Freelancer vs Pick an Agency

Freelancer's API mirrors the full marketplace — projects, bids, milestones, messages, and user profiles — behind a standard OAuth 2.0 app-registration flow: a live call to `/api/users/0.1/self/` returns 401 `NOT_AUTHENTICATED` rather than any keyless access, and the OPTIONS preflight explicitly whitelists a custom `Freelancer-OAuth-V1` header, reconfirming OAuth as the real mechanism. A GET against the public `/api/projects/0.1/projects/active/` endpoint succeeds with no key at all and echoes `access-control-allow-origin: *` on both the GET and its preflight, resolving the stored 'unknown' CORS value to fully open. Freelancer's own Python SDK and developer portal document no separate paid tier or metering for the API itself — registering an app is free, with the marketplace's usual project fees applying only to actual freelance transactions, not API calls.

Pick an Agency runs a free, no-signup REST + MCP API over its directory of 47,000+ verified marketing agencies. It has `/search`, `/agencies/{slug}`, and `/match` endpoints for shortlisting agencies by service, location, and rating, plus a machine-readable OpenAPI spec at `/api/v1/openapi.json`. A live GET this run against `/search` and against `/match` both returned real agency records with `access-control-allow-origin: *` and no auth challenge. This confirms the stored 'None' auth and open CORS policy with real JSON payloads.