Upwork

It's been an outstanding experience so far. Upwork has saved my life literally. I'm from Nigeria, no work after University study, started working in upwork and it's been an awesome.

It's an awesome platform to extend your client base. You are not locked to your home markets, if you have some competitive advantages, you can find clients from every continents.

When you get your profile right, you get a lot of clients! It is the best platform for me and really did help in my Freelancing career. 100/10 for me.

To start with, let me clarify that I'm a top-rated Upwork freelancer and have been getting good business there. However, ever since they re-branded as Upwork (from oDesk), they have begun to suck in spectacular ways.

Their site is infested with bugs. Messages go missing all the time, it's no big deal. Notifications are not sent for new messages, payments, etc, it's kind of routine. Their site fails to load all too often. Worst of all, they have the lousiest IT and customer services people, who would just keep giving you lolly-pops without actually solving the problems. My last complaint has been pending with them for more than 2 months, and they have failed to resolve the issues.

This was their technical side. Now, coming to the business. Ever since they merged with Elance, they have become the lousiest place to get work. I mean, I'm among their top 10% contractors. Yet, I hardly receive one invite in a couple of weeks. I need to send at least 50 applications before I get a single reply. Frankly, I'm lucky to have made some long term clients in the times of oDesk. Upwork is utter trash.

Their CEO should get an award for screwing up a perfectly good website in a spectacular fashion.

They use every tactic to not provide valid information about freelancers. The website is so poorly designed that even the worlds worst criminal can scam people. Any company that knowingly designs a website to ALLOW, ENABLE AND PROPEL FRAUD - SHOULD BE SUED AND THE CEO PUT IN PRISON. What an evil enterpise and massive platform for theft. STTTTTAAAA WAY

I tried Upworks for several weeks. I am a highly experienced editor and proofreader. Out of probably 50 'bids' (I stopped after that) - which are a huge time consumer - I only received 2 invitations to interview. One was a scam, and the other requested a phone interview but never responded when I asked him to set up a time. How can ANYONE expect to make any money on this site? I applied for jobs asking for 'experts' but then stated they were looking for the lowest paying freelancers. Yeah- you don't get both. I can't believe that EVERY SINGLE job I bid for had lowest bid of $3-$4. Who the hell would work for that? I never bid anything less than I was worth (for a home position). Still searching for legitimate home work. Freelancer.com was even worse - non-stop 'invites' from companies in Nigeria, etc. I accidentally hit 'accept' on one, and Freelancer charged my account $60. Luckily, I had no credit card on file. Steer clear of these sites unless you want to waste hours writing bids from jobs you'll never get.

I understand it's a business and it needs to make money but I think the fees are too high for the majority of work that happens. For each freelancer, they take 20% for the first $500, then 10% up to $10,000 and then 5% after that. It doesn't seem fair at all and probably isn't worth doing little projects on. (Being cynical, I'm sure Upwork knew this would be the case and that's exactly why they made it so unbalanced)

I was on it for 2 years, had about 100 jobs, and spent over 10K and, except for only a few cases, most of the freelancers would have only gotten 80% of what I would have paid. In actuality, some of those jobs were probably lower than minimum wage. I'd rather do things on a platform that respects both clients and freelancers.

Also, for freelancers, be aware you will have an insane amount of competition. Unless you can do something which is very particular and a specialized skillset, be expecting to be severely underbid by people willing to do extremely low rates. (Less than $5/hr. Seriously)

This review site does not offer a review grade of 0 stars. Pity, as UpWork does not deserves a 1 star rating.

This platform is centered around exploiting freelancers and ruling out any means necessary to keep them quiet, controlled and working (biblical reference to slavery fully intended).
Desktop application that tracks time and work has an option to take regular webcam shots of you while working that UpWork recommends to use (I am not kidding).
Platform has full power over status of freelancers profile and can (and will!) block, inspect and pause any kind of work relationship with a client at any time.
Platform will occasionally inform you that your account is blocked until you prove your legitimacy over online talk.
Support forum is utterly controlled by trained moderators to keep all discussions in UpWork favor. Posts that intend to start out a discussion about improving/adding functionalities that benefit freelancers and clients will just get deleted without notice.
Your (freelancers) data is available to public simply to drag traffic to the site and you can not turn that off.

I have concluded 3 projects, got highest ranking on them, earned solid money and met great clients there. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the platform that aims to exploit and not develop, I still keep my profile only as a reference of work that I have done on it. Believe me, mine and yours time is precious. Don't let yourself be exploited here.

I am Top Rated with a 100% job success rate on Upwork. I have been very badly treated by upwork support and they have admitted that they have done me wrong, stil no resolving of the matter or any compensation, but the opposite.
Upwork do not care a bit about its freelancers and the company should be brought to their knees so they can appreciate making free money on other peoples hard work.
Tomorrow I will call the headoffice before proceeding with the legal matter.
STAY AWAY FROM UPWORK IF YOU ARE A SERIOUS FREELANCER

Right off the bat I knew there was a problem with the testing. First exam I got 4.5/5 and there was NO WAY I missed any question-- 40 for 40 spot on.
I ask them to SEE the questions I "answered wrong" Oh we don't administer the test. So I go and find out--on my own, that ExpeRating does the tests. It took forever to get to a live person, and their response was--the test questions follow what we teach IN OUR COURSE--forget if they are right or not--and YOU can PAY to take our course.
I am so outta here! MENSA, PHI BETA KAPPA obtw.

Recently my account was closed by elance saying that i am not getting any work from Elance clients recently. I argued with them on how i have qualified for many exams and their criteria of closing an account is just unfair. They need to check various parameters and not just one parameter of how much job someone has gained. Check how they are bidding, how they are interacting with the clients. Do they act professional and do the freelancer give more thoughts on their bids. When i argued with them that they need to re-think on their parameters on which they decide whose accounts should be closed, they simple said they cannot help. I found like i am dealing with some Freelancer.com representative, which i found to be so irrational that it was hard to deal with them.

Their linear way of closing down my account was just so stupid that i could not accept it and here i am to rant on that issue.

I am very disappointed as my profile has 2 client reviews with whom i worked 2 years ago. Simply closing an account without any advance notification that you account will be closed is so so bad. Did not expect this from Elance.