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Direct Contracts now live for all freelancers

lenaellis
Community Member

To help grow and support your freelance business on and off Upwork, we are releasing Direct Contracts to all Upwork freelancers today. With this new release, we have also expanded the functionality to now include multiple milestones. 

 

Direct Contracts allows you to enter into fixed-price contracts with non-Upwork clients, offering access to Upwork's safety and security features with greater flexibility for your business. Freelancers can access their Direct Contracts by clicking on the new paper airplane icon next to notifications or directly here.

 

Direct Contract Icon.png

 

Here’s how it works: 

 

On the Direct Contracts page, freelancers will see the option to start a new Direct Contract and a list of all existing Direct Contracts along with the status of that contract.

 

The steps to start a new Direct Contract are very simple:

 

1. Enter your client’s details

1. Create.png

 

2. Add either a single amount or create milestones with each amount

MM - Collapsed.png

 

3. Review and send the contract

3. Review.png

 

4. An email is sent to your client to begin

4. Confirmation.png

 

 

Your client will receive an email notifying them of your detailed proposal, along with some guidance on how the product works. 

 

Just like your other fixed-price contracts on Upwork, your client deposits project funds in escrow before the contract starts. You will see the status of the milestone listed below each one, so you will know when to begin working. When you’ve completed the contract or each milestone, you’ll request payment from your client. And with Direct Contracts, once they’ve accepted your request, the funds are released to you immediately, with no security period.

 

5. - Active - m1.png

 

As a freelancer, you’ll pay a processing fee of 3.4% of the total contract amount, but you won’t pay any freelancer service fees to Upwork. It’s easy for your clients because they won’t have to create an Upwork account.  And with payment protection and dispute assistance, you can work confidently with your clients who are not on Upwork. 

 

Let us know if you have any questions.

 

405 Comments
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Humayun,

 

Since your client and you will only be using Upwork for payments, any Direct Contracts will not impact your Upwork reputation metrics (for example your Job Success Score or Top Rated status). These contracts also will not be included in your other Upwork profile stats, such as total earnings, number of jobs, etc.

kalaani
Community Member

Hi,

Is there anyway we can this with our websites ?  

So that client can create a milestones or job from there side .

 

You can have new patent for this . Send me the my share . 😉  lol 

ari-bloss
Community Member

This seems to be just incentivizing all of my clients to leave upwork and DC with everyone because it's cheaper for both of us overall.

chitran8983
Community Member
Hi Upwork team,

Milestone has no due date so how can client know to meet deadline? And will we get the request payment instead of get paid?
aguilosjason
Community Member

Hi Kalaani,

 

Thanks for your suggestion!  We are in the process of creating a flow that will allow you to share a link with your clients (on a website or via email) that will give them the option to submit work proposal to you - so keep an eye out for that!  We have quite a list of features coming up for Direct Contracts that we hope will help in making your ability to work off-platform easier and safer - coming soon!

aguilosjason
Community Member

Hi Chi,

 

Thanks for your feedback - we are going to be updating the product in the coming weeks to give you the option of entering an optional due date with your contracts.  In the meantime, please feel free to add a due date or timeline in the description of your project - we acknowledge that it's not ideal, but we hope to have a dedicated feature for this very soon.

dsmgdesign
Community Member

Will I be able to add sales tax? 

 

Also, will you be expanding this for hourly contracts as well?

 

Before I can sending a contract, there's a checkbox I would have to check that says:  "Yes, I understand and agree to the Upwork Terms of Service, including the Direct Contracts Terms and Privacy Policy."  Does this mean if I send a contract to a client, and they accept, we're both now stuck with Upwork as per section 7.1 and 7.2 in the user agreement of the Upwork TOS? 

 

gaspardjack
Community Member

David S M wrote:

Does this mean if I send a contract to a client, and they accept, we're both now stuck with Upwork as per section 7.1 and 7.2 in the user agreement of the Upwork TOS? 


Of course not, you didn't identify or meet your Client on Upwork in this case!

kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi David,

 

In short, no. In order to use Direct Contracts, you must agree to the Upwork Terms of Service.  However, your agreement to the non-circumvention provision in Section 7 only applies to relationships that were started through Upwork. Since you are bringing your own client(s) with Direct Contracts -- meaning you already had a relationship with them outside of Upwork and they don’t have an Upwork account -- those provisions do not apply.

aguilosjason
Community Member

Hi David,

 

I also want to add that we will be adding the option for hourly contracts later this year.  And you can manually add sales tax to your amount, but unfortunately it's not itemized separately... it's an interesting idea and we can think through if and how we can do this for you.  Thank you for checking out our new feature!