Welcome to Contra! We're thrilled to have you join our community of freelancers. We've created this 10-step onboarding guide to ensure you hit the ground running 🚀
Skip Steps With Our Identity Importer (Optional)
If you already have your online identity somewhere else, you can use our Identity Importer to skip onboarding steps and turn your digital footprint into a stunning profile in seconds. See the loom below for how to use this tool!
If you prefer to build your profile from scratch or decide to upgrade your profile post-import, follow steps below.
Step 1: Write Your One-liner
Write a brief but impactful statement that describes what you do and highlights your creative focus. (Ex: "Creative Designer helping brands tell their stories"). Need more inspiration? Check out our guide on writing one-liners here!
Step 2: Add Your Skills
Next, choose up to 3 of your top skills. Picking the ones that best represent your expertise will help us match you to relevant jobs and help the right clients find your work.
Step 3: Select Your Hourly Rate
When it comes to your hourly rate, set a value that reflects your experience and the industry standard. Don’t be shy about valuing your time — your skills are worth it!
Step 4: Upload Your Profile Photo
For your profile photo, choose a high-quality image where you’re looking approachable and professional. A great profile photo can go a long way in building trust and making connections!
Step 5: Add Social Links
Adding social links helps build credibility and provides a way for potential clients to learn more about your work before getting in touch. Ideally, one of these is a LinkedIn but you can add links from any platform — including portfolio website links!
Step 6: Upgrade Your Experience with Contra Pro (optional)
If you want to scale your freelance business faster, you can subscribe to Contra Pro as part of your onboarding. Don’t want to subscribe? No problem! This step is totally optional and you’ll still be able to complete your onboarding without a membership.
Once you complete this step, you'll land in your Contra dashboard! From here, you'll want to navigate to your "Profile" in the side navigation to finish completing your profile with the steps below ✨
Step 7: Add a Featured Image
Choose an image or video that you feel is the best possible example of your work. We recommend choosing a high quality image that you think will look great on Discover, or creating a video that’s a highlight reel of your best work.
Step 8: Draft Your Bio
Your bio should highlights your skills and experience, as well as anything that makes you unique (i.e. niches, awards, years in your industry, etc). Need more inspiration for your bio? Check out our guide to bios here!
Step 9: Create 3 Projects
Projects on Contra are designed to show off your work and the things you do best.
Whether you imported projects using our Identity Importer or are starting from scratch, it’s important to make sure your projects are the best possible example of your work before publishing!
The strongest projects provide a narrative of the creative process and collaboration with visuals, links and context about the client and results.
Step 10: Set Up Your Contra Wallet
Enter all necessary information required for receiving payments on Contra. For more information on setting up your wallet, see our guide here!
You're Ready to Start Earning on Contra 💸
Once you've completed this step, you’ve officially onboarded and completed your profile on Contra! You're now discoverable, and can start applying to jobs you're matched to 🙌