Upwork

Upwork is a great place to test your skills. Opportunities that Upwork gives you, basically can change your life. I am a real example of it. Started with small projects to move into bigger ones. Working on Upwork it was a life changer. Fees are fair and support is always with you.

Upwork makes life easier for the freelancer and the client by holding funds in escrow. It's free to sign up and you only pay a fraction of your earnings at the end of your job cycle. However, I must admit that it's highly competitive. You really have to stuggle for a while as a new freelancer. There are many talents on Upwork struggling to get the attention of good-paying clients. You just have to stand out from the competition.

My job completion score suddenly dropped despite all positive feedback. I figured it had to be some kind of computer error, so I emailed customer service.

One rep claimed it was from a job in 2015 I had agreed with the client to leave open for the possibility of more work.

Another rep claimed I HAD received negative feedback, but couldn't tell me which contract it was from or what the negative feedback was. (My profile shows zero negative feedback from clients.)

And the other reps pretty much ignored everything I said and just sent copy/paste generic responses.

And now, I just successfully completed another contract yesterday and received a full 5-star positive review from the client, and guess what? Job completion score remains the same!

All of this for the OUTRAGEOUS 20 PERCENT we pay them as freelancers! What a joke! I gave them countless opportunities to make it right, they haven't had any interest in doing so.

Upwork is a complete is sketchy... Be careful...

They claim that you are liable if you pay without the reviewing the work, yet they allow freelancers to ask for deposit before starting work.

One freelancer took my deposit of $1,710 and did not provide any work. They basically stole my money. I complained to upload and disputed with my bank. In the end, my upwork account was suspended and the freelancer is still working on upwork waiting to scam someone else.

I have never seen that Upwork user service rules or what ever they call it until I had my dispute, then they sent it to me.

There is absolutely no protection. On top of that, the freelancer started threatening me for no reason. Yet Upwork is ok with this, unbelievable.

I went through the process of creating a profile only to be informed afterwards that they were saturated with profiles of my type and not accepting more. Its annoying that there was no mention of this possibility when I set out to make the profile and that they even had me browsing jobs to get me excited to finish the profile. Then, after receiving the rejection email, they continued to send me emails about making my profile the best and finding the best jobs. So more annoyance heaped on after having wasted my time.

Working with Upwork helped me grow both my network of clients and helped me reach my long-term dream of having a successful agency, they have a huge number of clients that fits my niche and that's super awesome.

The Upwork marketplace has been a driver of job opportunities and economic empowerment, much more noticeable at this time of health crisis caused by COVID-19. It is an excellent place to work / collaborate and create economic sustainability for everyone.

There are dozens of job sites for freelancers, but in my experience, Upwork is THE BEST. Not only is it easy to use, but they do an amazing job protecting both freelancers and clients. As a freelance Writer and Editor, I only get clients through Upwork, meaning Upwork is my main source of income and because of how their site is set up, I have been able to make a decent living off of it. They set reasonable fees and even more reasonable policies which ensure all members (both freelancers and clients) are safe and treated fairly. When money is involved, you always have things to worry about, but Upwork helps to quell some of those concerns and gives you the best opportunity to showcase your skills and find meaningful collaborations. I always refer family and friends to Upwork because it simply is the best way to get paid for your talents.

In general it's ok. I only once had an issue with them because there was a misunderstanding on their side. I logged in from a different location. They asked me to confirm it was I. I did. And then they sent me a message asking to change our headquarters location to the one I am working from. I work remotely. From home. My house is not an office. And I don't want anyone to think that our office is located in a different country because it's not true. I suppose this website is all about freelance jobs and I don't understand why they were so surprised. Moreover, each time I received a message from a different operator (usually you talk to just one). That was strange. And one of them, thankfully, was smart and stopped this nonsense, because the previous ones suspended our account for no reason and didn't cared about my arguments at all. Looked lke they didn't even read my messages.
That's good they care about safety, but there's no need in overreacting.

I've only gotten a couple of jobs--in three years time.

The thing is, sites like Upwork are a race to the bottom. The latest rejection was for a higher-end photographer who wanted to pay $3/image for fairly advanced Photoshop editing, and that's one of the highest rates I've ever seen (when I get feedback, it's from people looking to pay $0.50-$1.00USD/photo.) I won't say who it was or what kind of images it was, but it's the sort of thing that people typically charge a lot more for, and for a session that runs in the thousands of dollars.

Well, that's it. I give up. I could make more money on Fiverr, and that's just sad.

Upwork is that platform you can use to improve yourself and your ability to pitch and write proposals. It's a really competitive space so it'll challenge you to improve yourself to be able to get your proposals accepted and subsequently get hired by prospective clients. The only downsides are having to pay for connects and the Upwork service fees. I once got paid $10, for instance, by a client but I ended up getting just $7.0.

We posted a project on Upwork over 4 months ago. The freelancer did not perform and refuses to refund the money stating he spent it and offered a payment arrangement. Upwork did not protect us instead replied that it is too late to dispute the charges, too late because the freelancer strung us along for months promising to work harder. We lost 4 months time and $4,500.00 plus the pending legal fees to fight it. Upwork has all the factual evidence and will not hold the freelancer responsible. I was scammed by the platform, we trusted the ratings and never expected to be victimized as we have.

Good luck to you if you hire through UpWork. Once you are set up to pay your freelancer and money changes hands, it's GONE. UpWork will not give you a refund, even if the freelancer overcharges for the work done, conducts themselves unprofessionally and compromises the security of your website. UpWork says that unless the freelancer agrees to a refund, there is nothing they can do. So why use UpWork? I am not sure, as you'd be just as well off to throw your money at someone on the street corner. There is no protection against unskilled, unprofessional freelancers on UpWork.