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Faster payouts for hourly contracts

lenaellis
Community Member

We have heard from many in our community that you need your earnings faster, especially now. Today, we are happy to announce that all Top Rated freelancers and agencies working on hourly contracts are eligible to receive their funds five days earlier. This is because we are eliminating the security hold on their payouts. 

 

For Top Rated agencies and freelancers, the earnings for hours that you worked last week will be available to manually withdraw this Friday. You will see a notification under your bell icon and receive an email about the updated payment schedule for your hourly contracts for this week. 

 

Because this is for Top Rated agencies and freelancers, the early release of funds will depend on when you currently have the Top Rated badge. If you lose or earn the Top Rated status during this time, your payment schedule will be adjusted to include or exclude the security hold.


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How does it work?

As long as your client’s billing method can be charged successfully and they don’t dispute your hours, we will apply their payment to your Upwork account five days earlier than before if you are Top Rated. You can then withdraw the money anytime you prefer by clicking here and choosing “Get Paid Now.” Note: If you have an automatic payment schedule set up,  this will not adjust the schedule, so if you want your earnings sooner, you also can use “Get Paid Now.”

 

Why are we only rolling this out to Top Rated freelancers and agencies?

We know that many of the talent on Upwork would benefit from receiving their earnings faster. However, during these unprecedented times, changing our policies also creates a higher risk of fraud. Due to the potential risk, we are initially rolling this out to the marketplace’s most successful freelancers and agencies—those who are Top Rated. In the future, we will consider expanding this to other freelancers. 

 

Why do we have a 10-day wait in the first place? 

There is an inherent risk in payment processing, driven by the potential of fraudulent people, disputes, and chargebacks. We also need to give clients time to review their freelancer’s billed hours and project progress before payment is released. But in these unusual times, we understand how important it is for you to get payouts as quickly as possible. As a result, we are willing to take on additional risk and remove the security-hold period for Top Rated freelancers and agencies so you can get your money five days sooner.



Will this be available only during COVID-19?

While we plan to continue the practice after the COVID-19 pandemic ends, we will be monitoring the impacts of this change. 

 


Why is this only available for earnings on hourly contracts and not fixed-price contracts? 

With faster payments we decided to focus on the removal of security holds from hourly contracts first because the majority of contracts on Upwork are hourly. We understand faster payments will be a benefit for all contract types and we plan to explore making fixed-price payments faster in the future.


Upwork is dedicated to our community, and all of our teams are focused on keeping independent professionals working. Please visit our Help Center article for more details and let us know if you have any additional questions.

847 Comments
2a05aa63
Community Member

I've received mine 🙂

820f8ea1
Community Member

Does this apply to Rising Talent?

ahsanu555
Community Member
Nope it is just for Top Rated Freelancers.
ahsanu555
Community Member

Nope for a while it is just for Top Rated Freelancers.

sheryar-shahid
Community Member
Great, Thank you so much.
bimaltapader
Community Member
Thank you
astepanov83
Community Member
I've been using this feature since it's been introduced. Thank you so much. I hope it will always be available.
nishalfs
Community Member

Hello, thank you for this but I don't think it means faster payouts.

 

Before this, funds would be available on Wednesday/Thursday & if I were to request the payout, it would deposit into my account on Friday.

 

Now funds are available Thursday/Friday and do not deposit into my account until Monday.

 

Please advise.

 

petra_r
Community Member

Nishal S wrote:

Hello, thank you for this but I don't think it means faster payouts.

 

Before this, funds would be available on Wednesday/Thursday & if I were to request the payout, it would deposit into my account on Friday.

 

Now funds are available Thursday/Friday and do not deposit into my account until Monday.


Little thing called "weekend" 

 

Of course it means "faster payout"... How can getting your money in your bank account on Monday instead of on Friday NOT be "faster?"  "payout" is when the funds move to your available balance. What you seem to be talking about is "withdrawal to local bank" which takes 2 business days. So if you withdraw on Wednesday, the time to reach your bank account is two business days.

When you withdraw on Thursday, it also takes 2 business days (Friday and Monday, with the "weekend" not being business days.

nishalfs
Community Member

Hello, thank you for the reply.

 

I apologize for not clarifying.

 

Prior to the 'faster payout', my hourly contracts I would get by Friday of the same week that I requested the payout, which occured on Wednesday/Thursday.

 

Now the payout is not showing in my bank account until Monday/Tuesday of the next week.

 

So it is not faster in my opinion when looking at payment history & this new format.

 

To better reference dates for this scenario.

 

Pre- faster payout new setup, I would see payment available from Upwork for hourly contracts on Wednesday June 17, request the payment to bank and receive payment into my bank by Friday June 19.

 

Now with faster payout, the payment does not show as available until Thursday June 18, and payment not received into my bank until Monday June 22.