Toptal

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a lead combat designer for a video game development company. In my free time, I work on the fundraising process for my personal studio.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Toptal?

I’m not a financial expert, so I needed help with financial modeling elements for my personal project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I initially contacted Toptal in December 2023 and asked them if they could do the financial modeling for my video game company. They told me they could, so I dropped the deposit money into their account on December 11th. 

On January 3rd, 2024, I started working with Bruce (Finance Expert), a Toptal specialist. He started working on the financial model for my future business. First, we had a couple of meetings regarding my needs and what I wanted to do with the company. I provided him with all the necessary information regarding my future costs, budget, what kind of projects I wanted to do, and the revenue I expected. We then iterated on those topics and some pitch elements to fit the financial modeling ideas.

We worked together on the financial modeling for one month. Additionally, we worked on the pitch for another month, so the project lasted two months in total. Toptal didn’t work on anything related to video game development.

What is the team composition?

I only worked with Bruce.

How did you come to work with Toptal?

I searched online. Maybe I’m bad at online searching, but Toptal was the only company I found that provided free consultations. I initially talked with their CEO, then I spoke with their accountant; it was a straightforward, friendly, and smooth process. 

Moreover, I didn’t have to pay money first to talk to them, so they were very open and democratic for someone who knew nothing about financial elements. Afterward, Toptal provided me with potential candidates for my needs, which was also free. I talked with several specialists, including Bruce. All of them had different experiences.

After talking with all the candidates, I decided Bruce was the best, so I stayed with him.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent $1,300 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–March 2024.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Toptal’s work was excellent; I can’t say anything bad about it. The specialist was always open to giving me feedback and sharing knowledge. They explained how to work with the financial model, the usual fundraising process, the missing elements we needed to cover, and where we needed to improve. Overall, it was a pleasant experience. I’d like to work with them further in the future.

How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was great; they did the work promptly. We mainly used emails to communicate. If needed, we organized quick calls through Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Toptal was straightforward about the billings; it was clear if someone asked for $70 or $100 per hour. When I talked to Toptal, they gave me a clear range of how much it’d cost to do the job and the time it’d take, which was really beneficial. Other companies I searched for didn’t provide that information; they were straightforward about the minimum amount of money required without explaining how it was calculated.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’d be cool if Toptal’s specialists could drop after-meetings notes with what they did and how much time it took to have an extra layer of transparency regarding their work. In the way it currently works, the specialist explains what they’ll do, and then you start receiving invoices for the time they spent. We’d like to understand when there’s a need for extra research or extra time. Toptal is missing that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want to do and the service you need; it’ll help Toptal provide the right specialist. Also, don’t be afraid if a candidate’s hourly rate is high. It usually turns out they’re doing the job faster than the specialists with low rates, so don’t chase for the cheapest specialist.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a decentralized, autonomous organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Toptal?

We needed help with blockchain development. We needed someone who knew backend and theory to make smart contracts and knew enough about frontend design to help with the interconnections.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I had just finished my MBA in entrepreneurship and gotten a grant from my school to help pay for it. I started with my hosting, name, and the website shell. I made a step-by-step explanation of what I needed from Toptal.

We needed many people to vote; users had 72 hours to device to vote. If 80% of the voting membership decided the project would get funded, I’d start helping the artist get them going with their project.

Toptal used JavaScript for the interconnection and helped me with HTML. They also did a lot of background work, and we had to get Cloudflare so everything would work correctly. They knew which technologies to use to get us up and running.

What is the team composition?

They gave us a project manager and 2–3 people to interview, and we chose a developer from there. We needed an update in the last two months; the same developer was available.

Additionally, there was a communication coordinator.

How did you come to work with Toptal?

I first contacted them over two years ago. I searched for companies and freelancers for blockchain development and did my due diligence by calling at least three companies. Toptal was the best option.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I got the grant money in March 2022 and began working with them in April 2022. We paused the project in April 2024 because I had other bills to cover, but we were at a good stopping point.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Since I work in UX, I’ve always looked at metrics. In this case, we have a slow-burn process. We started with zero and now have 10 members, so we’re slowly building our community. Overall, Toptal exceeded our expectations.

How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?

We initially met on Google Meet. I tried to hook up my Slack, but it didn’t work. We mainly used emails, and they also sent me videos to show me what they finished.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Javier (E-Commerce Developer) was an excellent, super communicative developer. Last time we needed some tweaks, he fit them into his regular schedule and understood things quickly. I’m happy to give him kudos; he was amazing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication was excellent.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing I didn’t understand was how to end the project. I was unfamiliar with my project manager, so we got over-billed for a bit. However, Toptal corrected it immediately.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be prepared and know as much as you can about what you want. Doing strategy beforehand, writing it down, and thinking of the logic and use cases before talking to them will save everybody’s time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of education at a nonprofit organization that offers positive parenting and caregiving courses to caregivers and parents.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Toptal?

We needed support in creating an online course's interactions, including quizzes and exercises for students to complete online and integrate it into our animated online course.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After our initial meeting, Toptal set up an interview with a candidate. She was the first candidate we interviewed and had a background in education. She was also adept and capable in programming and coding. We went through a trial period, and once we approved the candidate, Toptal set up a Slack channel for us to communicate with her. 

We provided a script of what we wanted, and the team came back with suggestions for changes. Toptal created storyboards, and after reviewing them with us, they provided samples. Toptal made adjustments based on our feedback and came up with several interactions that we're integrating into each of our lessons for this online curriculum. We created the course content, and Toptal created interactive quizzes.

What is the team composition?

We worked with around four teammates from Toptal. 

How did you come to work with Toptal?

I found Toptal through a Google search while looking for service providers that could match our company with talent for this project. I had a thorough interview with the team, during which I shared our company's needs and timeline.
How much have you invested with them?

We had a budget of $15,000 for this project, although I'm unsure how much we spent since I wasn't involved in the financial negotiations.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our initial contact with Toptal was in October 2023, and we worked with the team through February 2024. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We're finishing our online course and integrating the work delivered by Toptal. We haven't launched the course to the public, but the team helped us create a more interactive, interesting, and engaging experience. Toptal delivered excellent quality work and was super creative and professional. The team created interactions that aligned with our goals while also being engaging. 

The candidate we worked with was located in France and communicated excellently in English. Her suggestions were helpful, and she was very flexible and open to feedback. We had a great working relationship with Toptal. 

How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?

Toptal delivered work on time and stayed on budget, working in a timely manner with our schedule. We communicated via email, Zoom meetings, and Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Toptal heard exactly what we wanted and made sure to find talent that was a perfect fit for us. The team didn't give us things that we had to go through. Toptal was honest and informed us that they had a limited number of talent who could be a good match for us because their big clientele wasn't in the education industry. I appreciated Toptal's honesty. 

We also had a trial period with the provided resource to see how she responded to our requests and what kind of work she could provide. That took pressure off from us, and our communication was very good and timely. Overall, this was one of our best work experiences. We've worked with contractors for different projects, and Toptal was an excellent team with a good system.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything Toptal can improve on. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I suggest communicating your needs to Toptal clearly when you contact them and being completely upfront and honest. I also recommend being responsive to Toptal's feedback and questions — it's up to the client to get the most out of their engagement with Toptal. The team will engage as much as you're willing to engage.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CFO of a health technology company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Toptal?

We needed to modify and evolve our existing financial model to a more comprehensive one in a framework we could share with investors and partners.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Toptal provides an Indian-based resource to help us with financial modeling. He builds the spreadsheet models we use to project our business and measure our results against projections.

What is the team composition?

Dhruv (Management Consultant) is our business consultant.

How did you come to work with Toptal?

We found them through Google. We were looking for someone with advanced financial modeling skills and a knowledge of SaaS businesses.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in May 2021, and the project will be completed at the end of March 2024.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Toptal has helped us save time.

How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve helped us find someone in an efficient manner. Moreover, Toptal has made it easy for us to engage with Dhruv even though he’s in India. We communicate through email and phone calls.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

We’d give high ratings to Dhruv for his modeling work over the past three years.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve developed a pool of high-quality resources that companies can outsource on a project or on a continuous basis. Overall, Toptal removes the friction in finding and engaging with resources.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I haven’t noticed anything so far.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The more you define the characteristics of the contractor or consultant you’re looking to hire, the more likely you’ll be satisfied with the outcome. You should know your needs and prepare to get the most out of Toptal.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director and founder of AfriFindInvest (AFI). We’re an advisory boutique that helps early-stage tech founders or startups in Africa raise money due to the lack of access to capital in the classical stage. 

We recognize these companies leverage technologies to improve access to goods, services, and employment across the continent. Overall, we believe in the social and economic transformation involved in the companies we enable.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Toptal?

The first time we engaged Toptal, they designed our website to showcase the value of our services. In the second instance, we wanted to go beyond the website and increase our average audience reach. Our goal was to push social media channels like LinkedIn to drive attention to the content on the website.

To do that, we needed enough presence on social media and the right content to resonate with those audiences.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Toptal creates the content showcased on LinkedIn and hosted on the website’s blog pages. The content redirects to the website so people can learn more about it. They’ve used WordPress to embed the content into the site, but the particular deliverable is done through Google Docs.

We have ongoing conversations with their US-based marketing experts; they work with us on content strategy. They also design a lot of content and add value to the imagery that supports that narrative to give the people a real taste of what AFI does and its current situation.

What is the team composition?

We have a dedicated relationship manager to ensure our needs are filled in. Additionally, we’ve worked with two specialists: a developer and a marketing expert.

While identifying the marketing expert, we spoke to their account managers in Europe.

How did you come to work with Toptal?

We came to know them through my extensive research. I had the names of various freelancers and platforms, such as Upwork and Fiverr. However, we needed to be assured that our investment would be reflected in the quality of work. Toptal’s 3% promise drew us in and made us willing to pay more so the results would be exponentially better.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $2,500 in the initial deliverable. The second deliverable is about $2,100.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began our engagement in January 2023; it’s an ongoing partnership.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

One measure is how responsive it is to inbound requests and how many new requests we attract. Since we’ve been doing business with Toptal, we’ve seen an uptick in activity. Although we haven’t published the pieces from the content strategy, we’re confident they’ll drive a lot of traffic to the website.

Similarly, we expect the blog to ensure traffic and attract more customers.

How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?

We have scheduled Zoom calls every month.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciate the feeling of having a team around us. It’s incredibly lonely at the top, so it’s often hard to find people with a similar caliber and talent.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The feedback from other people is that the price point is probably higher than anticipated. However, it's a question of value, and we’ve seen a lot of value. Ultimately, it’s about executing on a deliverable, and Toptal has been instrumental.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t feel shy about talking to Toptal if you don’t fully understand your needs. You don’t have to have the answer when their network is tuned to your problems. They’re willing to explore the landscape and take it from there.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a global NGO nonprofit in the freight decarbonization space; I am the head of academy. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Toptal?

We were looking for instructional designers, specifically individuals who could work with subject matter experts to create specific program content. We wanted to take that content and offer it to businesses to scale up their decarbonization efforts. We’ve hired Toptal to bring in a freelancer who has these qualities. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started out and gave Toptal a brief outline of what we were looking for, then had two phone calls to explain it in more detail. Toptal very quickly found a freelancer to work with us. The individual from Toptal is responsible for working with subject matter experts to take very detailed, intricate, and theoretical content and turn it into learning and training program content. 

What is the team composition?

We work with three individuals from Toptal, one of whom is our freelancer. 

How did you come to work with Toptal?

We found them through a Google search. We tried to work with a few other companies, but Toptal was the easiest and smoothest, so we decided to move forward with them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2023, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We haven’t launched yet, but the work we have collaborated on with Toptal will massively accelerate our offering. Their efforts will help us achieve more work in a shorter period that is much higher quality than we would have been able to do ourselves. We are so satisfied that we have decided to expand our initial scope and extend our engagement. 

How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?

We’d like to give our whole team a shout-out; they’ve been great to work with. Everything is completed on time and within budget. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been impressed by how quickly Toptal was able to get us a brilliant freelancer. They found someone who could complete exactly what we needed in a very short amount of time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing we think they can improve would be to provide a little more clarity around changing the contract with our freelancer. It was a bit unclear how we went about it; however, that’s minor. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Expect to pay for the service that you’re receiving. It is not cheap, but you’re paying for great quality work, and it’s a worthwhile investment. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the senior WebOps manager of a company that delivers cloud-based accounting services. We have different segments of customers, including self-employed business owners. We provide accounting solutions, such as invoicing and everything related to accounting. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Toptal?
I engaged Toptal for their staff augmentation services. Specifically, I needed to onboard a DevOps engineer to make some improvements within our WebOps team. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?
We had some initial talks with a couple of Toptal teammates to identify our needs. They went through a list of points that matched our needs, and they started preparing meetings for interviews a few days after that. We asked for a DevOps specialist knowledgeable in specific tech stacks that were relevant to us. The specialist should also have managerial skills.
After two interviews, we hired Prakash (DevOps Specialist). He was the second interviewee and matched the profile of what we needed. Toptal started the onboarding process from there; I was involved in this process to make sure that everything was straightforward and there were no blockers.
Meanwhile, we onboarded another developer from Toptal called Sergei (Software Developer), although his contract had already ended. He worked on several aspects of our app, such as performance improvements. He was involved in stakeholder projects and other internal work.
So far, Prakash has worked on improving our DevOps processes and infrastructure. On top of that, we’ve had weekly brainstorming sessions, and I’ve discovered his expertise in the Google Cloud platform. We’ve started migrating from our old legacy hosting provider to our own cloud platform because of that.
What is the team composition?
Apart from Prakash, I engage with an account manager from Toptal to check in on various things here and there.
How did you come to work with Toptal?
I found Toptal through an internal referral. I requested some staff augmentation suggestions from my manager, and they sent a list of companies. They highly recommended Toptal.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve invested around $130,000 per year on Prakash in terms of project costs and $170,000 per year on Sergei.
What is the status of this engagement?
We onboarded Prakash in June 2021, and he’s still working with us. Meanwhile, Sergei’s contract was from October 2021–September 2023. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The experience has been successful. Although his contract ended, Sergei was amazing, talented, and committed to his tasks. He was based in Ukraine, and even with the Russian Invasion of Ukraine happening, he was only absent for one day. The next day, he jumped on his work as usual. There was no disruption at all, so he was amazing.
In terms of his work, Sergei successfully improved our core apps. For instance, their error rates declined to 5% from 40%. Our core web vitals improved by 90% for mobile and desktops, which had a direct impact on our SEO. Even Google featured our website because of our performance, and this was mainly because of Sergei’s work.
Meanwhile, Prakash does what we’ve asked him to do, which is to improve our DevOps process. He’s even gone beyond that by improving our infrastructure — this is a big project. We’ve seen a 30%–40% increase in deliverables. The cost of our infrastructure has dropped by 50%.
Moreover, thanks to Prakash’s incredible skills, we’ve successfully migrated from our legacy hosting service provider to our own cloud platform. We’ve put all our apps under one umbrella. This has been a challenging task because it requires a team, but Prakash has taken it on by himself.
Overall, Prakash and Sergei have done amazing work. I love their sense of ownership, professionalism, and talent.
How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?
We use the Scrum framework for our agile processes and do daily standups. We don’t have any blockers even if Prakash works remotely in Nepal — even our internal teammates work remotely from around the world. We don’t see any delays or issues related to that. If there’s any delay, it’s mainly because of the stakeholders and not the developers.
What did you find most impressive about them?
The quality of Toptal’s resources is their biggest strength. I’ve dealt with other companies, and Toptal has been better. They’ve provided us with candidates that not only meet our needs but also go above and beyond in terms of quality and expertise. That’s not easy to find in other companies.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Toptal’s pricing is a bit higher than their competitors. However, I completely understand that — having quality resources means higher rates. Nonetheless, it would be great if they had a bit more flexibility in terms of pricing, especially since the world economy has been fluctuating. A dynamic rate tied with several factors can work.
For context, we ended Sergei’s contract mainly because of the cost. We had to prioritize other things. It could’ve been a different scenario if we had some agreement in terms of the pricing level.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
From the beginning, agree on the scope of your needs. Tell Toptal what resources you need for your project. The first sync-up is the most relevant one. They’ll be aware of your needs, and you’ll feel they have huge expertise in doing their job, whether for staff augmentation or other projects. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a financial startup company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Toptal?

We needed to design our platform’s MVP.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially met with Toptal’s account manager and explained our project’s requirements and goals. The team asked in-depth questions about our experience, and Toptal used that information and proposed 3–4 candidates. We reviewed the candidates’ resumes and design work, and after interviewing them, we made a hiring decision. The onboarding process has been the same with all candidates brought by Toptal. 

Toptal has helped us bring in a UI/UX designer who has designed our platform’s MVP, including layout and presentation. We’ve used this MVP to secure our initial seed round, and then we’ve hired a chartered financial analyst (CFA) who has defined our user personas. Toptal has also brought a second developer who focuses more on the DevOps side. We work with startup and SaaS consultants, too.

Our team built our platform’s backend, which is a SaaS browser-based solution, and Toptal’s UI/UX designer has built the user path and user flow and made components interactive and functional. The team uses Figma, React, and AWS Amplify. Toptal’s developers also work with Python and C++ language. 

Our platform is a smart modeling software whose overall function is stock valuation. Users can build complex formulas and financial analytics through built-in code. The backend data recognizes and vectorizes the users' inputs. Toptal’s team will also assist us with maintenance and hosting work.

What is the team composition?

We work with five teammates from Toptal, including a senior financial services specialist, a digital marketing consultant, a CFA, a business consultant, and a UI/UX designer.

How did you come to work with Toptal?

We found Toptal through a referral.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $100,000 with Toptal.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Toptal in December 2022, and our engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Toptal is very knowledgeable and understands the talent requirements we’re looking for. We’re still in the testing phase; we’ve gone through the initial alpha phase, and we’re starting a private beta testing this month. Toptal will deliver a public beta version and assist with our platform’s commercial launch at the end of the year. 

We have 50 public beta agreements that will convert to customers when the product goes live. Our alpha users have provided great feedback about our MVP’s UI/UX design. Toptal has created a professional product. 

How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?

Toptal is budget-conscious regarding time management, and their team has excellent self-management abilities. When I fall behind, Toptal’s UI/UX designer is conscious and gives us space to meet our deliverables. The team doesn’t take advantage of our budget. 

We use Jira and Slack for project management. We have frequent contact and communication with Toptal’s account manager, who provides good support. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Toptal’s biggest strength is their talent sourcing abilities. We haven’t had an easy hiring choice because we’re very impressed with all the candidates’ abilities, communication, and work ownership. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for Toptal to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend potential clients understand the problem they’re trying to solve before reaching Toptal. The more information they give Toptal’s account managers, the better talent they’ll find for their project.  

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and board member of LEIpapa OÜ, an IT and data processing company focused on the financial market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Toptal?

We needed help hiring developers for our company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Toptal provides IT staff augmentation for us. The team has assigned a manager to us who has been hiring talent according to our needs. After the manager finds potential talent, they schedule an interview where we can see if they’re the right fit for us and consequently start working together for a trial period of 2–5 days before we decide to hire them.

What was the team composition? 

We’ve worked with Peter (Account Manager), my main point of contact, and Bruno (Global Manager) from Toptal’s team. They’re both professional, and I’m happy with their work.

How did you come to work with Toptal?

A friend referred Toptal to me. We’ve decided to choose them because, compared to other providers, they seem to care about their clients and have provided me with several options for hiring developers.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested around $5,000 with Toptal.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2023, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Toptal has provided us with professional developers who have done lots of work for a reasonable price. I had doubts about the developers’ work because we’re from different countries, but they’ve performed amazing and smooth work — I’m very happy.

How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?

Toptal is great with project management. The team has an internal Slack channel where they manage a ticket system, and we can also add questions or recommendations. Through that chat, Toptal’s staff is very responsive, and we usually hear back from them in 1–2 minutes, so everything’s clear.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Toptal’s interview system is impressive because they have a strict talent admission process where only 3% of the applicants pass all the filters. Whenever they suggest a candidate, we know they meet our requirements.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Toptal only has integration with Slack, so I’d like it if they could integrate with other communication channels like WhatsApp or Telegram.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the website and customer experience manager for i-Health. There are a few different brands within i-Health, which is also a division of a much larger company called DSM. I oversee our internal web development teams alongside external developers. I also manage our consumer resources team, which is where we receive emails and chats from our customers about their experience across our websites. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Toptal?

We hired Toptal to manage our websites. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Toptal manages our 15–16 websites. We only have one internal developer, so we lean on the team for all our external web development needs. We have eight D2C websites, and the rest are for marketing. We’ve used their help for UI/UX projects for those websites. 

We use Shopify Plus for our D2C websites. For the marketing websites, we use Pantheon and WordPress. The UI/UX designers from Toptal and our internal designers use Figma to create mock-ups and prototypes, which they share with our internal developers. 

What is the team composition?

We work with three full stack developers and one UI/UX designer from Toptal. Mark (Enterprise Account Executive) serves as our main account manager. We come to him with our pain points and goals. He assesses our needs and works on getting the right resources for us. 

How did you come to work with Toptal?

I did some research on our options and looked into platforms like Upwork where we could bring in a contractor to help us. My previous boss talked to someone within our industry who’d worked with Toptal before and recommended them. That was when we kicked off our conversations with the team. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent nearly $150,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Toptal in January 2023, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’ve had an excellent experience with Toptal, and I’m excited about our ongoing partnership. We continue to add more resources to our team from them because things are going so well. I’ve recommended them to others and truly enjoy working with their resources. 

How did Toptal perform from a project management standpoint?

Mark has been excellent. He’s highly responsive, constantly checking in on us and making sure things are going well with their resources. Whenever we have any new projects, he ensures that everything is organized. Moreover, their team moves quickly in terms of timelines. All the resources we’ve brought meet our deadlines and exceed our expectations. 

For tools, we mainly use Microsoft Teams for most of our communication. Sometimes, we use emails and jump on calls as needed. Either their team or I initiate the calls when we need go through some questions together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like the ease of having an hourly relationship with them. This lets us be flexible when we have more projects. Moreover, I appreciate their clear communication. They’re a truly collaborative team.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Toptal offers a two-week trial period where you can test their resources to see if they’re a good fit for you. Take advantage of that. It gives you the flexibility to test out a resource before committing to a partnership with Toptal. A lot of other agencies don’t offer this.