Never seen it to cross 1k in boosting, damn.

We’re paying for Connects, paying to boost proposals, and spending hours writing personalized applications. Meanwhile, AI algorithms influence how proposals are evaluated and shown to clients.
I’ve submitted 30 proposals and haven’t received a single view. Not even one.
What’s the point of bidding if clients aren’t even seeing our proposals?
Are we freelancing anymore, or just paying for lottery tickets?
Has anyone else experienced this recently? Is Upwork still worth investing money in?

I don't mean to insult or make assumptions but posting for a senior business analyst with a fixed 50$ price seems weird no?

Has anyone come across something like this before? Is this normal practice?

I'm asking because I'm new to Upwork and I want to avoid any misconceptions.

Hi,

There's no shortage of posts on the deteriorating freelancer marketplace. Rather than add another anecdote to an oversaturated market of complaints about market saturation, I wondered if anyone has looked at this from their data?

Much of their data is publicly accessible, so here's my quantitative look at the extreme proposal competition by geography and high-level job category.

Caveat: This is a point-in-time snapshot (October 22, 2026), not a longitudinal study. There seems to me no obvious way to query the data in realtime, and the analysis excludes direct hires and Enterprise projects, so consider this my personal exploration of their open marketplace. It'll be imperfect data in pursuit of a more precise understanding of just how effed things are.

Over a quarter of jobs have over 20+ active proposals. Certain domains like Data Science/Analytics, Web Development and IT index even higher. Clients in Oceania (Australia?) and Americas are dealing with higher bid concentrations.

Has anyone ever attempted to build a live dashboard scraped from their market data? Seems like this would be a useful tool to all freelancers to identify opportunities and see how this changes throughout the year.

I’m hiring a few freelancers on upwork and want to include a rider (like IP transfer in other countries, not showing raw files, requiring written release to show portfolio samples and waiting for the game to be released so they don’t do accidental spoilers). Are there any lawyers that specialize in riders for these types of platforms?

My Upwork account was suspended in August 2025, and I still don’t know the exact reason. At the time, I was travelling between the UK and Spain for a few months before returning to Canada, so I’m wondering if the location changes triggered a security/verification issue.

I’ve submitted a few short appeals but haven’t had any luck.

Hello everyone

Earlier today I received a payment through Upwork. As usual, I tried to withdraw the money right away using my computer. As it has happened before, it asked me to confirm my identity by sending a notification to my phone. When I clicked on “Send notification” I did get one in my phone. However, when I tried to open it, it showed a 404 message (attached SS). I waited for about 20–25 minutes and I tried again but the same happened. I decided to download the Upwork app to my personal phone (I had tried using the work phone) and repeated the process, but once again, when I tried to open the notification, I was shown the same 404 error. After that (and several hours later), I tried to withdraw the money using the app. The first time, it asked me for my password; after entering it, the “Next” button would turn gray  and not do anything else. I waited for a couple of minutes on that screen, restarted the app and followed the same procedure, just for the app to show me my security question. I answered it but the button turned gray again. I contacted support, and they confirmed there aren’t any restrictions on my account and that my identity has already been verified. However, they also said “there isn’t a documented workaround for this error” and that they would redirect me to the proper team to determine the next steps.

So,

a. Has anyone ever experienced the same issue?

b. If so, how long did it take to solve it?

I have my account set for automatic withdrawals every week, and the next one is due on the 27th of this month. Hopefully, the issue will be solved by then.

Thank you.

As you all already know the situation going on in Upwork where you spend tons of hard earned money on connects only to get ghosted by clients , fake jobs and so called availability badge ...on the other side upwork keeps making money out of freelancers situation

Its time we get united and boycott buying more new connects for at least some months this sub has 39k freelancers if only 15k freelancers start a chain of doing it we can still make a big change or at least put a pressure on Upwork in doing changes which are beneficial for freelancers ...they are exploiting Thier connect feature to earn big profit and in return freelancers get nothing the only solution or way to make them focus on our problems is by boycotting new connect buying which is one of the biggest revenue generater for upwork and that is in our HANDS !

START TODAY ! IT'S IN YOUR HANDS

LIKE , REPOST , COMMENT on this so it reaches more freelancers and to show support or tell you are in !

I started a new agency on upwork a few weeks ago, and couldn't get any work (may he I haven't applied enough) but the platform seems terrible rn. Do you think it would be reasonable to keep spending on it or not?

I have put $65 till now for membership and connects, and I feel like I should at least get one job that covers them, but I don't want to enter that trap of spending more money. Do you have any suggestions? And if I wanted to shift outside upwork, which place is best?

I recently started working and applying for jobs on Upwork (2-3 weeks back) and since then I’ve applied to 6-8 jobs (only those that I think I can give proper justice to).

But so far, just 1 Proposal Seen and none of the Other Proposal were even opened…I’ve selectively been applying to jobs with less than 10 applicants with a proper proposal document explaining how I’d approach their requirements…but no luck so far 😣

Understanding that my profile is Super New without any Upwork projects..I have tried to revamp my profile based on some projects from my Consulting background.

Attached below are screenshots of my profile, can some of you experienced Upworkers review it and suggest approach to improve the return rate on proposals?

Thanks in advance 🙇🏻‍♂️

This is what i see when i try to go to upwork website.... my account is working just fine on my phone.

This job https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~022113214582291891746 posted a job with malicious code . Be careful what you open

I came across an Upwork job posting that required 20 Connects just to apply.

176 freelancers had already applied.

Let's do the math.

176 applications × 20 Connects = 3,520 Connects.

At $0.15 per Connect, that's $528 worth of Connects just from applications.

But it gets even more interesting.

Look at the four freelancers bidding to boost their proposals:

• First freelancer: 400 Connects ($60)
• Second freelancer: 202 Connects ($30.30)
• Third freelancer: 205 Connects ($30.75)
• Fourth freelancer: 201 Connects ($30.15)

That's another 1,008 Connects, worth $151.20.

Total: $679.20 worth of Connects on ONE job post, assuming those four boosted bids are ultimately charged.

And guess what?

The client hasn't hired a single freelancer yet.

t's not even a fixed-price project with a guaranteed budget. It's an hourly job.

And the client's hiring rate? Just 33%.

So freelancers are spending real money competing for a job where the client might not even hire anyone.

Now suppose the client finally hires someone.

Upwork takes another cut from the freelancer's earnings, anywhere from 0% to 15%, depending on the contract.

The client also pays a marketplace fee of up to 7.99%, plus a possible contract initiation fee.

And when the freelancer finally withdraws their hard-earned money, there may be withdrawal charges, currency conversion costs, and applicable taxes.

Think about that.

You pay to apply.

You pay extra to get noticed.

You pay a percentage when you finally earn.

And you may lose more when you withdraw.

Meanwhile, 175 other freelancers could walk away with nothing after spending their Connects.

I understand that Upwork is a business and needs to make money.

But there's a difference between charging for a service and building a system where freelancers keep paying without any guarantee that a job will ever be awarded.

At what point does Upwork stop being a freelancing platform and start becoming a business built around selling job applications?

What do other freelancers think about this?

It's not all doom and gloom.

So I've been meaning to make an intro post since I joined about a month ago. Let me start off by saying that I also joined Upwork right around then too. 

A little background: I work in strategy. Deep dives into businesses to understand where the bottlenecks are, why growth or sales, or traffic have stalled. I diagnose, I clean up the stacks, I implement the change and follow through until the needle moves again. 

My mentality is, and has always been, less is more. 
Less platforms to manage, less clients to focus better, less hours to properly recharge. 

I started over 15 years ago in translations & copywriting. Moved to websites, design, ads, funnels. This has lead me to IPO's, building investor pitch decks alongside CEO's not only in copy and design, but full marketing plans and projections of revenue. 

I've also taken breaks in consulting along the way, working on personal businesses, got into real estate, publishing, and more. Each time I came back to it, the offer was renewed. 

-----

Now that we have a bit of a profile understanding, I wanted to share my experience on Upwork so far. What's stopped me from making this post up until now is the general vibe and hurdles freelancers are facing on the platform, at least from the posts I came across. But I deeply think that this might help shift and uplift.

I landed my first client before my profile was complete. I hadn't had time to rebuild my portfolio. I signed up, added a proper photo and description, filled in some skills, and started browsing around just to get a feel for the platform. 

2 jobs caught my attention out of the gate. I figured I'd send 2 proposals to go through the process. 

I did outbid everyone on one of the jobs. It's a business expense, I can write it off. 1 interview later I was hired on a high ticket initial contract. 

I stated plainly in my proposal that my profile was just created, that I would be adding portfolio items, and that I'd love an opportunity to have a chat. I didn't quote an amount in my proposal, I listed all the things that I thought would make us an incredible match. It was targeted, it was specific. It spoke directly to my skillset and the niches I've got extensive experience in.

-----

So now two things jump out at me:

1- I understand the platform's changed drastically over the past years. People are pissed about the pay-to play, lower rate competition, increasing fees. And in a way I get it. I did have an Elance account at some point in 2009. There's been an absolute shift and if you read up on investor communication, they're openly moving towards an elitization with higher ticket and margin services to enterprises. They have aggressive targets, and are effectively sacrificing volume for corporate value. It is right? That's beside the point. It's just what's happening. 

2- I would tend to see it as an invitation to upgrade skills, understand where the money is, and get myself to that level if, and only if, I wanted the platform to be a part of my onboarding strategy. Bidding on 50$ jobs is nonsense. And it's not a viable model on Upwork. 

If you only do graphic design and wait around for a brief, you are competing with AI and global price dumping. The shift is simple: move upstream. Become the strategist who handles both the business positioning and the design layout from iteration to launch. Sell outcomes, not assets.

-----

All that to say that being self employed isn't the easy road. And you'll always do yourself solid by continuously learning and upgrading your skills. Invest in yourself, write off business expenses the way you're supposed to. You need to be able to adapt whether it be to platform shifts, AI becoming a part of the workforce, and so on.

You don't grow by being comfortable, you grow by putting in the work it takes to stay on top. 

I'm really not here to insult anyone, although I'm very much aware I'll get downvoted if read at all. But I thought a different perspective could be an interesting new conversation opener. 

I acknowledge that I also had a fair amount of luck, and that this is not the experience of most new Upwork users. But it mostly boils down to my evolution as a consultant, understanding the market, fixing up a proper profile photo and description because first impressions are everything, and you only have 3 seconds to hook your prospects. 

Clean up your presentation, upgrade your skills, charge more, hook clients with the problems only you can solve. ♥

And good luck to all of us!

I'm going back to Upwork for applying and wonder about the market right now.

Its been 1 year I started working with Upwork , and in this One year a lot of updates came , specialise profile gone , added $3 on withdrawal (If you have a US bank account and your tax info in not From USA) Fees raised to 10 to 15 percent on jobs ,

Applying to jobs and winning it getting harder , every month buy $30 connects (15% fees included on that $30) sometimes more than that , Overall I feel like if they reduce fees to at-least 10% it will be better,

I am running an Service based agency mainly through upwork and have 7-8 accounts with great earning so far but from last 6 months things are going into worst direction, My team is entirely free. Any suggestions to survive this pandemic ?

logo.rar

Upwork has been a rough place for quite some time now. I was actually relieved to find this subreddit and realize it wasn't just me. 😂

I've seen a lot of people deciding to leave the platform, and I get it. At this point, it feels like freelancers are being milked for Connects. Every other month there's another feature that costs Connects, but that doesn't necessarily translate into more proposal views, interviews, or hires.

I've felt the sting myself and seriously considered moving on.

But before I throw in the towel, I'm going to give Upwork one last shot.

I'm doing some research into what's actually working on the platform today, testing different approaches, and trying to look at Upwork through a different lens. Maybe the platform has changed enough that the strategies that worked before simply don't work anymore.

I want to figure out whether there's still a viable way to consistently land clients here, or whether it's genuinely time to move on.

I'm going to document the experiment, share what I'm testing, what works, what doesn't, and the actual results. Good or bad.

For those of you still finding success on Upwork, what's working for you these days? And for those who've left, what was the final straw?

I’ve never seen an Upwork client with this much spent before. Just applied to one of their jobs and noticed $37M total spent, 3,567 hires, and almost 7 million hours billed.

They’ve been on the platform since 2010, but that still seems wild. Has anyone here worked with a client like this?

I received an offer and I want to accept it but I can't beacause it's this message. I have already reviewed the project details, I don't know where I have to go.

pdte: It's a fixed-price contract.

People who's profile are getting viewed by clients on upwork. how did you do it? What different things did you do to get your profile viewed and possibly get hired too 🤔 because I'm getting tired already of no profile viewing and no landing of gigs. 😩

For context, I'm in the web dev development niche, and I've just been seeing this crazy number of proposals.

I'm wondering: what are the strategies everybody else is employing to stand out and win clients in this changing scene of Upwork?

It never used to be this competitive, but now it's pretty crazy.

I received this email, purporting to be from Upwork, and the links appear to be showing the correct URL. Of course, I have NOT clicked on any links. I've checked PayPal and there's no such activity. Plus, I'm not even sure I understand what it's saying. Plus I don't think I ever signed up for Upwork, though I wondered if I might have a few years ago, and forgot. Anyway, this is the subject line:

Your Account Has Been Debited. If You Are Not Aware Of This Matter Contact Immediately Paypal .. To verify your 999 USDT transaction via PayPal, call 18207582651 invited you to Upwork

**I learned a hard lesson as a freelancer, and maybe someone here can relate.**

Recently, I was working with a client on a project. Everything was going well, and I was putting my time, effort, and technical skills into making sure the work was done properly.

Then, someone else approached him offering the same work at a lower price. The client decided to go with that offer, and suddenly, our communication stopped.

Honestly, it was disappointing. Not just because I lost the project, but because I had already invested my time and effort into helping him.

But it taught me something important: in freelancing, being good at what you do isn't always enough. You also need to find clients who value reliability, communication, and long-term results—not just the lowest price.

I'm an AI Engineer and Full-Stack Developer working on AI automation, machine learning, and web applications. I'm still growing, learning, and building my reputation one project at a time.

I'm sharing this because I'd rather build genuine relationships with clients who value good work than compete in a race to the bottom.

**For other freelancers and business owners: have you ever lost a client to someone offering a cheaper price? How did you handle it?**