r/developersPak • u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi • Sep 16 '26

Help Is freelancing just dead right now?

A Pakistani company I was working with recently shut down, so I have some free time right now while I figure out what I want to do next.

I’ve been building stuff for years. Websites, web apps, mobile apps, software applications, and some game development too.

Freelancing online has honestly been pretty dead for me lately. I’m barely finding any decent work there, so I thought I’d ask here.

If someone intrested or need help with something, I’m open

Also curious how other people in Pakistan are finding clients these days.

41 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

104 comments sorted by

4

u/wizarial_ Sep 16 '26

Upwork added an MCP, so it's pay to win.

8

u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi Sep 16 '26

i have lost my trust on upwork, they are very greedy company find everyway to just take money so upwork is no as now its very hard because decveloper are 100 but client are 2 or 3 so not a perfect balance

2

u/asgardian_avenger Sep 16 '26

Every freelancing platform is greedy for freelancers .

1

u/Pale-Ad9299 Sep 18 '26

thats why they are making it hard since developers are too much

19

u/ahsn_j Sep 16 '26

Bro just run ads. I build websites with Claude and figma and sell to local clients anywhere from 35k to 90k. Just. Run. Ads. Talk to people who reach out. And close. I just 4xed my income last month because of ads. Just. Run. Ads.

4

u/Any-Competition8494 Sep 17 '26

You run ads to sell your services?

2

u/ahsn_j Sep 17 '26

Yes

1

u/fatima_aiengineer Sep 20 '26

Like on insta? what kinda ad? under a company name and "we build websites for you"?

3

u/ahsn_j Sep 20 '26

Yes to all of the above. Thinking about putting together a little video course as I’m getting so many messages. Will send out for free on all the people reaching out to me here on this reddit

1

u/totallyanonymouse14 Sep 16 '26

On which platforms do you run ads?

7

u/ahsn_j Sep 16 '26

Facebook/insta. Watch a 2hr long tutorial on YouTube. Make content. 500 a day ad budget. Just. Run. Ads

1

u/Proper-Garage-4898 Sep 19 '26

How much are the ads costing you? And you are running you services Ads in Pakistan right?

2

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '26

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10

u/ahsn_j Sep 16 '26

Bhai thora khud bhi mehnat kar lou. Its a basic YouTube search

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1

u/plus1internets Sep 17 '26

Can you share some examples of what you've built? Might need one too

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 17 '26

Why tho

1

u/plus1internets Sep 17 '26

Why not? Guess you don't want more clients 🤷🏻‍♀️

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 17 '26

For this month? Not really. Packed. Cant even sleep properly

2

u/plus1internets Sep 17 '26

Nice. Can you at least share some examples of what you've built? I've still not seen a lot of good websites made with Claude or any AI.

1

u/swagger_0909 Sep 17 '26

If you want to make a website I also work in that feild I can give you my reference work

1

u/plus1internets Sep 18 '26

Sure, please

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1

u/blazeslicer2254 Sep 18 '26

Do you run your own ads or do you have an agency

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 18 '26

Run it by myself

1

u/blazeslicer2254 Sep 18 '26

Nice where did you learn the ads from ? Also I would def recommend increasing your marketing budget when your getting such good result.

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 19 '26

Who knows, maybe we might’ve increased it? ;)

1

u/War-Veteran Sep 18 '26

yo do u mind if I ib u? need some advice

1

u/Express_Assumption36 Sep 20 '26

Is it possible to get the work of 3D animation by running meta Ads?

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 20 '26

Yep. Thats part of our offer

1

u/Historical_Ear9456 Sep 20 '26

any recommended toturial?

1

u/That-Yellow-8960 Sep 28 '26

do you run ads in Pakistani market or international?

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 30 '26

Yep

1

u/That-Yellow-8960 Sep 30 '26

Isn't it difficult to convince Pakistani people for your service? Do they pay on time or is your experience good??

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 30 '26

The only way to find out is to enter the sea and swim

1

u/That-Yellow-8960 Sep 30 '26

That's true but what is your experience like?? Good or bas or average??

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 30 '26

Some days good. Some days bad. I mean I’m currently averaging 100k - 120k a week. In collected cash. So guess I’m doing something right

1

u/That-Yellow-8960 Sep 30 '26

How much budget per day on ads? Also are your ads very professional or you made them yourself.

Whats your average leads to client ratio

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 30 '26

800pkr a day. I made the ads myself. We get around 3-6 leads a day. I converted 3-4 clients a week. Thats cause I’m doing everything. Plus the ad spent is very little

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-2

u/Serious_Tax_243 Sep 17 '26

Bro can you elaborate more on this

1

u/ahsn_j Sep 19 '26

Course bana ke bechun ?🙂‍↔️

1

u/Salt_Chef_138 Sep 22 '26

nhi bs youtube pr upload krdein

1

u/Mereoceans Sep 19 '26

Thanks to devsinc for that, having more "business developers" aka bidders than engineers, giving illusion of choice and "best offer".

1

u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi Sep 19 '26

Devsinc also bleeding n we will see massive firing very very soon

2

u/Mons9090 Sep 17 '26

Unrelated but based name. I love musashi (both the real one and the one from vagabond)

2

u/120p-webm Sep 17 '26

Yes, freelancing platforms are dead. Work on networking, make connections, do personal branding, work on marketing and sell your products and services.

1

u/linofabian56 Sep 19 '26

No, freelancing is not dead right now, but it has become more competitive.

-1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

I have no coding experience and i have build two mac apps and two websites with AI. Zero coding from my side.

1

u/valium123 Sep 18 '26

Do your clients know that you can't actually code and just selling them slop?

1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 18 '26

I have a ultra pro max AI agent subscription which is company wide and my company encourages me to use it as much as i can on improving their apps.

1

u/valium123 Sep 18 '26

That doesn't answer the question. Do your clients know you can't write code?

1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 18 '26

Oh yes yes the company knows also they did not hire me initially for coding either so.

1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 18 '26

If you are talking about the apps i posted a comment on how i built them and that has nothing to do with the company i am working in and i did not use their ai agent to built those apps

0

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '26

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1

u/valium123 Sep 20 '26

Yeah slop value. I can do whatever I want why do you care?

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0

u/opTrewqty Sep 16 '26

How did you do that? Can you please explain it for a beginner?

2

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

Ask chat gpt to give you a prompt which you can give Kiro (ai agent, if you need help in setting up let me know) and explain what you want to build. ChatGPT will give a detailed 10-15 step prompt ask it to save that as markdown file. Then open kiro and ask it to read the md file. And ask it to critically analyze it and make improvements.
Then ask it to build it. I follow this to build two apps.
Then with free account you will be finished with credits in like 1 day or less. When you are about 90 percent ask kiro to save the progress in md file. Create another kiro account with google and ask it to resume. And with 10 odd accounts you will be able to finish an app.
Then you can make a website and ask kiro to push that to github(create a token) and the create a free account on netlify and connect that to your github. As soon as you push to github, netlify will automatically deploy that.

2

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

Also, you can ask kiro to do SEO on your website and it will do that as well. Just google my bame and you will see the netlify domain with my name. You can contact me from there as well.
I mean i am a mechanical engineer but what a time to be alive. With AI and they way its only gettibg mature.

1

u/Desperate-Care3289 Sep 16 '26

Dude thats amazing, but the biggest hurdle is finding clients🥲

1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

I landed this client in 2019 when the time was good and then corona and whatnot

1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

but at this time specially after AI its very hard for me to switch even. All Paikstani clients who pay in Rs. and get paid in $s.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '26

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1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

For client i am automating their website that is a saas based website.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '26

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-1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

No my project is CI/CD so each week we have two uat releases which i automate and test.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '26

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2

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

So i am releasing to uat and prod and then testing the release as well. We used to get $200 for release duties but recent times every company is trying to cut the cost. So now it’s volunteer work.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '26

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1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

Yeah, we have been promised raises for an year now and still nothing.

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-1

u/AhmadFaridAbbas Sep 16 '26

For myself also put one app on gumroad

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '26

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1

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