Two Ways to Earn Money
After you sign up you can immediately look for jobs you want to apply for and wait for the employer to contact you. Sometimes employers are actively searching for freelancers based on their skills so even if you just sign up, an employer might see your profile and contact you for a job. And this is all for FREE. Once you get over that, it’s time for the nitty gritty.
Upwork offers freelancers users 2 ways to charge for their services, either on a per hour basis or per job basis. Each has their own pros and cons but having both allows flexibility on both the employer and employee to come to an agreement with a certain job.
Having an hourly rate comes with the assurance from Upwork that you will be paid for the number of hours you worked as they can verify this with screenshots via the Upwork Team. Having a fixed rate does not have this guarantee and you run the risk of not being paid, though if you are hired by a trusted employer at a fixed rate, they can choose to pay you more than what you agreed upon if they are extremely satisfied with your work.
It all boils down to how you manage yourself and how you deal with people you hire or are hiring you. Always make sure you are not taken advantage of and don’t take advantage of other people.
New Pricing Scheme
In recent months, Upwork introduced a new pricing scheme — to the dismay of many users. Under the new pricing scheme, you pay 20% for the first $500 you bill your client across all contracts. As if that was not enough, you also pay a 2.7% processing fee per payment (or a flat $25 per month). For some just starting out freelance work in Upwork (or anywhere, for that matter), this is rather steep.
That said, this new scheme isn’t all bad. In fact, it rewards those that work with a client more. This means that for the first $500 you bill your client, you pay 20%, while for total billings between $500.01 and $10,000, you pay 10%. For total billings that exceed $10,000, meanwhile, you simply pay a 5% commission charge.
Customer Support
The level of customer support has dropped over the years and is now hardly of any use. Users who had deleted accounts complain that they are not getting any clear reason from customer support as to why, or any resolution how to get them back. Users who have been cheated out of pay or given poor work were treated the same way, with generic and vague responses as if Upwork is washing their hands on the matter and won’t give any solid help.
What's the Verdict on Upwork?
Upwork Review 2020 – Conclusion
With Upwork you just have to take the good with the bad. Yes there are some serious issues with Upwork but there are a lot of good things too, which ultimately can lead you to extra income. The best way to go about it would probably to be careful with the people you deal with and make sure you deliver what you promise as a freelancer to avoid complications. Relying solely on Upwork may also not be the best in case your account gets deleted, but freelancers rarely have just one source of work anyway. Since member ship is free, there really is no harm in creating an account and seeing where it goes from there.
18 Comments
Upwork rejected my application. I have superior writing capabilities and access to online databases like EBSCO Host. I could have brought excellent writing and content creation skills to the platform yet they rejected my application because they have too many writers. How is that possible? Why not let employers decide? I suspect they rejected me because I have started my own SaaS for business development, not at all in competition to Upwork. I guess I should have lied and showed myself to be less capable of delivering quallity writing and online content.
Hi Christopher,
What you can do is, if you have any skills in a specialized niche, you can add that in your profile and then resubmit the application. Upwork currently has more than 9 million freelancers, with thousands trying to apply on a frequent, if not daily basis. So, when they say they have way too many writers, they do mean it. Plus, they also want to have just the right amount of freelancers across every specialization to give more options for other clients/employers. Try updating your profile and add other skills you may have. 🙂
By the way, if you already have a client that’s ready to work with you in Upwork, they can invite you and hire you directly even if your application got rejected. The caveat is that you’ll only get to work with that specific client. If that’s not for you, there are many freelancing networks that might be more up your alley. Hope that helps! 🙂
Upwork is not great. The interface is lame and confusing for many. They take a % of any bonuses paid to a free lancer and they charge a percentage on both ends. Also their scheme of taking 20% until you hit a certain dollar amount subject to EACH time you contract does not make people want to continue to work through the site and I would suspect would promote people to leave the site.
I have also faced billing issues where the system noted I already billed time for that client during that time, but then it did not show up in the final weekly bill which could have created major issues.
First of all, your freelance marketplace review is great and very helpful. Secondly, permanent account suspension like what happen to a colleague of mine DO OCCUR. On him their specific reason is that he is not a perfect match for Upwork because he submitted a lot of applications (in less than a month) without being hired. He’s newcomer and is just outqualified by lots of Top Rated Upworkers and really cheap bidders, coz he doesn’t want very low pay for top quality work or effort-consuming task. Example, a 45 images of pdf textbook to be type manually into Word document for $8 and return in 2 days! Whoooah so cheap!!! Monthly bids is 30 max so why get suspended for using all of that. Lots of job postings daily and those 30 bids even are not enough for newcomers to get established first. Not unless you’ve got attractive profile pic! and believe me I get outqualified in this way too… blink! Lastly, in my own opinion Upwork is now LIMITING their membership. In addition to my second point above, they limit by refusing the newcomer’s membership application in the first place, reasoning the need to “revised” the profile and qualification. Maybe they’re suggesting to over inflate qualifications and skills even if one doesn’t have… WOW! I read their other reason is that “lots of freelancers are already available for particular job category”. Is it? or it’s just a plain and simple alibi to blocking out newcomers. Upwork also trim their active members through many account suspensions, reasons like due to “being flag for something bad” “allege breach of terms of agreement” “inability to satisfy their account verification in the name of Secure and Safety” among others. Many given reasons are unreasonable for the freelancers, and the permanent suspension of Upwork account are immediate without prior notice… and did I mention Upwork suspends TOP RATED freelancers too… to their shock and great dismay after the services they have done for Upwork. Oh Yes, customer support sucks! REally Sucks!!!
My main problem with UpWork is the amount of clients who offer very low rates for jobs. $10 to write 5000 words? Paying 50 cents per 100 words? I frequently bill academic clients and students $30/hour (Australian dollars) for proofreading, and it is an insult to think that anyone who is competent could work for such low rates. I realise that there are probably people in India or Bangladesh who will work for such rates, but I doubt their level of English is as competent. If Upwork clients think that they are getting any kind of quality or competency through offering such low rates, they are sadly mistaken. On the other hand, there are genuine clients who are willing to offer fair pay for good work. Oh yes, and Upwork’s cut is quite high.
Another Upwork issue is the dodgy ads that I am sure are trying to filter freelancers into working for high volume, low pay agencies or work.
My project started on 15/7 and until 27/7 i had not the results requested. I decided to cancel the project, then i opened a case for refund. The case was opened on 17/8 and i was told from upwork agents, that if the freelancer doesnt respond in 24hours ( someone else told me 48hours-seems they dont know what they are doing), they would refund me. Freelancer didnt respond until 22/8, 5 days later, 120 hours later! … The case was still opened and closed against me..This is Upwork gentlemen…and ladies!
omg. There are some perfectionist out there. They critic some small details such as small grammar error. No one is perfect. Are you? He provided excellent tips but some rude people tries to shame the author to which can be read by possibly millions of people out there. And they try to compensate their rude remarks by telling something nice to make them look nice.
Besides increased service prices to absurd, the biggest issue is that their “escrow” service is illegal at least countries where I reside, because such kind of service is subject to financial service license. And why any customer should be willing to give their money upfront to third party and afterwards freelancer must wait a week + bank transfer (5 days) to get paid? I have always worked in a way, that when customer is happy with result, they pay and I get the money. If not happy, then I either fix things or find another customer. Because they are not subject of financial regulations, they could do with that “escrow” money what they want.
Anyway, here is my article about the topic: http://www.veikoherne.com/2016/07/upwork-illegal-services-are-paradise-for-scammers/ and if you have complaints to their service as well, please let me know that we could build class action law suit against UpWork.
Terrible customer service however…… I have used upwork many and its great – until something goes wrong and you need customer service then it falls apart….
I had used Upwork (odesk) for several years as a freelancer and am very sad that the platform has gone downhill. Not only has the customer service department become non-existent but the amount of spam has increased and the quality of persons using the service is very poor. Some clients and agents pay very poorly, refuse to pay for services rendered and are very aggressive. There are excellent clients, however, wading through the multitudes of spam to connect with them is exasperating.
Hello, Ken!
Congratulations, you’ve done an amazing job putting all these articles together for us. Great contents! Big THANKS!
Do you know any Pros and Cons about FlexJobs? I’m highly interested in reading your reviews about it.
Cheers.
Upwork is simple great.. I am totally dependent on Upwork and without this marketplace I cannot imagine anything…. Simply the best way to show your talent and skills….. RECOMMENDED !!!!!
Hi,
Thanks for this informative article. You may be interested in Upwork’s new pricing structure which was announced via email on 3rd May, 2016.
“20% for the first $500 you bill your client across all contracts
10% for total billings with your client between $500.01 and $10,000
5% for total billings with your client that exceed $10,000” *
*Source: http://www.upwork.com
Additionally, clients will be charged 2.75% processing fee per payment or a flat fee of $25 per month.
Upwork explain their changes with, “These pricing changes are meant to reward long-term, repeat work and cover the costs of serving all parties on our platform—allowing us to support you better over the long run.” #
#Source: email from Upwork “An important update to Upwork’s pricing”, dated 3rd May, 2016
I have in the past worked a lot on oDesk and especially Elance, and most of my jobs consisted of one-off assignments with a value of well below $500. I see no motivation in working long-term for a client when the short-term work is discouraged by gigantic fees. Including VAT on the service fee and the PayPal fee for the currency conversion, the deduction for smaller jobs is about 27%. Hardly worth the effort.
I was a big fan of Elance and very disappointed when the merger with oDesk and the subsequent rebranding to Upwork was announced, and so far the service and the quality of both freelancers and job offers has gone from bad to worse.
It’s a shame, but for me Upwork is not a viable option anymore.
27% is way too much to pay, you would expect excellent service for this, but Upworks doesn’t have.
Do you recommend any other sites as an alternative, I think I’ll give Upworks a miss.
Pros Sect. 4
You used fair rather than fare.
Maybe it’s my Canadian showing, but at the same time this article looks fresh and professional and you may appreciate the help.
Good catch! Thanks ?
Hi, I also wanted to say that I loved your blog and information. However, I did notice as well a little small grammar error on #3 “it” should be “if”.
Once again great advice, thanks.