If you are new to freelancing do not work here.
Experienced freelancers are dying on this platform.
Too many freelancers and not enough clients.
Clients are often scammers so be very careful.
Their ranking system will punish you and your Job Success score if you make "ANY" mistake. Once you are below 90% you will never get work again.
Their ranking system punishes freelancers if the client does not leave feedback - Your fault.
Their ranking system will punish you if there are any problems with a job.
Bad clients only need complain and Upwork will give them all your money back. Even if you did a good job and can prove it. You'll also be punished again.
Feedback from Elance jobs from 1-2 years ago will go against you if none was left. You have no control over this and you are punished.
The system crashes 3-5 times a week.
The message system constantly breaking down and if you miss a job offer, you are punished.
Wording on the site is done by non English speaking people.
English language - Masterful is considered the same as Native English?
New jobs are listed as Recency?
The CEO does not seem to have any idea what his people are doing to ruin this site.
Odesk used to be a good place to work. Upwork is very scary with all the hundreds of rules you MUST know.
Great freelancers with 5 years + experience cannot get jobs unless their rates are really low.
Clients are very cheap. $5 jobs are everywhere and mostly scammers.
Customer support people are not English speakers for the most part and can only copy and past canned answers.
There is no help for freelancers.
Clients do not know how to use this complicated platform.
Never work for a new client. It will cost you Job Success points.
The overall experience is awful and very stressful and very difficult for new people.
I would never recommend this site to anyone.