niches that take consultations from freelance or independent consultants: IT and Telco (73%), Consulting (71%), Automotive (70%), Industrial (67%), and Public Sector (65%).

Due to the latest tendencies in the labor marketplace, in 2022 58% of non-freelance workers consider changing their current job to a freelance one. Being an expert in any field becoming an independent consultant might be a perfect solution. 

Who is an Independent Consultant?

Some of you might be a little confused and the position of an independent consultant seems to be weird. Today various companies choose not to hire a full-time resident consultant, but request the assistance of independent consultants or consulting outsourcing companies. 

In general people in specific niches share their knowledge and experience with those who seek it. When freelancers collaborate with any business, they sign a contract with a list of all rights and duties of both sides.

Most Popular Niches Among Independent Consultants

There are no limits for professionals to provide coaching sessions, sell individual tutorials and monetize their knowledge in any way they want. Below we have made a list of the niches that have the highest demand. 

Mental Health and Medical Consulting

People have always been worried about health. Over the years the market of consulting business has managed to provide independent consultants who can help people online, in private sessions, or even by phone (telemedicine). Researchers of Yahoo Finance stated that the revenue of the global online doctors’ marketplaces would grow and make  $15.3 billion by 2028, which is 26% more than the current rate ($3.9 billion in 2023).

By the way, this niche includes not only doctors that help with your physical state issues, but also mental health experts, and healthy diet consultants. For each kind of health problem, there are various marketplaces with consultants of different approaches, education levels, fees, etc.

Sport and Fitness Consulting

The global online fitness market size was valued at $6,046 million in 2019 and is projected to reach $59,231 million by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 33.1% from 2020 to 2027.

It doesn’t matter what kind of sport you are into, multiple coaches are ready to prepare a special training plan, help you follow it, and keep your motivation as high as needed. 

Due to a couple of factors (ongoing COVID-19 situation and increased popularity of healthy lifestyle), the demand for people who for years have been into sports, and know how to help people to build the body they want is incredible. 

Career and Job Opportunities Consultanting

Indeed, some people are really good at finding a proper career course, and they are ready to use their talent to help others. Career consultants have various clients, among them might be both students who are still in search of themselves and adults who decided to change their lives. 

Career consultants provide various services: create a resume, lead you through job offers, help to prepare for interviews, etc. 

Business owners also might look for career consultant assistance as they help to build a reliable workforce environment, corporate ethic standards, and long-term relationship between a boss and employee.

Astrology and Spirituality Consulting

Even though astrology, numerology, tarology, Kabbalah, and some other spiritual streams have no evidence base, some people believe in it, and people who have been into it for years. The marketplace of spiritual services has boomed in recent years. 

In mobile app stores, various apps help to build the awareness of the audience, but you as a consultant should be sure that your consulting business is visible enough. With the growth of interest, the number of consultants has grown as well. 

Online Tutoring 

E-learning is an essential part of human life in 2024. From 2017 to 2022 the industry shows an amazing upward tendency of $6 billion, which makes the current income rate at $38 billion.  

Online tutoring is different from the classes we all used to. For teachers, it is important to know how to involve a teenager, a child, or an adult in the studying process being miles away. 

For clients, online tutoring is also a new level of engagement. On online tutors marketplaces, consumers have a wide selection of tutors with different levels of expertise in various studies. So for consultants who want to build their career around such a fast-growing industry (by 2028 e-learning is expected to gain revenue 15.6% growth) right now is a high time to join the market.

Business and Legal Consulting

Business assistance is the most compound niche. It contains experts in economy, IT, law, etc. Any type of business might seek a clever economy consultant or a financial analyst to help with foreseeing probable success; a dedicated IT expert to build a platform, site, or app to enter the digital business; a qualified lawyer to solve legal issues.

Consulting marketplace is huge, and more clients look for good consulting than actual consultants that provide related services. At the moment the consulting business is lucrative for experts. Take the benefit from it and check out the profit that goes with it. 

Online consulting on various legal issues are considered to be one of the most lucrative ones. In 2022 the CAGR is around 10.6% that predicting $788 billion in income in 2024.  

Above we mentioned only the most popular niches, in fact, there are way more professionals and experts who can share their experience, but they don’t belong to any exact sphere.

Pros and Cons of Consulting Marketplaces

Entering a new marketplace might be confusing, as you don’t have a clear picture of all the advantages and disadvantages of being a consultant in a consulting marketplace. 

Advantages

New opportunities. When independent consultants offer their services on various marketplaces it is easier for clients to find them. It is easier to get new projects when clients find you without any effort from your side. 

Digital usability. Marketplaces are good not only for their organization but for the list of tools they offer. There are many marketplaces that not only list various independent consultants and business directions they work with. 

Build strong relations. On such marketplaces not only big companies can find an independent consultant, but also experts can unite and work on projects with others. 

Simple way to enter the game. For consultants who are at the very beginning of their career of independent consulting, it would be much easier to find new clients on various marketplaces. It is the first stage for a business to find an expert to help with a project. 

Disadvantages

Fee for the marketplace. If a consultant chooses to be on a list of the most popular consultants of various marketplaces, they have to pay a percentage of the fee. An average percentage is between 20 and 30 percent of the total amount. 

Dependent position. When a consultant lists their services on any marketplace, they become dependent on the state of the marketplace. If the marketplace business is successful, then the consulting project would be successful as well. But if the marketplace closes down, the consultant would have to start everything from the beginning. 

Representatives of Consulting Marketplace Platforms 

The marketplace of consulting business develops constantly. When a new consultant wants to take a couple of projects to work on, they should decide on the platform that they would work with. Below we have a list of several most popular consulting platforms. 

Expert360

Expert360 is a consulting platform for talented people that share their knowledge and experience. On the platform, there is a wide list of independent consultants from various niches. Such big business companies like Virgin, eBay, and Coca-Cola come to this consulting platform to find consultants to work with. 

An average salary that a consultant has with Expert360 is between $500 and $5,000 per day. Though choosing this consulting platform, independent consultants agree to pay 15-20% from each project fee they get from the platform’s clients. These taxes are paid throughout the first year of the contract. 

Paro

For clients that have projects with the gig economy, bookkeepers, financial analytics, etc. Paro would be a perfect match. This consulting platform is especially preferred by companies that work with e-commerce, banking, digital marketing, and several other business directions. 

The technology that is behind the Paro is a matchmaker. The platform matches companies with consultants that night to meet the project’s requirements. 

Unfortunately, there is no open information about prices or fee taxes, consequently, we cannot compare it with other consulting platforms.

MeasureMatch

MeasureMatch consulting platform is famous for vetted experts that specialize in data management, marketing, analytics, brand equity, insight projects, and technology audit. 

The policy for consultants contracted with MeasureMatch includes 15% tax from each project; consultants negotiate fee rates individually with each client.

Scrile Meet: a Next Level Consulting Solution

Popular consulting platforms are good, but they are not the only option for your consulting projects. An option for you to consider is Scrile Meet. The ready-to-go solution that allows you to build your own website and decide on the available services, fees, technology to attract clients, etc. Below we have listed the top 5 features of Scrile Meet that would definitely meet your interests. 

No commission fees

Taking taxes from fees and clients’ income, in general, seems a little weird. Scrile Meet guarantees its clients complete financial independence. There is no need to set overpriced fees, calculating that ¼ you would return to the platform you are placed on. 

No extra software needed

Some consulting platforms require clients to download additional apps or programs to download; that’s not the case with Scrile Meet. Everything that a client and a consulting person need is a browser and a good Internet connection. 

Simple banking

To be a competitor on the consulting marketplaces, you should provide not only high-quality consultations but also convenient supporting services. Scrile Meet based consulting websites is integrated with online payment options. The money would go directly from a client to the admin of the platform. 

Consulting platform branding

The majority of consulting websites offer solutions with pre-built designs, and you have no option to add your projects’ branding. With Scrile Meet, a consumer is free to design the site as they want. Moreover, there is no need for you to know even a line of code to modify it. 

A great number of features and services

Appointment booking, private one-to-one live video calls, one-to-many group meetings, paid Q&A text consultations, and a wide range of functions you can implement to your consulting site. 

Scrile Meet pricing is clear and offers 2 plans:

• Startup – the best option for you to practice and give a try for the platform. You pay $10 monthly and get access to your own domain name, admin panel access, web page editor, 5 GB storage limit. There is a 14-day free trial to check whether this solution suits your needs. 

• Enterprise – an expanded plan, that is good to modify the project up to your consulting business standards. With the Enterprise plan, you get the same services that are provided with the Startup plan, but additionally, you get premium support, a 1000 GB storage limit, extendable cloud storage, full access to the source code, and unlimited opportunities for feature customization and scaling. To get an individual offer with pricing according to your needs, please contact our managers.

Final Thoughts

The consulting industry is very deep and gives a variety of opportunities for development. Preparing for the article we have highlighted 4 tendencies that would shape the world of online consulting, and you should consider increasing the quality and fees of your consulting project: 

1. Extra attention on tangible outcomes
2. Completely personalized consulting
3. More demand for online consulting instead of in-person meetings with a client
4. Total involvement in client’s business operations

It doesn’t matter if you are an independent solo expert or an experienced team that consists of consultants that are professionals in different niches, gain working relations with your clients, host platforms with various services, participate in interesting consulting projects and choose solutions that would simplify your way to success.