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 have skills in AutoCAD drafting and modeling. Is it realistic to earn money on Upwork in 2026 by doing drafting work, and how should I get started? Can this become a primary source of income, or are there alternatives and other freelance platforms? Also, I’m from Kazakhstan, and my English is only at a basic, limited level.

i keep seeing these on the main page and they're mostly talking to someone but it's not an invitation or anything

If you could give me just one important piece of advice for succeeding on Upwork, what would it be?

In the past year or so, I've seen several people comment that Upwork has denied payment protection on the grounds that memos were insufficient. A couple have even included screen shots of their memos.

This hasn't happened to me and I have no idea how common it is. I'm calling it out because frequently people come to this forum all wound up about suing Upwork for something or other and those claims are virtually never viable.

If in fact Upwork has established a pattern of denying payment protection arbitrarily and in bad faith based on inconsistent assessment of quailty of memos, that might be a viable claim. While Upwork users have waived their right to pursue class actions, rights of entities like the California AG are not affected.

struggling

Is anyone else noticing fewer decent mobile app development jobs lately? And whenever a good $10k–$20k project shows up, proposals explode within minutes. Just saw a $20k mobile app job with 204 proposals in 8 hours, zero interviews, zero invites, and the client was active 3 hours ago. I've seen similar high-budget jobs sitting for days with barely any client engagement. Are automated bidding tools and agencies flooding everything, or are clients just posting jobs without serious hiring intentions? Are you guys still getting views and interviews, or is Upwork genuinely getting worse?

I'm freelancing on Upwork from time to time, but registered there for about 6 years. I'm doing mostly browser automation, scraping and all that kind of stuff. Want to share what happened and ask if anyone had the same issue and maybe has managed to get a decision like this reversed.

What happened:
I had an hourly contract, 45$/hr with the client. Before starting I gave a rough estimate of 5-10 hours for the simplest approach. During the work we agreed to switch to a more complex stack which added scope. All time was tracked with the desktop app (not manually, screenshots with memos). Every segment had a memo describing what exactly I was doing (development, testing, integration, etc., etc.). After ~11.5 hours the client wasn't happy that it went past the original estimate (which, I emphasize, was made for the simplest approach). We negotiated in Upwork messages, and he explicitly wrote that he'd close the contract and pay for the full ~11.5 hours. I delivered the source code and he ended the contract, leaving 2-stars review. Okay, I can live with it, I've seen douchebags in my life before.

But next, after ~1.5-weeks review and pending period, today, when the payment was due, I got an email from Upwork saying the client's payment was unsuccessfull and my hours didn't qualify for hourly protection. Upwork reasoned it with "insufficient memos" and the full amount was reversed.

No one opened a dispute, nobody asked me anything, the client has the source code and Upwork basically just robbed me, with a nice suggestion to "contact your client for a bonus payment".

What the actual f***? How to deal with it? And, honestly, why the f*** I'm paying all these fees for? When client is good person - I won't face any issues with him, so the Upwork not needed in that case. If the client isn't so good - Upwork won't do a shit to protect me and my earnings, so it is not needed in this case either.

I've been working with an employer for the last 3 months, moved countries to work closer.

He is a work maniac, makes people work over 12 hours per day, I'm on a 60hour per week contract (although I work 12-14 hour days). He offered a direct company contract with Visa sponsorship (in the EU) and it's good money so I accepted coming over, I'm still working uder upwork though.

He's the worst manger I've ever had in my life (I worked in corporate for over a decade). everyone in the company fears him. He screams, curses and fires people on a daily basis, it's a VC funded startup so there's lot of pressure on being profitable which he unloads on anyone who is close.

He recently hired some high performers, didn't like that they were not willing to bow down so he fired them, then he put a negative review on their upwork. Since it's a relative big payout, this affected their score bigtime. I'm afraid of quiting and getting the same review whcih could affect my performance.

Does Upwork have some type of dispute system where freelancers can prove the toxicness of this working relationship? I started recording our interactions where he curses, screams etc, to have some type of evidence for later. Does anyone know what can be done? Any other suggestions on what I should collect?

I can end the contract and move back home easily.. But i'm trying to see how I can challenge the negative rating that will come for leaving.

Am I in for a rude awakening here? 😂 I’m putting together TikTok ads packages and could use a sanity check.

For anyone with relevant experience, I'd really appreciate feedback. Been working in the field for 17 years, but I'm new to Upwork.

Here’s what I'm considering, per month:

• $1,500 for ads management, creative briefs and reporting.
• $1,900 for the above plus five video edits using supplied footage.
• An extra $600 for creator sourcing and coordination.

My contractor budgets would be $400–700 for management, $100–250 for the five edits, and $200–250 for sourcing. I’d hire through Upwork, Fiverr or similar platforms and handle client communication myself.

This would cover one brand/ad account, driving sales to their website. Ad spend, creator fees and sending products to creators would be separate. Platform fees and our own management time aren’t included in those contractor budgets.

Do those budgets seem realistic for experienced contractors, or am I way off base? And are the client prices in line with what people actually pay on Upwork? What monthly ad spend would make sense for these packages?

Feel free to push back on any of it. Firsthand examples would help.

Hourly contract, manual time enabled. The work is judgment-heavy: deciding edge cases, checking them against rules, revisiting borderline calls.

A lot of the real progress happens away from the keyboard: rewatching, letting a call settle, the drift of thought.

Active clicking might be half the hours I log. The rest is thinking that directly shapes the output, but looks like idle time on an activity tracker.

Recently a client was surprised by the total. Not a dispute, just "I expected fewer hours."

So, honest question: how do you handle this?

Do you bill non-active thinking time on hourly contracts?

Do you tell the client upfront how you work, or explain only if asked?

Have you moved this kind of work to fixed price or per-deliverable to avoid the conversation?

Curious where people draw the line.

Open for work? Sure, just pay 14 connects PER WEEK!!!!!!

I feel for webdevs, 95 proposals within 25 mins. And already up to 102 connects top.

Job posting? Shopify webdeveloper. Dang.

Am I the only one or should upwork start doing something about the supply/demand here?

I just saw a job posted less than an hour ago.

No budget or hourly rate, client history has only a few hires, already 50+ proposals and several bids of 350 Connects ($52.50).

How are freelancers supposed to compete with this? Is this normal on Upwork now?

I asked earlier about getting started, but realised I hadn't explained the bit I'm actually stuck on.

I'm a first-year IT student and I like working across a few different things. Research, spreadsheets, coding, design. I'd rather build up as a generalist than stick to one narrow service.

So far I've done two small client research jobs outside Upwork: a supplier search, and a comparison of service providers with a spreadsheet and short report. Both got five-star reviews. Nothing completed on Upwork yet.

My portfolio has spreadsheet clean-up with before-and-after files, source-linked research, a CSV-to-job-sheet tool, data analysis, documentation and form testing. Also some websites/browser tools, graphic design and 3D concepts. Personal samples are labelled separately from client work.

The profile leads with research and spreadsheet support at the moment, but that only covers part of it. I don't want to claim I'm an expert at everything either.

For anyone offering several services, how do you make that clear without the profile looking all over the place? Do you group the portfolio by service, by the problem it solves, or something else? I'm happy to tailor proposals to each job, just don't really want the whole profile boxed into one thing.

So, seeing how the platform has supposedly gone downhill in the last year, I was curious about how is it performing on "their" (the platform owners) side, and I did some deep research.

I found out they are nonchalantely admitting to their investors how they are making money off making the platform harder for freelancers.

I was wondering HOW can a company that is all about freelance work, earn its money if their freelancers are all on reddit complaining about how the platform is not working anymore.
Well, turns out they are actually making more money than ever, with the platform making increasing their revenue from 662,1 to 682,9mln dollars just in 2025, all while we struggle getting a job even if we worked for them for years with a success rate of 100%. In the VERY SAME YEAR their clients number (clients = people searching for freelancers) plummeted about 6%. (see source at the end of the post)

So how comes they are making MORE MONEY with LESS CLIENTS? Well, of course, thanks to us, the freelancers. Why are the bots allowed to multiply on the platform and fill every job with proposals? Why are they indirectly promoting bot usage with their tools, like the MCP?
Of course because they DO NOT CARE about Job success or satisfied clients! All their business model is explicitly built around squeezing freelancers! More bots mean more proposals, more proposals mean the Boost prices inflates, the price to send a proposal inflates... And UpWork makes money! So much money they are happily reporting how they are scamming us all on their investor report, because the real deal is making investors happy, they are not at all interested in having a working and well built platform for freelancers. Work scarcity and proposal flooding, which is a problem for us freelancers, is actually a benefit for the UpWork company, so there's no surprise in seeing them do nothing about it / almost encourage it.

Sources: Just read their 10-K SEC report, publicly available if you search for it. I can't put the link here because of the sub rules. If a mod allows it I will edit the post and add the link, or put it as a comment.
In the documents, you can find references of what I am talking about in these places:

- Section 7 - optimizing our Connects pricing model
- page 37 - "increasing the number of Connects needed by talent to bid on projects..." blah blah blah
- page 44 results of operations

If you started on Upwork without reviews, what got you your first small job? I’m starting with remote, written work and trying to make my samples useful. Curious what actually helped someone take a chance on you.

Anyone from 3rd world country do you think Upwork is worth investing?

Hey everyone,

I recently noticed that GrokBot has an Upwork connector that can search for jobs and apparently submit proposals, send messages, and perform other actions on my Upwork account.

I'm considering using it to check for relevant jobs every hour and help me apply to suitable Flutter/mobile development projects on a daily schedule.

However, when I checked the permissions, they seemed quite broad. The connector requests access to private information, payment history, messages, contracts, proposals, and the ability to submit proposals and manage contract terms.

Before authorizing it, I wanted to ask:

1. Is this connector safe and legitimate to use with an Upwork account?
2. Could using it to automate job searches or proposal submissions violate Upwork's Terms of Service or put my account at risk?
3. Does anyone have firsthand experience using this connector successfully?
4. Would it be safer to use it only to find jobs and draft proposals, then submit everything manually?

I don't want to risk my Upwork account just to save time, so I'd really appreciate advice from people familiar with Upwork's API/MCP integrations or who have actually used this connector.

Thanks!

Hi All,

I have incorporated in Canada. I used to render services to one of the client on Upwork, who reached out to me back that he needs my service.

I was thinking not to go to Upwork route and rather start billing through my corporation, I do not hold any insurance to protect my corporation.

Question:
1. Shall I rather continue on Upwork under my corporation or shall I go billing directly under my corporation.

1. Shall I get contract signed from client to protect me legally.

2. Is it safe for me to continue under my corporation despite I have retained earnings.

Thanks

I only apply to jobs that are $100+/hr, with clients that have ratings over 4.5, and a few thousand spent already.

Over the last 3 months, the majority of clients that have responded to my proposals have ended up trying to scam me.

In addition, almost all of them are talking to me using AI and the things they’re saying don’t even make sense. Not addressing my previous message, just looping around and saying the same vague shit over and over that goes nowhere.

In all of 2025, using these same basic filters, I had zero instances of this happening.

I’m wondering if brand new client accounts should have a seasoning period before their reviews are counted as legitimate. I’m guessing they’re creating an account, giving themselves on another account 4-5 bullshit jobs and rating themselves.

If instead a new account had to wait 3-6 months during which it would show a “new account” badge, maybe allow freelancers to filter those out?

Sure, scammers will then just create a bunch of these and then leave them dormant for 3-6 months, but I don’t really know what else we could do.

I’ve been on the platform for 3 days, worked 2 small jobs, made $10, and then realized I paid $45 I believe for ~350 connects. I only have 200 connects left. I am no mathematician, but that math doesn’t seem great.

How do you best track connects, income earned, time spent, and make sure it all balances out to actually earning profit? Is this just a beginner issue?

Hi everyone!

I was just wondering where everyone finds clients/builds a recurring revenue stream as a freelancer?

With AI I find it really hard to do so, even though I'm specializing in the AI Visual field. (Traditional compositing and AI tools, UX/UI, so onn, apps and visuals basically)

I used to have 4-6-8k months when I used to apply on Upwork, but that platform itself changed too. Proposals more expensive, I used to be top rated plus, which back then was "claimed" to be top 3% of Upwork.

Since due to inactivity (private client and project) I lost that badge, no one considers to read my proposal regardless of how much connect I spend on it.

The point is, I'm finding it hard to niche down to a specific offer, and build a recurring stream around it, because I don't know where to find my clients.

I'd gladly give more context but that would need the link of my portfolio, and that would restrict the post itself.

I'm just really lost, and I'd be glad to set my life/career on track again, but whenever it comes to jobs I'm facing rejection after rejection, even though people with past of 20+ years used to tell that my skills are really unique and valuable.

I don't get it then, why I end up being here without no work, trying to do outreaches and everything, but no success.

Honestly feeling a little bit burned out, and I crave a bit of stability, at this point I spent so much time trying, I can pay only one month of expenses then it's game over.

I appreciate every help, to clarify I'm not looking for pity, but really I'm out of ideas.

Thanks in advance for everyone who takes the time to try and help me!

Best,
Adam