Upwork

I am working on upwork since 5 years and enjoying my life as I wish to be.
A best place for for one who want to enjoy his life with good financial status.

Thanks

I'll give them 1 star because you can get projects without having experience. But the rest is out of this world. They perform certain check ups (fine by me) that have 0 relevance regarding certifications. How cand be relevant a 5 minutes chitchat on camera, with 0 question about one's background? Theeeeen comes the switch-to-private-mode actions even though i have ongoing contracts. Obviously, this would have never happened if i had a premium (paid) account - or at least this was their answer to my inquiery. And then comes the contract blockings, money blockings and any kind of blocking could cross your mind. I think it cand be alright-ish for some extra money, side projects, etc. If you can bear the harassement

Upwork looks polished, professional and "committed" to providing writers with excellent freelancing opportunities. Until, that is, you see the riff-raff that post jobs. Indeed you'll find out quickly that the vast majority of posters show total disrespect to writers and the writing profession by offering 1970's wages, yet expecting professional quality work. For example, it's very common to see job offerings of $. 01 per word, or $25.00 "total budget" for an 8 page article that would take most accomplished writers a minimum of several days to research, write and complete. I've seen ads for 35,000 word e-books paying a generous $75 (that's THIRTY FIVE THOUSAND words). Of course, anything less than $. 25 per word is basically slave labor, and even $. 25 is amateurish. Apparently, many clients posting jobs have no idea what writers should be remunerated or are simply taking advantage of newbies eager to get work. Additionally, many posters are foreign and seem to think that it's okay to stiff 'Western-based' writers. I'd avoid Upwork by any writer with credentials like I would a raccoon with rabies.

It's okay. There is a high volume of leads, but in my experience, most of those leads are not very good. I found few decent gigs to apply for, and declined most of the offers I received. Common reasons I had for either declining or not applying were: a) pay far below industry standard, b) client misunderstanding freelancer/vendor responsibilities (e.g. Conflating PR, marketing and sales), c) unethical requests (e.g. Writing product/service reviews for pay), d) requests that were so vague it would have been difficult to measure "success." I eventually worked with some very nice clients, but they had little to no experience working with freelancers, and I had to do a lot of hand-holding. Let's face it: Established companies and experienced freelancers typically find each other via word of mouth and do not need platforms like UpWork or its competitors. I'd say UpWork is okay for picking up an occasional gig, but the volume of subpar clients and the 20% cut (!) the platform takes from vendor payouts should discourage regular use unless you're just barely starting out.

Had many expectations regarding this platform, all of them were correct.
Literally could be life changer as it offers the opportunity to present your works worldwide.
Would recomend to everyone.

Upwork's initial big draw for me was its escrow service. Throughout my long and storied freelance writing career, I've had to deal with clients who tried to burn me by either taking forever to pay or by skipping out on their obligations. Upwork ended this headache. My clients nowadays are required to put into Upwork's escrow system the money they'll owe me. Unless a client has a legitimate, refund-qualifying gripe with my work, Upwork guarantees I'll receive payment (and usually within two weeks).

Of course, I've found other reasons to appreciate and rely on Upwork. The most important of these secondary reasons is Upwork gives me access to some fairly spectacular potential clients. Were it not for Upwork, finding these great prospects would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Also, Upwork made it easy for me to land many of these potentials, nearly all of whom went on to distinguish themselves as truly wonderful clients (you know, the to-die-for kind).

Another important reason I'm an Upwork loyalist is the platform's reliability. It seems like it's never down, so there's no sitting around and cooling my jets.

If you're a freelancer and you want to be successful, Upwork is a must-have. I strongly recommend it.

As a consumer using the site seeking to hire, I see many people complaining of not getting paid in a timely fashion. If its for the purposes of vetting a process of accountability to completed projects done right then its a must. Sorry, some "freelancers" are unaccountable for providing inferior work. We have come across profiles that are not real at times and at best borderline. Upwork needs to clean out these profiles, verify authenticity of work they reported to accomplish and create a rating system that is verified by work. We take notice of 5 star reviews from low total job costs ie those costing around 200 usd as spam and warning sign that internally someone is posting jobs and basically paying themselves with a small loss of fee, then basically rating themselves 5 stars. There needs to be a product verification of each rating posted. Warning signs, asking for positive reviews prior to a full and complete job. A 30 day wait period to post and revise within that time. As a consumer you need to do some due diligence outside of the platform, run searches on names and companies, call or email those who claim they have work done by the individual or company. For the most part Upwork and formally elance has been a great resource, and works well. However, due diligence is a big must.

I am having 4 years of exp in freelancing.
First upwork suspended my account. For profile picture. Then I uploaded my picture.
Second I tried and spend huge time and got 2 scammers and earned 15$ after huge ammount of time.
Thired upwork supended my account again and they said verify your account.
I uploaded the NIC card scan and they again asked me to upload...

Thank god its not my primary place of work. Wasted enough time. Unhappy

Elance is a haven for scammers and swindlers. I have been involved with them sporadically these past few months, and I have found that there are various loopholes that exist which make payment assurance rather sketchy. I had one client where the platform worked well, merely because the guy was ethical; however, I ran into another seedy individual and in short, it has been a complete nightmare in getting payment. We had clear terms, exchanged an agreement, I completed the work according to specification and time frames, had the work accepted, and then the guy decides he was not paying. I contacted the Elance dispute department, only to find out that they could not offer me protection because of how the job was set up - it was an hourly job instead of a fixed price. This absurdity now has put me out of receiving payment and was given a "tough luck" attitude from Elance.

In addition, bear in mind, that the people that post jobs on Elance are looking for CHEAP labor. A good majority of the freelancers post from third world countries and really drive the pay down overall for everyone else. Once you begin with such a low pay and then have to dish out the +8% fee for Elance you really feel like the place promotes slavery.

Do yourself a favor and stay away from this site.