Malt
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if you regularly hire freelance devs, designers, or marketers in Europe and want contracts, payments, and admin handled for a published 10% fee.
Comparison
Malt vs Toptal
Malt and Toptal both land on Depends.
Toptal
Depends
Confidence: High
Buy if you're a funded team that needs vetted senior freelancers fast and accepts premium, deposit-first pricing.
| Compare | Malt | Toptal |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Depends |
| Best for | European teams hiring freelance tech/creative talent | Funded startups building MVPs fast |
| Who it's not for | US-only or non-European hiring | Bootstrapped founders on tight budgets |
| Privacy | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.11 | Compromised: July 2025 supply-chain attack hijacked Toptal's GitHub org and pushed malware-laced npm packages. |
| Support quality | No user-facing support evidence | Clients report reliable delivery across review sites |
| Public sentiment | Reddit freelancers are testing Malt on first projects, but truncated snippets reveal little settled sentiment.⁷ | Clients praise vetted talent and delivery; freelancers complain about heavy platform margins and strict screening.16 |
| Biggest gotcha | The 10% fee excludes VAT . real cost runs higher² | $500 deposit and ~$79 fee charged before you see any candidate |
Pick Malt when
- European teams hiring freelance tech/creative talent
- Firms wanting contracts and payments offloaded
- Freelancers building an EU client base
When Malt is not a fit
- US-only or non-European hiring
- Recruiting permanent full-time employees
- Teams demanding pre-vetted, managed talent pods
- Buyers needing published security certifications upfront
Pick Toptal when
- Funded startups building MVPs fast
- Fortune 500 flexible project staffing
- Teams needing vetted senior developers
- Part-time finance and consulting hires
When Toptal is not a fit
- Bootstrapped founders on tight budgets
- One-off small gigs . use Upwork
- Buyers needing pay-per-task pricing
- Guess: teams hiring full-time permanent employees
Sources
news
- What are Malt service fees and offers?help.malt.comofficial
official
review
- Malt Reviews | Read Customer Service Reviews of malt.frtrustpilot.comreview
- Anyone used Malt before? : r/freelancereddit.comreview
- Has anyone used Malt? : r/editorsreddit.comreview
review
- Any feedback on malt? : r/BEFreelancereddit.comreview
- Malt security pagemalt.frsecurity
news
review
- Toptal official sitetoptal.comofficial
- Toptal Reviews . SmartCustomersmartcustomer.comreview
- Toptal Reviews . Trustpilottrustpilot.comreview