Contract initiation fee to $10. Isnt' way too much?

[e22d6863]

Starting December 15, we’re increasing the contract initiation fee on Talent Marketplace and Project Catalog contracts to $9.95. We’ll include this fee in your first freelancer payment for each new contract.

Isn't applying a 10 usd contract initiation fee excessive? It will reduce a lot the new contracts. Upwork went from no fee to 4.9, now 9.9 (nearly 10usd).

I wonder how smart of an idea that is, and if it server any purpose other than increasing Upwork profits

[sofia2008]

The fee is not $9,95, but up to $9,95. We just do not know what is the minimum project value needed to hit that $9,95.

[7bd0d548]

Right now me as a client have to pay $2.25 already...

[sofia2008]

What is the value of the project?

[celgins]

Good point.

I read the OP message and saw $9.95 and wondered what happened to the "up to $4.95"  language used before. After seeing your message, I did the responsible thing and actually read the information on Upwork's Fee/ACH Authorization Agreement page. 😀

With that, my observation is invalid since--like you said--we don't know what project value will trigger the highest fee of $9.95

[7bd0d548]

---

---

Clark S wrote:

If a client expects to pay $1,000 USD to a quality freelancer for a product/service, I don't think the $9.95 will matter much. However, if a client expects to pay $50 or less for a product/service, that $9.95 fee looks much different--especially for one-time clients who only need one project completed for $50 or less.

I think clients seeking low-paying "test" projects or short-term projects (i.e., 1 day or less) will not like this change, and may no longer post low-paying jobs. However, I don't see the change swaying clients who expect to pay $1,000+ for a project, and it certainly shouldn't affect Enterprise clients.

---

---

As a long term engaging client with most freelancer, it does effects my condition. I would compensate higher if they turned out worked very well. Eventhough eventually the 1 or 2 good freelancers will end up earning $999 or more from my project. but to get 1 or 2 good freelancers, we do have to hire at least 10-20 of them as test paid. So it's like [$50 test paid + $10 initiation fee] x 20 = $1200. That's not low because upwork forbids / discourage you to be in a disputed state.

Beside that, in another platform, they don't complained if there's too many dispute.

[melroen]

Good analysis, Clark.

It may be a motivating factor in Upwork implementing a higher contract initiation fee to weed out scammers and pivot to a higher-paying clientele.

[35208596]

This new price fees on clients has not advantages..it is both disadvantageous on client and freelancers end . I don't know what Upwork is turning into , I have bought connects for about 100$ in the past 5 months and I have not landed even a single job though  I am having a top rated badge

[7bd0d548]

---

 wrote:

, I have bought connects for about 100$ in the past 5 months and I have not landed even a single job 

---

As a client, they made it hard to find and hire freelancer also.

First, client can only invites up 30 freelancers, but what happened is, in most case, the invited freelancers does not even had the necessary skill required because the user interface was deceiving.
Ex; It said, the freelancer has skill A in the invitation list page, but once they responded the invitiation, they'd said, they are not fit for the job. Very ridicoulous.

Secondly, client has to pay $29.95 to able to invite more and $10 initiation fee.

I really wonder, how the platform gotten more users than any other freelancing platform with such deal. But I think it's because upwork has huge marketing budget to attract users into the site.

[7bd0d548]

It's bad idea, also upwork them self are exogerating on their useless expenditures (such as overpaid labours) but then they like to accused me in straining up their resource for having too much disputes, now they charged hire which will gets clients to seek for another freelancing site. But it's their own useless expenditures that needs to be pushed down. 

But it's strange that, I can't find any other freelancing platform would be a better alternative.

[48f850a0]

I know it's a bit weird, but i like this update, sometimes you will see a client hire 1-3 people for the same exact job and when you curiously ask them why they did despite you delivering the work, you'll get something like " wanted to see who will do it best" just imagine, but with this new 10$ or so per hire, they would put in effort in making their pick and trust the person, not feel they can always pick someone from the "heap" and test. It's crazy what we freelancers are on Upwork, just tools 

[moonraker]

So you actually want clients to hire fewer people?

[48f850a0]

No, the point is by increasing the cost of hiring, this would encourage "reading of proposals" which many clients don't do, most of them feel they can pick mr A, mr B , mr c to do the same task... They don't put in the effort to pick a freelancer that they would work with for a long term, always looking to change them up like clothes

[7bd0d548]

No, it's not because they are too lazy in reading the proposal. It's because doing the test paid is more effective. To get the job done, it's really up to the freelancer - client's engagement.

Here's are the reasons why proposal is just a minor thing to consider :

1. Freelancers personal reasons and priorities (family, traveling, sickness, or not passionate) eventually they never get the job done on time or never.

2. Freelancers lied on their proposal, you can make a very beautiful profile and proposal but eventually you are incapable of doing the work, lack of the skills or intelligence etc.

3. Freelancers don't have to bear the initiation fee burden, whereas in another freelancing platform, the initiation fee are divided between client & freelancer, as well as, it's refunded if the first milestone never released. Meanwhile here  in upwork are the opposite. The clients must suffer more for freelancer's negligence. So it is the reason biggest they just leave and never got the job done as they wish.

Because of these reasons, client loose money (initiation fee+market place fee+milestone which can not be disputed) and loose time. Meanwhile the clients does not has to bear any of those burden in other freelancing sites. So I asked upwork's support like this :

Me :

How do I know if he's not going to leave/ended/irresponsif after got hired ? I need to know how to see if he is going to finish the job on time.

upwork's support :

As stated from our terms, we do not vet freelancer, Ely.

Sorry, I do not have much knowledge about the issue. I am just informing how fee and fixed prices normally works

So, literally almost impossible to get that 1 good out of 10 tested freelancers without paid test because no one possibly knows since it's not really based on how much the compensation is. But because of the freelancer's professionalism and ethiquete it self which are very hard to measure.

[7bd0d548]

It's because many freelancers just left and never get the job done after got hired/funded. So it will be a very huge burden to pay all of them the $10 initiation fee.

[justyourtype]

And on the flip side, less people chosen, less likely to be given a chance to shine. 

[c95cb7b7]

Not fewer - just the best fit for the job posted 😉

[7bd0d548]

As a Client, I perceived there are so many freelancers whom just got hired then disappeared, this will be a very unfair burden toward us. The relevant person client/freelancer whom disappeared or ended the contract should be the one to bear this fee’s burden no ?.

Thank you for bringing this post up in the community. I may definitely from now have to choose upwork as the last platform to hire only if I can't find a freelancer somewhere else. I am sure other (many) clients would think of the same.

[c839bf95]

Hi, what other alternatives do you use to hire freelancers? I usually have small jobs that paying $9.95 for a job that takes few mintues and my budget is $10 is way too much. I am also looking elsewhere.

[7bd0d548]

---

 wrote:

Hi, what other alternatives do you use to hire freelancers? I usually have small jobs that paying $9.95 for a job that takes few mintues and my budget is $10 is way too much. I am also looking elsewhere.

---

I hire in many different freelancing sites which can be easily found in google. In any sites, I can get a really good freelancers with $10 but takes hours to do. But I usually gives bonus and incentives if they performed well so I can keep them motivated to work for me for long term. The trick is, you just need to know how the bidding systematic process is, if you can find cheaper in another freelancer site then why would you buy for higher. 

What's funny is that, many of the high expecting salary freelancers started chanting & ranting the fact that they are loosing in competing against cheap freelancers but blaiming the client  😅. 

[yofazza]

I agree that there's a type of client who specializes in that (low-value jobs). I often mention that I often encounter job posts that are unbelievably low-valued, and, when I check the client's history, I see that all their jobs are done at the same unbelievably low-value, but everyone (both the client and the freelancers) are happy in almost all of the jobs.

Some people think those are fake jobs by 'review providers'. It's possible, but I also think that the clients might simply "know" how to use this site and its resources (vast number of freelancers on different cost of living).

On some of them I also see that it's very unlikely that they are 'review sellers'. They are normal clients who specializes on getting work done by cheap or new freelancers.

"Facebook clone" for $20 have been requested by clients since not long after Facebook was released. The client might actually know that they aren't actually looking for a 'real' Facebook clone, but only want someone to install/modify some social media script, and they will provide good reviews to someone who can do that correctly. That's one explanation that came to my mind. Another would be that the client knows they will get what they pay for and thus has reduced their expectations to some extent. To me, those are the free market, facilitated by Upwork.

Freelancers can't actually complain. It's true that rates are not completely determined by the freelancer's cost of living, but it's still a factor. If Upwork wants to change that, it's simple for them. They can simply limit this site to become American/European only. Minimum rates will be "automatically determined" and some other problems with their "costs" will be gone as well. But they don't do that.

--

But that was before. As some people have mentioned, I also feel they are changing their model into something else. It will still be open to all countries, but the low-value one-time jobs are probably not in their interest anymore.

Anyone can tell that 'initiation fee' is bad for low-value one-time jobs. At the introduction of this fee I wrote that "leaving contracts open indefinitely might now be preferred". But, they still do that (requiring a 'relatively' high initiation fee), there must be some reasons behind it, isn't it?

[7bd0d548]

---

 wrote:

I agree that there's a type of client who specializes in that (low-value jobs).

Yes, they hire in our third world countries for cheap, while they pay high in the developed countries for same exact job type and quality. It seems they can't do that in upwork, so they would open office in third world countries and hire full timers in third world countries. Still they scams on linkedin.

---

 wrote:

Freelancers can't actually complain. It's true that rates are not completely determined by the freelancer's cost of living, but it's still a factor. If Upwork wants to change that, it's simple for them. They can simply limit this site to become American/European only.

Upwork's algorithm already seems to connect between clients from third world countries with freelancers from third world countries also. If so, that's already good enough. It will be lucky for American/European/Japanese to able to hire freelancers in cheap countries. Because most have same quality for same job.

[weiqi-zhang]

This would mean that all those projects with low-price tags will disappear. To some extent, I think that's not a bad thing. I think Upwork's motivation is to encourage more long-term, high-price contracts.

[7bd0d548]

It will be harder for some freelancers to get job also. Because like new freelancers they need small payment jobs for good reviews, but clients will think twice to waste their money on market place fee + initiation fee + undisputable milestone.

[wlyonsatl]

Winnowing out the lowest value projects by increasing the cost for clients to post new jobs is probably a win-win for Upwork, increasing its income from clients significantly (as a percentage) while also reducing Upwork's costs related to client fraud (which I'm assuming is more common on low-value projects than higher value ones).

This may be part of the reason Upwork recently significantly decreased its estimation of its costs for client and freelancer fraud.

[7bd0d548]

---

 wrote:

Winnowing out the lowest value projects by increasing the cost for clients to post new jobs is probably a win-win for Upwork, increasing its income from clients significantly (as a percentage) while also reducing Upwork's costs related to client fraud (which I'm assuming is more common on low-value projects than higher value ones).

This may be part of the reason Upwork recently significantly decreased its estimation of its costs for client and freelancer fraud.

---

No, fraud does not comes from big/low $ jobs.

 I've seen a thread where a client posted and said he had hired a huge budget like $10k but got got scammed. Eventually, the client was kicked off the platform because seems the client was the one trying to cheat, I am not sure though. 

[37bffaae]

I like small low-price projects. That's all I hire for. Time to go to **Edited for Community Guidelines**, I guess?

Upwork- Enjoy making creative work more expensive, amidst a game industry dive and surge of AI. RIP.

[shanementor]

Project Catalogs as well? $9.95 Wow expensive, as these are one-off one-time projects. So if someone is only charging $15 for a project Upwork is going to add on $9.95 to the client? Fiver only charges $2 to the client for projects.

[sofia2008]

The fee is not $9.95, but can be up to $9.95.

[shanementor]

Oh okay, I guess it depends on the price of the one-time project catalog offering.

[7bd0d548]

It's still unfair, if you intent to have long term and big project. Then you still have to pay big if the freelancer are leaver. Check here :

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Leaver-Freelancers/m-p/1485529#M99566

[29351727]

I am redy

[e22d6863]

You are wrong. It is fixed 10usd.

[7bd0d548]

Yeah, most other freelancing sites would divides the fee each like equally beetwen client and freelancer. So definitely you will see less real and legit clients here in this platform. 

[e8c64d46]

looting.

[kayakdistributio]

Bad idea. This basically costs them nothing and made it so we would contract anything we needed. Now, it will just make them les competitive and has us looking for atlernatives. WE will also reduce our use of the platform we have enjoyed for more than 10 years

[kayakdistributio]

You can also reduce costs to make profit... 

[2297e2bc]

We call that lost leader in the big box business. You HOPE they buy more or upgrade....most won't.

Give me the SALE item!!!

[dadcf67c]

Hey, I think a monthly subscription fee for both freelancers & buyers would be fair. Something like $15-20 per months sounds fair to me. The moment you stop paying, the profile becomes inactive. I honestly, don't like testing on my own money each freelancer, so that contract initiation fee can become quite annoying, especially that many freelancers lie in their resume. I assume when an upwork employee went to apply for their job, they didn't got paid for going to the interview... did they? So why would we have to pay to test freelancers? 99% of freelancers are willing to do a free sample and I got this way several freelancers I'm working with for years. Logic > Upwork.

[7bd0d548]

---

 wrote:

Hey, I think a monthly subscription fee for both freelancers & buyers would be fair. Something like $15-20 per months sounds fair to me. The moment you stop paying, the profile becomes inactive.

Bad idea, client & freelancers will leave the platform

---

 wrote:

99% of freelancers are willing to do a free sample and I got this way several freelancers I'm working with for years. Logic > Upwork.

---

This is a lie, very untrue. Freelancers will think you are scammers and it's against the TOS.

People are easily be deceived by the matrix (capitalists), the fact that, if a well branded company asked you to do free work/free test for jobs, those people would want to do it. But if you are not well known brand, they will think you are scammer. If you have brain, both are the same.  

[2297e2bc]

YUP - I have offered free samples as a test and evey job goes nowhere!