Hire a freelancer
Sometimes a book needs a hand you do not have on your team: a letterer for one issue, a colourist for a short, a cover artist. FoundryInk lets you hire a freelancer straight into your studio for a paid, escrow-backed job. There is no job board and no bidding: you find a collaborator who happens to be available for hire, pick one of their services, agree the terms, both sign, and the money sits safely in escrow until you approve the work. The whole job is managed in one shared Workroom you and the freelancer both work from. This page walks the studio's side of that, start to finish, and is honest about the guardrails at each step.
1Hiring, not a job board
It helps to know the shape before the buttons. You do not post a brief and wait for strangers to apply. Instead you find one specific person in the Collaborate directory, look at the services they offer, and hire them against a service and price they have already set. From there a clear track runs: agree terms, both sign an agreement, you fund an escrow, they deliver, you review, and the money releases when you approve. Every hire is managed in a single Workroom that you and the freelancer share, so there is one place for the deal, the chat, the deliveries, and the payment.
2Find someone for hire
Open Collaborate. It is the one directory of creators, and by default it shows everyone. To narrow it to people you can hire, turn on the Available for hire filter (you can also land here pre-filtered from any hire link). Four more filters appear: Disciplines (writing, drawing, inking, colouring, lettering, and more), Asset skills (the kinds of work they take on), Level, and Rating. Each freelancer card shows a level chip, their availability, a star rating, and a View services link.
3Read their profile and services
View services opens the person's Collaborate profile, which is their one professional profile (there is no separate hiring page). Its for-hire block has three parts: Services, each a packaged offer with up to three tiers priced from a range or shown as On request; a Portfolio of galleries they have flipped on for hiring; and Reviews from past clients. When a service fits, the Hire button on it is your way in.
4Start the hire
Hitting Hire opens the hire form. You pick the tier you want and any add-ons (an extra revision, a rush, whatever the freelancer offers), and you can point the job at a specific asset in your studio if it is work on an existing issue. That creates the engagement in Draft and immediately opens the shared Workroom and its chat, so the deal talk starts right away, before any money or access changes hands.
5Send the offer, then both sign
When the terms are settled, you send the offer, which moves the engagement to Offer sent. You have to answer the service's requirements first. Sending the offer creates a real agreement that both sides e-sign. The freelancer can accept, decline, or send a counter-offer that changes the price or the turnaround; a counter re-opens the terms and needs a fresh signature. Nobody can take payment until both parties have signed.
6Fund the escrow
Once the freelancer accepts and the agreement is signed, the engagement sits at Awaiting payment. You Fund escrow from the Workroom, and your payment is held safely by the platform, not paid out yet. Funding is what actually starts the job: it flips the engagement to In progress, starts the delivery clock (the turnaround you agreed), and grants the freelancer the access they need if the job is tied to one of your assets. Your money is not released until you approve the work.
7Deliveries and revisions
The freelancer works, and shares rough drafts in the Workroom chat as they go. Those drafts are just conversation. The job only advances when they submit a formal Delivery, which carries the actual work (a note, files, or the asset) and moves the engagement to Delivery in review. Now you either approve it or request a revision with a note. Each service comes with a set number of revisions; when that budget is used up, you either approve or buy an extra revision add-on.
8Approve and release
When the work is right, you approve it. Approving releases the escrowed money to the freelancer and moves the engagement to Funds released. The platform takes a 10 percent fee (freelance labour is raked the same as commissions), and the freelancer receives the rest to their connected payout account. If the job was tied to an asset, the freelancer's access to it is removed at the same moment. If you set up milestones, you approve and release each slice on its own as that piece of the work lands.
9If something goes wrong
There are two ways out. You can cancel an engagement before the work is delivered (through draft, offer, awaiting payment, in progress, or a revision), which refunds any escrow you funded and removes any access granted. Or, if you and the freelancer genuinely disagree about delivered work, either side can raise a dispute with a reason. A dispute freezes the auto-accept clocks and sends the case to platform review: neither side can grab the escrow on their own, and the platform resolves it by either releasing to the freelancer or refunding you.
10Leave a review
After the funds release, both of you can leave a review: a one-to-five rating and an optional note, one from each side. Your review of the freelancer feeds their public rating and their level, so it genuinely helps the next studio choosing who to hire. When both of you have reviewed, the engagement moves to Closed and the job is truly done.
Hire someone, step by step
The whole track, in order. Links into the app. Saved on this device.
Questions studios actually ask
No. There is no job board and no bidding. You find one specific person in the Collaborate directory (with the Available for hire filter), look at the services they have published, and hire them against a service and price they set. The brief is a conversation in the shared Workroom, not a public listing others compete for.
Commissions are fan-facing: a reader buys custom art from your studio. Hiring a freelancer is the reverse, you bringing a paid professional into your own production, managed through the Engagements portal with escrow. They are separate systems that only share the underlying payment machinery.
Yes. Funding puts your payment in escrow held by the platform, not in the freelancer's pocket. It only releases when you approve the delivery. Cancel before delivery, or win a dispute, and the held money is refunded to you.
You pay the price you agreed on the tier plus any add-ons. The platform takes a 10 percent fee out of the payout to the freelancer when the funds release, the same rate as commissions. A tip you choose to add later passes to the freelancer with no fee taken.
There is a three-day auto-accept timer. A delivery you leave unreviewed is automatically approved and paid after three days, so the freelancer is not left waiting forever. Review deliveries promptly if you want to keep control of approval.
Any studio member with the project-manage permission can act on an engagement (send offers, fund, approve), not just whoever started it. Members without that permission cannot fund or approve, so make sure the right person holds it.
A freelancer must have published an actual service with a priced tier to be hireable; an opted-in profile with no open service has no Hire button. Also, someone set to Away, or whose queue is already full for their level, cannot be hired until that changes.
Go build your crew for a job
Find the right pro, agree the terms, sign, fund the escrow, and pay when the work is right. Hiring a freelancer turns a gap in your team into a safe, managed job with a clear paper trail, and it all happens in one shared Workroom. Now flip it around and see the freelancer's side.
Where next?