When you need expert advice or help planning a project’s scope, a consultation with a professional is a great place to start.
Find a consultant
You can find freelancers who offer consultations by following these steps:
- Enter the area of expertise you need in the search bar
- Select Offers consultations within filters
Note: If a freelancer you’re working with offers consultations, you’ll see it on their profile.
Pro Tip:
Need help with AI? You can also find freelancers who are available now on the AI Services page.
Review consultation offerings
For each consultation, you’ll be able to see details about what the consulting freelancer offers and the price per 30 minutes. You’ll also see what documents they provide after the consultation. These may include a project plan, time and cost estimate, meeting summary, or a combination of those.
Book a consultation
Once you’ve found someone you want to meet with, here’s how to send a request:
- Select Book a consultation
- You see the freelancer’s pricing and whether they are able to Meet now or Meet later
- Make your selections and follow the instructions on screen
- Be sure to Confirm & fund the consultation to book
- If you are meeting right away, select Join meeting. If meeting later, be sure to send any information that the freelancer has requested within 24 hours. A consultation can’t proceed if you don’t.
Note: In some cases, the consultant may not be able to assist you. In those cases, they'll cancel, and you'll receive an automatic refund.
After the consultation
After your meeting, the consultant will send any promised documents, and we’ll notify you when they do. You’ll have 14 days to review and approve payment, or it will be released automatically.
If you and the freelancer agree to skip follow-up documents, you can approve and pay immediately. However, opting out means you also agree not to dispute the payment, as there would be no documents to review.
Reschedule a consultation
You can reschedule a consultation up to 24 hours in advance in the contract’s workroom. Select the Reschedule consultation button. Choose a new date and time from your freelancer’s calendar that falls after their minimum booking notice, and we’ll send them a message that you rescheduled.
Cancel a consultation
You can cancel your consultation up to 24 hours before the meeting and we’ll refund your money automatically. However, if you cancel within 24 hours of the meeting or don’t show up to the meeting, we won’t refund the money and we’ll send your payment to the consultant. To cancel, go to the contract's workroom.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you don’t show up, the freelancing consultant still gets paid.
If the freelancer doesn’t show up for a scheduled consultation, you can request a refund of your payment. If the freelancer denies the refund, our support team can help you and the freelancer try to resolve the matter.
Yes. You can request a refund of your payment . If they reject your request, please contact our support team so we can try to help resolve the matter. Note:, The consultant will have the opportunity to show what they provided. Since value is subjective, we encourage you to work this out with the consultant and provide feedback about your experience.
Please wait at least 5 minutes. If the consultant is more than 5 minutes late, you can consider them a no-show and request a refund of your payment.
If you’re more than 5 minutes late, the consultant can consider you a no-show. They’ll still get paid even though you didn’t attend the meeting.
If your consultant is taking too long to respond (or you need to reschedule), you can withdraw your request from the waiting room. You can then choose another freelancer who is available to meet now or schedule a consultation later.