Where to find clients and customers in 2026: 8 sources

Find B2B clients where companies say in public that they need something now: public tenders, marketplaces and directories, communities and forums, job ads and career pages, new leaders and role changes, funding news and company registers, LinkedIn engagement and events. All eight can be read for free; in our view, paid tools mainly save time. In our assessment the strongest is a public tender, where the buyer puts its need in writing, and in the EU alone over 250,000 public authorities spend around €2.6 trillion a year on services, works and supplies (European Commission).

Checked on 22 October 2026. Every price below is the US list price, before tax. Revexa builds Leo, a tool that covers some of these places. For what to do once you find a company, see how to get clients for service firms or how to get customers for software.

Where to find clients: the eight places compared

Ordered from the most explicit request to buy to the weakest, in our assessment.

1. Public tenders

A tender is a formal request for offers, in writing, with a scope, a deadline and often a budget, on the buyer's terms.

• Free: TED says it "provides free access to business opportunities from the European Union, the European Economic Area and beyond" (TED). In the UK, Contracts Finder lists contracts with the government and its agencies worth over £12,000 including VAT, and you can search and apply without an account; higher value contracts, usually above £139,688, sit on Find a Tender (GOV.UK, GOV.UK). In the US, SAM.gov lists federal procurement notices: "Anyone interested in doing business with the government can use this system to search opportunities", and no account is needed to search (SAM.gov).
• Costs: your time. A good bid can take days (our estimate).
• Fictional example: a UX research agency saves searches for "usability testing" on TED and Contracts Finder and bids only where it has a matching case.

2. Marketplaces and directories

People on a marketplace are already shopping, so competition is fierce. Use them for first projects and reviews, not as your whole pipeline.

• Upwork: clients post jobs and freelancers submit proposals with Connects, which "cost $0.15 (USD) each and are sold in bundles"; the number needed varies per job (Upwork).
• Clutch: a profile is free. Clutch says more than $2 billion in service projects flow through it every year and cites "12+ million buyers"; those are its own figures (Clutch).
• G2: a free profile, plus a Buyer Intent add-on on the Professional and Enterprise plans that G2 describes as a way to find "the buyers who are active on G2 right now". G2's plans page shows no prices (G2 plans, G2 Buyer Intent).
• Fictional example: a Shopify development studio answers only Upwork posts that mention a migration from another platform, its specialty, and asks each new client for a Clutch review once the store is live.

3. Communities and forums

Communities show buyers describing a problem in their own words, often asking what to use. Earn the conversation in public first.

• Free: search Reddit and niche forums for "recommend", "alternative to" and "how do you handle", and join the Slack or Discord groups your buyers use for their role.
• The rules: Reddit's rules say: "Participate authentically in communities where you have a personal interest." Its spam policy names "sending large amounts of unsolicited chat or private messages", and if your contributions are mostly links to a business you run, it asks you to "be thoughtful about the frequency of posting" (Reddit Rules, Reddit Help).
• Costs: paid communities charge membership fees, and Reddit sells ads.
• Fictional example: a data engineering consultancy answers a head of data asking how to cut a cloud warehouse bill, shares the three checks it runs first, and is invited to a call.

4. Job ads and career pages

A job ad tells you, with a budget attached, which problem a company is staffing up for and often which tools it uses. The duties name the work you could take over.

• Free: job board alerts, company career pages and the public job boards that applicant tracking systems host. Our guide to finding companies hiring SDRs shows the method step by step for one role.
• Costs: job-data tools save the searching. TheirStack, for example, lets you start free (its page description says 50 company credits a month) and sells 1,000 company credits for $109 one-time, covering job postings, technologies and firmographics, with daily or weekly email alerts on saved searches (TheirStack).
• Fictional example: a payroll software company watches for ads seeking a first in-house payroll or people operations hire at companies of 30 to 100 people, the point where spreadsheets stop working.

5. New leaders and role changes

A new leader in the role that owns your problem often reviews the vendors they inherited (our view). Reach them in their first months, about their plans, not your pitch.

• Free: "started a new position" posts on LinkedIn, appointment press releases and team pages. In the UK, Companies House shows each company's current and resigned officers, and its free Follow service emails you as soon as a followed company's new filings are accepted (GOV.UK).
• Costs: LinkedIn Sales Navigator's Alerts, which LinkedIn describes as "real-time signals like job changes and new content", are included from the cheapest plan, Core, which starts at $119.99 a month or $1,079.88 a year (LinkedIn).
• Fictional example: a security consultancy follows 200 UK fintechs and writes to each new head of security in their second month with a one-page audit checklist.

6. Funding news and company registers

A funding round means new money and a plan for spending it. Write to whoever owns the part you help with, about the plan rather than the money.

• Free: press releases, funding newsletters and public filings. Our guide to finding recently funded startups lists the free sources and when each publishes.
• Costs: Crunchbase Pro is $49 a month billed annually in the first year ($79 a month on the annual plan without that discount), or $99 billed monthly (Crunchbase).
• Fictional example: a translation agency watches for rounds announcing expansion into new countries and offers the head of marketing the website in those languages.

7. LinkedIn engagement

The people who react to posts about your topic are showing what they care about this week. It is weaker than a job ad but earlier, often before a need becomes a project.

• Free: open the reactions and comments on your own posts and on posts by competitors and voices in your field, and note who fits your client profile. Our LinkedIn engagement guide explains how to read the sign.
• Costs: tools that collect engagers and match them to companies.
• Fictional example: a sales training firm sees that six team leads from the same software company commented on posts about ramping new hires in one month, and writes to their VP of Sales.

8. Events

Events are the weakest place for intent and the densest for people: exhibitors pay to be seen, speakers announce priorities.

• Free: exhibitor and sponsor lists, speaker agendas, and local meetups for your buyers' roles.
• Costs: tickets and travel, more for a booth.
• Fictional example: a video production studio reads the exhibitor list of a SaaS conference two weeks ahead and offers three exhibitors a short booth video.

Where not to look

A bought list shows who exists, not who needs you. Writing to it is cold outreach to a cold list, the approach this page replaces; every place above starts with something the company did. See how to generate leads for sources that need no bought list.

Finding clients with Leo

Leo by Revexa is an AI GTM agent that finds the B2B companies ready to buy and starts the conversations that turn them into customers, by email and LinkedIn. By default you approve every message before it is sent.

Leo's buying signals, as our facts page lists them, are hiring, funding, headcount growth, new executives in the buying role, engagement with your own LinkedIn posts and company page, engagement with competitors' and industry voices' LinkedIn posts, competitors' tools on a company's website, and job ads (including Platsbanken in Sweden). In our reading, that covers parts of places 4 to 7: job ads, new leaders in the buying role, funding and LinkedIn engagement. Starting from the ideal customer profile it builds from your website, Leo judges every company's business model, finds the right person and drafts the LinkedIn message or email in your voice. Each draft waits for your yes or skip, given in your own words in Slack, iMessage or the portal, unless you turn on autonomous mode for that channel. Leo handles replies and books meetings. If your CRM is HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Upsales or Close, Leo keeps current clients and open deals out of outreach and brings lost deals back when a new signal appears. Under UWG §7, a lead in Germany never gets a cold message from Leo.

The price is €89 a month in Europe, 999 SEK in Sweden and $99 in the US and the rest of the world, before VAT or sales tax, after a free first week and without lock-in (pricing).

Does it make finding clients 10x cheaper? Only measured against a hired SDR, where our calculation finds a cost per held meeting 12 to 23 times lower, assuming equal meeting rates. Against doing it all by hand the same calculation finds 5 to 9 times, and against a well-run tool stack 3 to 5 times.

Tenders, marketplaces, community threads, event lists and company registers such as Companies House are not on Leo's signal list, so in our reading places 1, 2, 3 and 8, and the register part of place 6, stay with you. Nor will Leo give you a list of contacts to download, or phone anyone. Revexa, a young Swedish company started in 2026, has no customer results to show yet. Leo is the wrong choice if most of your clients come from tenders or marketplaces, or sit in Germany.

Related: How to get your first customers.

By industry: Web design, Marketing agencies, Consultants, Recruitment agencies and Software development companies.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find clients?

In places where companies show a need in public: public tenders, marketplaces such as Upwork and Clutch, communities where buyers ask for recommendations, job ads, new leader announcements, funding news, LinkedIn engagement and event exhibitor lists. All of them are free to read.

Where do I find B2B clients online?

Start closest to a decision: tender portals such as TED and SAM.gov, directories such as Clutch and G2, and job ads describing the work you do. Then add earlier signs: new leaders, funding rounds and LinkedIn engagement.

Where can I find clients for free?

TED gives free access to tenders, Contracts Finder can be searched without an account, and anyone can search SAM.gov's contract opportunities without an account too. Job boards, career pages, funding announcements, Companies House alerts in the UK, Reddit threads and LinkedIn reactions are free to read as well. You pay with time; paid tools, such as Crunchbase Pro at $49 a month billed yearly in the first year, save some of it.

Where do agencies and freelancers find clients?

Marketplaces and directories bring the first projects: Upwork for posted work, Clutch for buyers comparing agencies. Steadier clients come from signs that a company needs the service now, such as a new marketing leader, a funding round with expansion plans or a job ad for work you could take over.

How do I find clients who need my service right now?

Look for an event that creates the need: a published tender, a job ad for the work, a new leader in the role that buys it, fresh funding, or a public question in a community. Reach the person who owns that problem within days, and mention what you saw.

Where can I find customers for a software product?

In job ads describing the work your software does, funding news, new leaders in the buying role, community threads asking for alternatives and review sites such as G2. Add tenders if you sell to the public sector.