Freelancing in India and Pakistan: what the data shows

Wondering how India and Pakistan compare as freelancing countries? Both are among the biggest sources of online freelancers in the world. In 2021, about a third of the freelancers on the large English-language platforms were in India, and the three neighbours India, Pakistan and Bangladesh supplied more than half.¹ The two governments count freelance earnings in different ways, so their figures cannot be lined up as a ranking. What the data does show is that clients abroad want the same kinds of work from both countries, and often see the region as one. Freelancers in both countries face the same questions from those clients, so comparing answers helps both, and I have learned a lot from freelancers in Pakistan.

How clients abroad see India and Pakistan

In July 2026, a company in the US that I work with needed a freelancer for confidential work and was leaning towards someone local. The reason was legal: a contract is hard to enforce across countries, so the company felt it had more protection with a freelancer in the US than with one in India or Pakistan. I put forward experts I know in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, because I have worked with people in all three countries.

Clients group us together on price as well. When we pitch for a project, a common reply is to ask why someone from India is charging $5,000 (about ₹4.8 lakh) when $500 (about ₹48,000) would do.² Freelancers I know in Pakistan meet the same assumption about their prices. Many clients also assume that someone applying from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh is not good at English, which in my experience is not true.

The work these clients want is similar too. The Online Labour Index, from the Oxford Internet Institute and the International Labour Organization, tracks the projects posted on the big platforms. Clients in all the leading buyer countries post more projects in software development and technology than in any other kind of work.¹

What the earnings figures show, and what they do not

Pakistan counts what its tech freelancers earn from abroad as a separate line in its export figures. Its Ministry of Finance reports in the Economic Survey for 2025-26 that tech freelancers brought in $856.3 million between July 2025 and March 2026. That is 51% more than the $567.5 million of the same months a year earlier.³ The same chapter lists freelancing training through DigiSkills.pk and more than 80 government co-working centres for freelancers.

The Reserve Bank of India measures something different. Its survey of software companies puts India's software services exports at $204.7 billion in 2024-25, with 52.9% going to the US and 32.8% to Europe.⁴ Because the figure comes from companies, it does not show what Indian freelancers earn on their own.

The two figures count different people over different periods, so they say nothing about which country's freelancers earn more. What the Pakistani figure does show is growth: in the nine months to March 2026, Pakistan's freelancers earned about half as much again as in the same months a year before.

One market, two neighbours

Because clients abroad put us in one region, a freelancer in Pune and a freelancer in Lahore face the same questions about price, English and trust. I think of it as one market with two neighbours in it: whatever helps freelancers in one country answer those questions can help the other.

I learned this through my own work. The people I work closely with include freelancers from Pakistan, and so do the students I have helped. In the Clay (opens in a new tab) Bootcamp, where I coach now, a group of us from India, Pakistan and other Asian countries began meeting to talk about pricing, after so many of us had heard the same question from clients. I have also coached people in both countries who wanted to start freelancing, and both told me about the same worry: their parents' doubts.

Freelancers in Pakistan have built clubs in several cities and WhatsApp (opens in a new tab) groups where people learning the same tool help each other, including one for women freelancers. As of September 2026 I am in Boston, and I plan to move back to India next year. When I do, I want to build the same kind of help for freelancers in India, partly inspired by how freelancers in Pakistan have done it.

What Indian freelancers can take from this

Find the people who do your work, wherever they live. Join one community of freelancers in your field that includes freelancers from Pakistan and other countries, and help in it before you ask for anything. How to get freelance clients without Upwork or Fiverr covers how a community can also lead to paid work.

Talk about prices with the whole region. Freelancers in India and Pakistan hear the same price question from clients, and comparing your answers helps all of you. Why clients expect Indian freelancers to be cheap looks at where the low-price assumption comes from, and How to charge international clients from India covers pricing on the value you bring.

Answer the assumptions before the client raises them. If a client might doubt your English, a two or three minute video with your proposal settles it faster than any sentence. How to write Upwork proposals that get replies shows how I make one. Show work you have already built, so the client judges the work and not the country.

Sell the work the market pays well for. In August 2026, the Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre at LUMS published a study of more than 16,000 Pakistani freelancers on Upwork (opens in a new tab) and Freelancer.com (opens in a new tab). Freelancers in accounting and consulting, software development and web development earned the most on average.⁵ Many people with a few years in an Indian office already have one of them, and Which skill to learn for freelancing? Maybe none yet walks through finding yours.