UpworkReviews 2,128

You could work through UpWork for 10 years and contribute tens of thousands of dollars to their profit and they could lay you off forever in a heartbeat based on their policy (after 10 years) or based on a whim of your employer who falsely reports you. If you built your freelance business solely on UpWork platform YOU ARE SCREWED my friend.

UpWork is just another example of evil corporatism. The fact that they make money out of connecting workers with employers for hard cash does not make them any different from weapons producers or oil companies.

They represent the evil nature of corporatism. They care only about their profit.

I found my web dev on Upwork and now he works full-time for me. That's the good news, it took about five tries to find him and one was a pure scammer. It's a caveat emptor world and if you're naive you'll most likely get burned. That said, there is some strong talent on the platform. Key to getting full value is to move your provider to a private platform and avoid the fees.

I used Elance for about 8 years before Upworks bought them out. Platform seems about the same. For the record, I've had my most luck with Eastern European coders and have had no luck with Indians and Pakis. The Russians can be hit and miss, I sense the stench of scam when I work with most of them.

1. Too expensive. 20% on the freelancer's side + some % on employer side + 1% transfer fee + monthly payment
2. Can't upload files more than 20M in the 'submit job' form, although can upload big file in the chat.
3. Have to pay $3500 to quit Upwork with a client

Freelancer, Malek A, overcharged me for work that there is no way to check. Went on vacation in middle of job. Then when it came to testing his work took it offline and blackmailed me to only restore our server to test it if we pay full overcharged amount. Asked me to pay not on upwork but with bitcoin. Upwork customer support did nothing and took his side. The freelancer only had a couple of small jobs for little money, which were probably planted reviews. Got scammed but very dissappointed because upwork didn't do anything. Still lost a lot money that I paid directly through paypal because upwork won't ask back for money from freelancer. Never in my 70 years have I been treated so poorly by a company. See screenshot of my chat with customer support where they say they can't do anything.

Think you're able to rely upon freelancers' past client feedback? Think again.

From an upwork support agent: "Top Rated freelancers and agencies have the opportunity to remove feedback from one job so that it is not listed in their profile or considered in their Job Success Score. They can only do this once every 10 jobs had ended and after 90 days."

So my written feedback and scoring left for a provider was deleted by the provider. I wasted my time crafting my considered feedback, and now prospective clients to this supplier will be none the wiser.
What a JOKE upwork's feedback system is!

On a more minor note, upwork's practice of making you click on a button each and every time you click a provider's link to check their sample work is a frustrating waste of our time. Do upwork not know how the interwebs works?

Upwork doesn't understand that as a platform that connects freelancers and clients, they have a responsibility by referring freelancers to clients. When there is a problem with the quality of the service they provide, UPWORK will simply say that it is not their problem. It is like you take an UBER and the guy robs you or leaves you in the wrong city and Uber said "It is not my Uber's responsibility. If the driver didn't take you to your destination, you need to talk to the driver". How irresponsible is a company that doesn't understand their role in a commercial agreement? Please save yourself a lot of pain and use other services. Freelancers are great, but from time to time you will find a bad one. Just make sure you use the services of a great platform that takes their business seriously.

Like this service for the high-quality support and quick cooperation with the client. Yes, Upwork fees feel ridiculous at first, but the longer I use the system, the more I understand the need in place. Clients must verify their payment, they offer payment guaranteed jobs, and I am often approached by Upwork with jobs they matched me up with. The system also organizes my jobs, offers security. I'm doing well and am happy with UpWork and don't plan on switching platforms anytime soon.

I have very mixed experiences with upwork, no good ones for SEO, some
Lovely ones for a marketing adviser and photoshopping of images, but
Terrible for website design. Am in the middle of a dispute now, the
Designer was supposed to do design templates for 3 specific pages, and
The layouts, looked great. However his integrating was and still is a
Mess, affecting text and layout on all the pages, to the extent, that I
Am now having to spend hours undoing and re-doing all the work. And the
Upwork view..." it appears that no clear violation of our terms has
Been made"So sure, use them, but you are entirely alone if it goes wrong.

Hello Friends,
Here is a Hillary experienced with these fools. IT's a platform for Freelancers to compete Technically and Bid financially. They clearly respond that there are many people with same skills and wants to avoid compete.

More over they do not understand simple english. They need sophesticated words of technology to use, Heavy weighted Technical Terms.

Funny Part is people are selling approved accounts or paying money to get approved. This makes no sense of joining. This platform charges 20% first as Commission and later 10%.

It's better to avoid as this site is promoted by a UNION of particular platform to Diminish rival software companies and dominating on a single platform. A good programmer will understand the above concept well. Don't want to get drag legally.

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.

Dreadful company totally geared towards the clients rather than freelancers. They will suspend your account (especially if you have credit with them) with the excuse your skills don't match their clients enough... that could be the case with some people, but if you read the other reviews you will see it just ain't true for most.

$30 fee for transfers to bank accounts and 20% commission.

They don't have the balls to come to a site like this and address these issues because they know they're completely a sh%# company.

Give these guys a big miss and use Linkedin.

As an employer I have hired more than 10 freelancers on Odesk (now Upwork)- There are so many FAKE freelancers there!. There is no control from Upwork. I was interviewing a person for Voice over Artist. I wanted exclusively Canadian. All the people whom I approached and they claimed to be in Canada were FAKE.

Also recent disappointment. I hired an Arabic translator for a user manual. They guy puts the 12 page English manual in a software and spit out crappy Arabic translation and sends me out in 20 minutes... LOL. I refused to release the money in Escrow. Uprowk now claims that they have to write to freelancer and ask him to approve the refund! WTH is going on with you guys! Truly disappointed.

1. Allows Freelancers to log unauthorized hours and FORCE you to pay for work that you never asked for.
2. Allows those exact same Freelancers (who you have worked with for less than a single week) to leave you a one star review for pointing out their illegitimate logging of hours to steal your money.
3. Removes YOUR feedback on the thief Freelancer's account for pointing out they forcefully log work hours whether you ask for them or not, allowing them to continue their inexcusable theft.
4. Gives you a button to close your account, only to tell you "Your account cannot be closed at this time."

Inexcusable performance from a company that directly participates in stealing your money. Completely inexcusable. Avoid this site completely, if you can.

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