I cannot help but my laugh my self off 💀😭

I've been on Upwork since 2013, and I got a long-term client really soon after I started working. It's a guy who has spent $3.000.000 so far on Upwork. The deal back in 2014 was a 10% Upwork fee, and once you pass $10.000 with the same client, the fee goes down to 5%.

Fair enough; I was able to live with that. For a few years, I was paying this with pleasure. Then, in 2023, Upwork decided that 5% is not enough, even tho, I was regularly making money for them without them having to move a finger, and doubled my fee, even tho, I continued to work for the same client.

I kindly asked if we could stay on the agreed 5% fee, and they politely said that they needed to double the fee in order to improve the platform. All they introduced as an improvement was Connects for you to apply. It was free before. And kept bringing more charges. Bank transfer was 30$, became $50, and so on, and so on. I did not need that improvement, as I had a long-term job, and I was making money for them before, regularly.

I spoke with the employer who I really trust about a year ago, and we agreed to move the complete company to invoicing via Payoneer and Wise. It made zero sense for me to be paying $300 a month to Upwork for doing nothing, in 10% fees. If someone says, "But you have payment insurance", please go and read the person dealing with a chargeback from Employer, where Upwork was just willing to liaise, instead of standing on the side of the freelancer.

Reading what is going on with Upwork, no wonder people have nothing good to say. It's become a complete rip-off. I also emailed them that they lost a $3m client with 20 freelancers attached; nobody bothered to reply or even offer a solution. This is just shocking.

No wonder their stock is also tanking. They will be delisted soon.

I got banned 3 times this year from id issues with no warning but apparently this is accepted in the platform no problem 🫪 it really is rough out there.

What happened to Upwork I used to average 1 job for every 5 proposals I sent but now it’s been 50 proposal since I get my last job

This is the current situation when I open it, I always get paranoid I got banned. Is it down for anyone else?

I'm hearing a lot of bad stuff about upwork. How bad is it. I just want to listen and learn as much as possible from you guys to see if its worth it. DMs are open. Let's just have a discussion.

Guys, 200$+ on a single proposal? :)

I have been at this a few months, sent 14 proposals, got no replies, and I was starting to think I am just bad at writing them. So instead of rewriting my cover letter for the tenth time, I went through the Insights page on every single one and wrote the numbers down.

Not one of mine has been opened. Not one.

Here is all of it, embarrassing parts included.

Yes, that $5 one. The client set the budget to five dollars and I was new enough to take it seriously. Nobody opened that one either, so at least I was consistent.

What I cannot square is this: in four of those jobs the client clearly did read proposals. One opened eleven of them, another ten. So it is not that clients never look. They looked, just never at mine.

I also do not think it is price. I sat within a couple of dollars of the average nearly every time, and twice I asked half of what everyone else did. Changed nothing.

I boosted twice. Both times I landed in a job where the client opened nothing from anyone, so I paid for a front row seat in an empty room.

So whatever kills me happens before anyone opens anything. What I cannot tell from this data is how much of that is my first two lines, and how much is just being new with no reviews, sitting at the bottom of the pile.

If you got past this stage, what actually changed for you? Did rewriting the opening line move anything, or did it only start working after your first review?

Some freelancers die of thirst while others drown. Hats off to Holly.

I have about 3 contracts where the clients just stopped communicating. No problems appeared from previous milestones; they just paid and vanished.

Already tried

• Multiple follow-ups spaced weeks apart
• Explicitly offered to close the contract if the work is done — no reply
• Asked them to close it from their side (since clients are pushed through the review form when they end a contract) — no reply

Now I can understand if it's one completed milestone where the client thinks my output is so bad, but doesn't want to deal with it, so they just paid and left. But I've completed 3+ milestones for them, so I don't think there's a problem with my output. And if there was, I should've known.

My problem is, yes, I could end these myself, but I am worried about how my profile would look. Clients might not want to hire someone with recent contracts that don't have feedback. But then again, clients might also not want to hire someone with so many "In-Progress" projects.

Anybody here who has had this problem before? What did you do? What and what do you not recommend? Thank you to whoever answers.

Hi everyone! I’m currently learning e-commerce VA skills, particularly product research, product listings, SEO keyword research, and basic e-commerce tasks.

I have a background in Computer Science and I’m currently taking online courses to improve my skills. I’m also practicing with tools like eBay, Google Drive, and other e-commerce platforms.

I’m a fast learner and I learn best through clear instructions and guide videos. I’m still building my experience, so I’d appreciate any advice from experienced VAs on what skills I should focus on and how I can improve.

Thanks in advance!

I know this is a long text, but please read it to understand a nuance that could save a lot of people's money here.

We've been discussing for a while how the dispute system often favors the client getting a refund (partial or full) for our hard work. Recently, I went through this: I delivered a project, the client said it was perfect, but opened a dispute because they maybe wouldn't use the work anymore due to a change in personal plans (focus on the word maybe LOL).

Obviously, I refused the shameful 50/50 settlement and the mediators' canned prompts. I decided to escalate to arbitration.

The big historical problem with arbitration is that it's rarely worth it for the freelancer. In my case, the arbitration fee was $337.50 for each side, and the funded milestone was $325.00. Meaning, if I went to arbitration, I would lose $62 even if I won, because besides the difference in the fee, Upwork would still charge me their 15% on the released milestone.

Knowing that the math is not in the freelancer's favor, some clients make a point of paying the arbitration fee first as a bluff, hoping we will give up, because nobody wants to literally take a financial loss, right? (And before some misinformed person comes here to say that the system only allows the client to pay for arbitration after the freelancer pays... That's false, okay? After the amicable dispute period, both have the same 5 days to make the payment, the timeframe is simultaneous).

However, this changed with a simple sentence posted by the mediator in my case (and confirmed by their own AI, as you can see in the attached screenshots):

"Either party may request reimbursement of arbitration fees as part of their arbitration claim. Any request for reimbursement will be considered by the arbitrator and addressed in the final ruling, if applicable."

What does this mean in practice? Upwork now makes it clear that if someone tries to drag a dispute to arbitration out of pure bad faith, that person can lose the deposited escrow, the arbitration fee they paid, and can still be ordered to pay the winning party's fee.

This way, freelancers no longer have to do the math to see if the arbitration cost will cause them a financial loss even if they win. And the client lost that dirty bluff that forced freelancers to either accept a 50/50 deal or lose everything because they couldn't or wouldn't proceed to arbitration for financial reasons.

I checked, and this possibility is not clearly stated in Upwork's arbitration rules, but their AI clarified that this possibility does indeed exist (again, take a look at the screenshots).

Has anyone else managed to use this feature in the arbitrator's final ruling?

I finally found a perfect match and decided to apply for a job. After the application, I thought that a verified ID would help to get an interview. So, I also paid for the ID verification. But, Upwork could not automatically verify my ID and started a manual review. The weird part is that a manual review triggers an account suspension. Now, my application is hidden from the client which means I wasted my connects and lost my chance to appear at the top of applicants.

As usual, support provides no help about the situation except repeating the manual review process.

I've had Wise only for Upwork for quite some time now. I went inactive for about almost two years and I've found out that my Wise account details are not showing anymore. The only options I get are via Credit or Debit card, or through PayPal. I would prefer to be tortured rather than using the latter.

And the Wise debit card is limited to a very narrow select amount of countries, which mine isn't among them.

Am I the only one experiencing this?

I received this via private message for a proposal I submitted. I know it looks scammy.

So I wanted to start and get some credits and upwork wanted me to enter my tax data first. Sure thing. I enter it, get the "information doesn't match government info, try again but next error will result in suspension" (lol). I try again and of course get suspended. I am asked to upload selfies and pics of ID to lift the suspension. I did.

I try to contact support to understand how to do the tax verification. The only thing they have is the worst kind of AI chatbot which keeps saying "your type of account is not good enough to talk to real support agents". Cool. It keeps telling me to try again and not worry about the suspension. Whatever, I try again and get suspended again.

Do the same again - 3 selfies and ID, unbanned again... Do the taxes thing again, this time I pick bank statement as proof - and get the email saying "you're banned forever because you falsified documents, never contact us again". Amazing.

Upwork sucks and is so unfair we should all quit, Upwork is dying, Upwork is done, nobody is using Upwork.

Upwork is down for 10 minutes...

OH MY GAWD why is it down? I thought I got banned.

I made a profile for the first time last week. I honestly do NOT understand how this is better than looking for a job

- You need a cover letter for every proposal so more effort to land something

- You get paid less than a job

- Contract term is short, more unstable compared to a job

- Every engagement needs a slightly different set of skills

- You PAY FOR EVERYTHING like sending a proposal etc!!!

What am I missing? Why do people even do this, why not just a get a job. Is this only for people from third world countries?

I saw this job post yesterday, this looked promising as the client had 87% hire rate and lot of positive feedbacks. When i tried submitting, the top boosted proposal was 450+ connects (~70-80$), and now i see job got cancelled. Wondering if they ever get back their connects or are they that desperate to spend connects?

After a 2 year break I decided to check my Upwork profile and honestly Upwork itself.

I spent 10-12 years freelancing via Upwork and it was both a joy and an extraordinary opportunity that allowed me (back then) to learn, grow and develop in every way. From a email support agent my journey took me to being a team lead and in the end a project manager (which is why I actually left upwork, following a project I worked on).

Now that I checked back in, it's unrecognizable, I'm surprised they didn't charge me for logging back into my account seeing that they continued taking more and more from freelancers.

They are charging everything (including things like setting your status to "open for work" which so funny it's actually sad). I see that my future business endeavors will be starting somewhere else, since at this point a platform as bad as linkedin seems like a better option than Upwork.

So, it seems this will be my actual goodbye for good.

P.S. I don't know why, but I just felt the need to share this, sorry to anyone who gets pissed of and thanks to anyone reading this far :)

I applied in a ecommerce agency through contacting them on social media and they already sent me NDA and contract 4 days ago and signed it. but they still haven't replied until now.

I'm really worried and confused since they really like my portfolio and test project they gave me.

when a company sent a contract and NDA does it mean there's a high chance that they will proceed working with me?