3 reasons why getting your web design work done on Airtasker is a fucking nightmare

Airtasker can work well for simple, in-person jobs. Website design is a different beast: you post a brief and your inbox floods instantly with offers that all sound like the same AI-shaped pitch, with little on the profile to back it up. It's cowboy territory - plenty of folks who think owning a laptop and a YouTube degree means they're qualified to run a small business's digital footprint.

I took a stab on the platform, landed a few jobs (which surprised me honestly), and every client brought a horrendous story from before we met - two were about to swear off Airtasker altogether. Shoddy work, painful comms, and in one case a freelancer guilt-tripping them into extra work when they'd only booked an initial consult for advice. Off-platform I've heard worse: tens of thousands lost, sometimes to people who came recommended. Appalling. And if I sound frustrated, I am. These twits make it harder for skilled, honest operators to find and deliver great outcomes for businesses.

Airtasker search results for website tasks showing low budgets and many offers per listing
The kind of inbox you're competing with - “website” tasks at a few hundred bucks, still pulling dozens of offers each.

I'm not talking out of my arse here. I went to Airtasker, picked a random, decently priced web design task that hadn't been filled yet, and went through every applicant profile for that job. It attracted 81 offers.

For each one I scored:

  • Portfolio quality - is the work worth paying for on its own terms?
  • Fit for the brief - is the work relevant to web development and design?
  • Profile photo sniff test
  • Templated or AI-generated portfolio pieces

The pudding is in the proof. Other than learning that Muhammad is a busy man accounting for nearly 1 in 5 applications (18.5%), here's what else I found.

1Only 10% of applicants are worth your time

That's 8 out of 81 who didn't land in the bottom trust band after the audit above - not “hire with no questions,” but “doesn't look like an immediate waste of time.” Everyone else? 82.7% scored low. Add the mixed tier and 90.1% weren't a clean win on paper.

Most applicants had weak or poor portfolio pieces and most had no relevant experience for this brief. Plenty of pitches name-check EXIF and Art Deco because they're copying your task text, not because the profile shows they've done anything like it before.

224 five-star applicants. 91.7% are useless

I'm not saying every 5.0 is a fraud. I'm saying that on this job, a perfect star rating was nearly useless as a filter. Open the profile and you still get AI-generated nonsense and work that has nothing to do with a credibility-heavy B2B site.

If you'd sorted by stars alone, you'd have burned an afternoon on people who sound professional-ish in the message and fall apart the moment you look at what they've actually shipped.

But you know what? None of that matters if you have reviews

This one boggled my mind. One tasker with a 4.8 average and 800+ reviews - you'd assume the portfolio would radiate quality and relevant experience. Absolute mistake.

There was literally nothing relevant to web design in the profile: a few AI and templated graphic examples, and a bio focused on calligraphy, illustrations, NFTs, digital art, character design, logo design, branding, cartoon and mascot logos, and personalised portraits. Not a single mention of web design or development. Really makes you wonder what clients are searching for when they pick someone on a site like this.

Of the negative reviews she did have, most were poor communication, late delivery, shoddy output, or demanding more money after acceptance - a pattern that's just scar tissue at this point. Or the client was just a turd, who knows.

Oh, and there's the whole "trust me I have 15+ years experience" but her profile looks like she's mid-twenties. Sigh.

It feels like the empty-restaurant paradigm. Might hate spicey food but hey, if that Thai joint that does nothing but burn-your-tongue-off curries is always packed, it must mean it'll be money well spent, right?

3Only 1.2% of applicants are a safe(ish) bet

Yep. Literally 1 applicant felt safe to reach out to.

And it's absolutely worth calling Monika out. She was the only applicant who had a reasonable portfolio of live, searchable businesses and a portfolio of work that was relevant to the brief. Where every other applicant touts having a gazillion year's of experience, you'd think they'd have a bit more to show for it.

Several others scraped into the top trust band and may be worth shortlisting for a call, but overall the quality of applications is proper shithouse. That's not to say that the individuals themselves are not worth a call, but the overall quality of applications is very poor. Who knows, maybe they're just bad at marketing themselves, but given that web design is quite literally that, you'd think they'd be a bit better at it.

But you know what.. you'll probably get rinsed anyway

Even if you shortlist carefully, there are still predators on decent budgets - people who'll grab every dollar from a “good” task whether they can ship or not. Whether it's incompetence or a shit human, who knows. But most of them have a pattern. Push urgency, ask for additional payment, give you roundabout answers and don't deliver. If it feels off, you're probably right.

I'm not really sure whose fault it is that the landscape looks like this. We get such a bad rap for things others have done - the scamming, the shitty comms, the template farms - but the client is the one who chooses the freelancer. If you don't open the profile, search for the experience you actually need, look for a third-party connection (LinkedIn, an ABN lookup, a business site under their name to fact-check what they're saying), or do any of the other trust-focused homework, can you blame them when they deliver something half-arsed - or when you realise they're working from Pakistan? (Yep. They're in the list too.)

On the flip-side, the client is the one setting the price and when you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. So can this really be unexpected?

Sometimes you'll just connect with a bad actor and be left to pick up the pieces. Unfortunately that happens. Doing your due diligence won't make the inbox good, but it mostly negates the chance of a nasty surprise. And if you're ever unsure, give me a call. If I can't deliver something you're proud to tell your mum about, it's free.

Get your project done safely

If you already posted a task and feel overwhelmed by number of responses, send your brief - we can help you weed out the duds or better yet, just tell you how to succeed without relying on third party platforms that enable the race to the bottom mentality.

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