If a freelancer fails to deliver

[#1]

Hi,

Hope you are all well! 

I'm new to Upwork and have a few questions.

If I hire a freelancer who fails to deliver the job spec I'm asking for, how does payment work?

Do I still have to pay the agreed amount or can I give a partial payment? Or no payment?

I assume they'll be given a chance to revise the work too?

So far, I've come across this page with a similar question from last year: https://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/do-I-have-to-pay-for-my-project-if-I-don-t-like-the-result/m...

If there is an Upwork article/page that gives more info on this I'd appreciate a link to it or any help you can provide.

Thank you.

[#2]

Hi Yusuf, welcome to upwork!

First and foremost, hiring a freelancer with a good and existing reputation can half-way guarantee success. At the end of the contract you get a chance to review the freelancer which sometimes is even more important than the money made, if the freelancer is serious about upwork and has already established good reputation.

I think you should always think that you'll be paying and never consider scenarios where you won't pay. That means, if this is an hourly contract, limit max hours per week, disable manual time, check the freelancers output quite often. And if thats a fixed price contract, split the contract into small milestones and fund them one by one (you can consider this a partial payment), checking the outputs. 

I hope this helps,

[#3 · Accepted solution]

No need a last year thread for that, the talks goes almost everyday. Here are the latest I remembered:

• What safety measures should I take to I guarantee that I will get what I paid for?
• Excessive Disputes

The main idea is, you should monitor the work. You use hourly work, or small fixed-price milestones. Profiles are okay but don't look at them and trust someone. Profiles are manipulatable, freelancers can even legally remove a bad feedback. As I mentioned in the other thread, the fact is you can find rants about bad freelancers with sparkling profiles in this exact forum.

Do I still have to pay the agreed amount

Mostly yes

or can I give a partial payment?

Mostly no..

Or no payment?

Mostly no.

By "mostly", I mean you will most likely need to go through dispute where it's not easy to get those money back. What (Upwork) do in a dispute is to hold the money and let you and the freelancer find a solution. They don't judge or look at quality of the work.

I assume they'll be given a chance to revise the work too?

Yes but not necessarily a good option if the freelancer is bad isn't it?

You should have better insights about these things here, rather than the documentation.

[#4]

I do not work for Upwork. This is my opinion:

Refund thinking hurts clients.

Successful, effective clients do not focus on how they can avoid paying underperforming freelancers.

Successful, effective freelancers focus on identifying the freelancers who provide the most value for their projects, and continue working with them.

Trying to NOT PAY a freelancer for work she has done is a big gamble. It usually does not work out for the client.

Rather than planning to hire freelancers and then not pay them for their work...

I advise you to hire freelancers, monitor their work (especially early on), and end their contracts if you don't love their work.

THAT IS A SAFE BET.

Hire using hourly contracts or small initial milestones. Then you can test the freelancers and evaluate their work.

If you love their work, just fire them.

"That freelancer's work was terrible, and he only did half of what you expected. But it is not such a big deal, because you only paid him $10."

That is a much better situation to be in than "Frank," who paid $1000 to a freelancer and found that the freelancer's work was terrible and Frank couldn't use it. Then Frank tried to get a refund. Do you know what happened? Frank only got $50 out of $1000 back. He lost $950!

Refund thinking hurt Frank. Don't be like Frank. Proactively plan to NEVER get money back from freelancers, no matter what. That will help you to monitor their work, make wise decisions, and save money.

[#5]

Upwork only releases payment if you agrees on the work submitted by the freelancer. Moreover if you are not satisfied with the work you can ask freelancer to do revision about the work .