Upwork

Quick Summary

Upwork is a freelancing marketplace that connects businesses with independent professionals across various industries. Unlike Fiverr, which focuses on gig-style, one-off projects, Upwork offers both short-term and long-term work arrangements through a structured bidding and contract system.

Service Structure

• Best for: Ongoing freelance work, large-scale projects, and specialized professionals.
• Hiring model: Clients post job listings, and freelancers submit proposals.
• Project types: One-off tasks, hourly contracts, and fixed-price agreements.

Upwork is more relationship-driven than transactional, making it a better choice for sustained work rather than quick gigs.

Public Issues

While Upwork is a leading platform for freelance work, there are some challenges and controversies:

Key Concerns:

• High Fees: Upwork charges freelancers 10% on all earnings.
• AI & Fake Profiles: Like other platforms, AI-generated proposals and fake accounts have increased, leading to lower trust levels.
• Account Suspensions: Upwork has been known to suspend accounts without warning, sometimes leaving freelancers and clients locked out of contracts.

Communication

• Upwork requires all messaging and payments to be done through its platform.
• The Upwork Time Tracker (for hourly contracts) tracks mouse movement and screenshots, which some freelancers find invasive.

Pricing

Pricing is mostly felt on the VA side - with Upwork eating into their earnings pretty aggressively.

• Freelancer fees: 10% of earnings.
• Client fees: 5% per payment, with optional Upwork Enterprise pricing for additional services.
• Hourly & fixed-price contracts: Prices vary widely depending on skill level and region.

Ads

One thing about Upwork which is strange is that Upwork’s Virtual Tokens (Connects) can be used by creators to promote themselves. Which is odd, they are paying to promote themselves, then giving 10% of that earning from that promotion to Upwork. This will cause huge issues downstream for smaller creators who want to get their foot in the door.

This is a pay-to-play system and feels wrong.

Key Takeaway

Upwork is a solid choice. However, service fees, application restrictions, and AI-related trust issues are growing concerns.

Secondly, you have to do the research yourself - the only service where you’ll get help is with their enterprise offering. For long term engagements, I think that makes things difficult.

My final thoughts are: probably good for clients but bad for creators \ talent.

Historical Updates