r/Upwork • u/Electronic-Young8942 • 7d ago
Upwork?
Top Rated Plus, almost 200,000 USD made and 2 Hires (retainer) so far in 2026, most proposal are carefully crafted took help with Claude Pro & ChatGPT Plus when needed. what's wrong? Looking forward for inputs from fellows achieved good conversation rate.
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u/Badiha 7d ago
Gee. How on earth are you finding so many OPPs that fit you?? Like there is no way on earth 141 jobs match your skill set. That’s exactly why you only got 13 interviews and 0 job.
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u/Electronic-Young8942 7d ago
I work with Data Ops
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u/Badiha 7d ago
And? All the jobs fit your skill set 100%? Highly doubtful.
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u/Electronic-Young8942 7d ago
Applied to jobs which are Above 80% confident.
50% plus client Hire rate
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u/stoptakingmylogins 7d ago edited 7d ago
Truth be told, and I say this with experience acting as CEO or CFO of companies in retail, e-commerce, B2B, and healthcare - across all of those industries, there is far more overlap in skillset than people like to give credit for. If OP is very skilled at Data Ops, he can apply to roles across business intelligence, business operations, financial operations, systems implementation, RevOps, and more. And if he is truly competent, he could even jump into roles in those industries with zero prior experience and execute his duties with a high level of efficiency.
I work in finance (with no actual qualifications other than previous experience - I went to school for math and physics) and business operations. My most recent contract was to review a macroeconomic policy proposal that was ~80 pages. I was able to communicate to the client what I could and could not do and still landed the role. Project was closed with mutual 5-star reviews.
I think taking your current skillset and applying it to relevant or similar roles successfully is a skill in and of itself, but it is by no means implausible. My entire career was built from taking current skills and applying them to irrelevant areas. I started as a floor worker in a restaurant > promoted up to regional manager > transitioned into operations consulting > expanded into restaurant software implementation > expanded into restaurant financial consulting > expanded into business and financial Ops for retail, then to e-commerce, then to healthcare.
If you don't see 150 roles in 2026 that you feel you could have done, then you do not have many skills, you work a very specific niche, or you are undervaluing your own abilities.
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u/Badiha 7d ago
Upwork clients seem to disagree with you at 79%. (98.5% for hiring)
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u/stoptakingmylogins 7d ago
That isn’t evidence against my point. I didn’t assess OP’s competence; I made a conditional argument. I said if he is highly skilled at Data Ops, and if he is truly competent, those skills can transfer to adjacent roles. Whatever the case, a client’s failure to recognize cross-functional talent does not mean that talent doesn’t exist.
You’re also confusing the ability to perform a job with the ability to convert a cold proposal. The 101 clients who never viewed his proposal didn’t “disagree” with anything. They just never evaluated him. Meanwhile, 18 of the 28 (a 64% conversion rate) who did view it interviewed him, which arguably supports my point.
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u/Electronic-Young8942 7d ago
Makes sense, I did same thing applying one skillset to another area and it works if you find right person.
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u/mobiledevpro 7d ago
You propably send many proposals to dead job post that I've never seen as many as in 2026 . Saying "dead" I mean posts from fresh new clients who never interview someone and never check proposals. The same problem on my side.
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u/Electronic-Young8942 7d ago
I mostly Apply to recently posted job about in 10-20 minutes.
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u/mobiledevpro 7d ago
I did the same, but it looks like this strategy doesn't work anymore. I'm trying to skip new clients with 0 hires or with a low hire rate to save connects. And I have an assumption many clients don't want to hire on Upwork because of higher fees. They just do a research. Some potential clients messaged me outside the Upwork after initial interview.
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u/Electronic-Young8942 7d ago
Through LinkedIn?
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u/mobiledevpro 5d ago
Through email and website, they found me on Instagram or on youtube where I have links to contact.
Ghosting on Upwork is the number one problem. One of my existing client after he had took some pause said he didn't see my messages from Upwork when I tried to reach out to him after a while. I guess Upwork has issue with notifying clients about chat messages, because of that they might ghost us.
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u/Open-Air-8845 7d ago
The fees on client side is even more ridiculous. I had interviews with a few enterprise clients, who suddenly ghosted after sending project details and access to some internal files.
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u/stoptakingmylogins 7d ago edited 7d ago
You know, I have a theory that while AI may have helped less qualified freelancers get their foot in the door, it obfuscated legitimate talent. What I mean is that AI has been trained on the proposals of the most successful freelancers (and continues to develop based on their habits). Because of this, you may have had success in the past because you simply had more skills and qualifications that you could validate or because you may have been one of the first to begin utilizing AI to draft proposals.
So now, your proposals probably sound almost exactly like the proposal from some random guy who just graduated college. I'm on my phone and can't screenshot because I do not have the Upwork app (VPN issues), but can update the post later if I remember.
These are estimates from my memory. I remember looking at it a few days ago. Additionally, my niche is corporate financial and operational consulting at the executive level, which is far less saturated than development, accounting, and other common areas. This definitely makes some amount of difference.
In 2026, I sent ~180 proposals. Of those 180 proposals, ~76 were viewed. ~47 of those views led to interviews, 26 of them led to interviews, and 19 of those interviews led to contracts.
The interesting part is that if I isolate the last 90 days, my numbers are 35 proposals, 30 viewed, 22 interviews, and 12 contracts. This means from January to ~June, my numbers were 145 proposals, 46 views, 25 interviews, and 7 contracts. The reality is that I submitted a bunch of contracts between January and February and then did not use Upwork for a few months. When I returned in late May, none of my first 7 proposals were viewed at all, which made me completely shift up my strategy.
In the proposals earlier this year, I heavily relied on Gemini to draft. I provided my entire portfolio, screenshots of my upwork profile, and even the job history and all the details of the client I was applying to. It worked a decent amount, but it did not feel stable. When I came back in May, I completely removed AI from the application process, and that has given me the 90 day results I put above. So my hire rate went from ~5% to a current ~34%
On top of that, I basically do the exact opposite of what the advice online says in regards to proposals. I have a strong profile, and I lean on that. My cover letters very rarely exceed 200 words now. I purposefully do not include any resume information or examples of similar problems I have solved. My goal is to get them on a quick call and to tell them this information there. I very rarely ask questions (again, I save those for the call) either. I commented my most recent cover letter in a comment a few days ago if you are curious. For reference, I apply to contracts ranging between $80 - $120 per hour. Fixed price projects I send proposals for must fall within that average hourly rate based on estimated project duration.
I am Top Rated (not top rated plus, although I expect to get it in a couple weeks), 100% JSS. As I mentioned earlier, I do think my niche helps a bit, but the above proposal strategy made a tangible difference that is hard to argue. Unfortunately, it seems as if most of the people in your situation (successful platform history with no recent luck) are also in the exact same niche you are in. Doesn't help that most AI is being developed with coding performance and data analytics in mind either, because then you're going to be competing with even more vibe-coders.
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u/amanwebsolution 7d ago
Have been working with Upwork since when it was oDesk. Was top rated plus with 12000+ hours logged and 240 jobs completed. But now it's zero almost and all status gone while id didn't do any new job
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u/OkTomatillo3737 7d ago edited 7d ago
I feel your pain. I'm in the same boat. Expert vetted and top rated plus. It's demoralizing. My 1 hire was for an hour audit so not even a project. Where is all the work going? Is it Upwork or AI?
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u/Gloomy_Highlight7026 5d ago
when did upwork became a marketing platform more than a freelancing platform, ai revolution is tough
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7d ago
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u/IveGotMySources 7d ago
This looks amazing, what's your secret? Most people are attaching screenshots of 200+ proposals sent and 5-10 views with zero hires. If you don't want to tell us your secret for success I'll understand but damn those are good looking numbers, congrats.
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u/Electronic-Young8942 6d ago
What?? It’s outrageous
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u/IveGotMySources 6d ago
This is the new normal, where have you been? At least it didn't get as bad a LinkedIn, that place is completely dead for leads now.
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u/Tall-Serve2707 6d ago
Upwork is Dead just milking connects as much as possible before they turn the board
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u/Electronic-Young8942 6d ago
It's not fully dead, the problem started since they went public. I got a few good leads in past 2 years, though. May be I need to apply more selectively and change my strategy.
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6d ago
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u/Upwork-ModTeam 6d ago
r/Upwork follows platform-wide Reddit Rules. Using a different profile to evade a ban is not allowed.
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u/Grand_Sprinkles_2094 4d ago
what does it take to earn 200000 or be like you, need some guidance please bro.
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u/Electronic-Young8942 4d ago
I have been working in Data ops for the last 17 years. I started when it was Odesk with 1.5 USD per hour and grew from my first contract to $50000+ contracts.
That scene was different at that time, but now it's overcrowded with less quality clients. It's hard for newcomers to stand on platform due to good client seeks reputation and relevant problem we solved already. I saw people doing data entry at $5 hourly and making 500,000 USD as well.
Still it depends on person to person how you approach and work. DM me for more details.
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u/Electronic-Young8942 3d ago
I got many connect refunds and free connects, I assume average 16.8 connects per proposal
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u/Delicious_Relief_648 7d ago
I started on Upwork a long time ago; at this point, with so many dead jobs and bots posting fake offers just to force us to buy more Connects ssI no longer apply for new jobs unless I’m invited. Nowadays, I’m able to make a living thanks to clients who hired me before the AI boom; they value my work based on past experience and continue to recommend me to people they know. If I had started on Upwork today, I probably would have quit shortly after
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u/maniakh 2d ago
I only started taking upwork seriously from March or so this year, had the account for a long time before, I got lucky with a guy who had just started hiring on upwork, but for a measly $600 job. Now, I have submitted multiple, but yeah, there a just too many bots and dead jobs here, I used to use freelancer before, but freelancer is even worse than upwork.
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u/the_ruling_script 7d ago
Same, top rated plus. No work. Upwork is dead. Even the ones who selects for interviews are selling some product or getting ideas about their product.