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savysb
Community Member

A few more ideas for upwork

Besides the changing to connects, I have a few more ideas for upwork about how to make freelancers even more active on this platform and to feel even more valuable, to stand out. Let's dive in:

 

1. Send a daily friendly reminder to all freelancers that it's a healthy practic to Clear Recent History, including active logins.

1.a. Charge every login with $0.50

1.b. If freelancers refuse to delete history, increase fees to %30 until they do it, then charge an extra $0.10 per hour of delay. Do not forget to add VAT to all this.

 

2. Lock down every invitation. "You have been invited to - you can unlock the rest of this message for only $0.99". Learn from EA Games.

 

3. Charge every mention of an email address in messages with $5.99. Charge every mention of "upwork" in messages with $12.99, because no one should have the privilege of saying your name for free.

 

4. Add more bugs to the desktop application and do not fix them until you get payment from each freelancer facing those issues. After all, no one works for free, why should you? You better charge hourly.

 

5. Add a price per portfolio item added to the profile. $10 per item, with one free image and $3 for every extra image/link. The price per work should be $0.05. That should teach content writers the value of words.

 

With all these changes, you can expect freelancers to submit fewer proposals, increasing my likelihood of winning projects and making it easier for clients to identify high-quality talent. Did I say it right? Yeah, I did.

32 REPLIES 32
joyh97
Community Member

What a revolutionary proposal! UpWork should get right on it, and hire you while they're at it. I can't believe they haven't thought of this yet!

savysb
Community Member

I have a response for that, but I'd have to charge you for it.

lysis10
Community Member


Daniel S wrote:

Besides the changing to connects, I have a few more ideas for upwork about how to make freelancers even more active on this platform and to feel even more valuable, to stand out. Let's dive in:

 

1. Send a daily friendly reminder to all freelancers that it's a healthy practic to Clear Recent History, including active logins.

1.a. Charge every login with $0.50

1.b. If freelancers refuse to delete history, increase fees to %30 until they do it, then charge an extra $0.10 per hour of delay. Do not forget to add VAT to all this.

 

2. Lock down every invitation. "You have been invited to - you can unlock the rest of this message for only $0.99". Learn from EA Games.

 

3. Charge every mention of an email address in messages with $5.99. Charge every mention of "upwork" in messages with $12.99, because no one should have the privilege of saying your name for free.

 

4. Add more bugs to the desktop application and do not fix them until you get payment from each freelancer facing those issues. After all, no one works for free, why should you? You better charge hourly.

 

5. Add a price per portfolio item added to the profile. $10 per item, with one free image and $3 for every extra image/link. The price per work should be $0.05. That should teach content writers the value of words.

 

With all these changes, you can expect freelancers to submit fewer proposals, increasing my likelihood of winning projects and making it easier for clients to identify high-quality talent. Did I say it right? Yeah, I did.


brah we need loot crates too!

savysb
Community Member


Jennifer M wrote:


brah we need loot crates too!

Right. Locked loot crates and $2.99/key to open them. How about some skins for the profile?

renatoss
Community Member

And when you think about that they gave for free that new multi skilled specialized profile. They should have made it for premium users. Ohhh, such a great oportunity to  make some easy money and no one saw it.

mclosa
Community Member

Oh my goodness loot crates! My favvvee *dies*

iaabraham
Community Member

Reading your post is the first thing that's made me smile since receiving that bloody email from Upwork. And knowing this company, they'll take your recommendations seriously!


Isabelle Anne A wrote:

Reading your post is the first thing that's made me smile since receiving that bloody email from Upwork. And knowing this company, they'll take your recommendations seriously!


At least they'll share it with the team!

Don't forget they need to hire more talent specialists to get things wrong(er).

While a lot of you say that this is a step in the right direction, take this scenario into consideration:

A wild job appears, fitted for your skills. You think "I am so relieved to know that there's so few freelancers applying to this, now with the paid connects". I think the same, and the rest of 50 people applying to that job think the same (let's put a maximum of 50, if before with free connects the number would've been 200). Now, let's say the job has a budget of $400, which means it costs each of us 6 connects, so $0.9 - and this is for 1 job. A single freelancer gets the job. The rest of 49 just spent $44 together. For a single job.

 

How many bids do you people make on a daily basis? At least one, right? How many do you get? Could be none, right? Or if the job list has more project fitted to your skills, you apply to more than one in a day (I've been here for a while, I know how it goes).

 

This will go very well for some, very poorly for others. Because in addition to the paid connects, you also have to lower your rates in order to make sure you'll get that job. And think about the fact that the rest will do the same. Trick or treat, eh?

 

Before jumping to the assumption that this is a good move for top rated freelancers such as yourself, think about the fact that all top rated freelancers have the same thought. And I don't think we're just a few.

 

I wish you all good luck! Starting soon, this becomes a long episode of Hunger Games, freelancer edition 🙂

petra_r
Community Member


Daniel S wrote:

Because in addition to the paid connects, you also have to lower your rates in order to make sure you'll get that job. And think about the fact that the rest will do the same. Trick or treat, eh?


This makes no sense. With less (or even the same) number of people applying, why in the world would you have to lower your price?

savysb
Community Member


Petra R wrote:


This makes no sense. With less (or even the same) number of people applying, why in the world would you have to lower your price?


To make sure you get the project. Or to increase your chances of getting it. In a car race where all the cars have the same power, some of them will lose some weight in order to get ahead.


Daniel S wrote:

Petra R wrote:


This makes no sense. With less (or even the same) number of people applying, why in the world would you have to lower your price?


To make sure you get the project. Or to increase your chances of getting it. In a car race where all the cars have the same power, some of them will lose some weight in order to get ahead.


Eh... no. That's true even without the price tag on Connects. Supply and demand suggests that with fewer freelancers applying for jobs, and with the same amount of demand for freelance work, our rates should technically go up because clients can no longer afford to exploit low-quality workers.


Aleksandr H wrote:


Eh... no. That's true even without the price tag on Connects. Supply and demand suggests that with fewer freelancers applying for jobs, and with the same amount of demand for freelance work, our rates should technically go up because clients can no longer afford to exploit low-quality workers.


Technically, but riddle me this: the clients don't have to pay for the connects, so wouldn't they still be inclined to pick the lowest price? Even more, with the pool of freelancers consisting of high-quality workers, chances are that the ones with the lowest bid will get the job. I for one practice balanced prices, but that's not enough. A lot of clients would rather pay the least possible and some to not even pay. It's the power of habit, and these changes are for us, not for them. Plus, I think seeing only top rated freelancers with high prices applying, the clients will search for alternatives.


Daniel S wrote:


Technically, but riddle me this: the clients don't have to pay for the connects, so wouldn't they still be inclined to pick the lowest price?


Yep, but I think that "lowest price" would just be relative. The minimum price that people would generally bid would (I think) go up—the lowest price among mostly mid-to-high-end freelancers.

 

(Personally, I'm still not happy about the change. Imo, Upwork already takes quite a bit of the cut from every transaction. But I'm no expert and can't speak to their financial situation.)

 


Daniel S wrote:

Plus, I think seeing only top rated freelancers with high prices applying, the clients will search for alternatives.

Yeah, I think that's a likely outcome.

In Upwork tests they could charge you for each answer you give, to discourage guessing when you don't know the answer.

 

Of course, questions where you need to choose two or more answers world be more profitable, so we could expect more of those in future.

Also, when you upload your photo, there'll be a charge per pixel. And a charge per character in your password. So only more successful freelancers can afford clear photos and secure passwords.

They could start charging one connect to post a comment in the forum. Two connects if it is a question about how to get paid. Four connects for asking how to get paid without a contract.

 


Phyllis G wrote:

They could start charging one connect to post a comment in the forum. Two connects if it is a question about how to get paid. Four connects for asking how to get paid without a contract.

 


6 connects for any question about JSS, and a bonus connect if the freelancer thinks that either: his JSS is calculated differently from anybody else's, that his score has nothing to do with how the project went, and is just generally going down a rabbit hole of paranoia. (A part of me really really wants to believe that every two weeks some upwork people throw a dice and select 1 (one) freelancer to mess with his JSS, and then laugh themselves silly. And make a drinking game out of every time I tell the poor sap freelancer that no, it's the same for everybody. Cheers!)

Please let's start charging for mentions of ELance, which are popping up again all over the place.

 


Phyllis G wrote:

They could start charging one connect to post a comment in the forum. Two connects if it is a question about how to get paid. Four connects for asking how to get paid without a contract.

 


______________________

Ten connects for "Why has my JSS gone down?" ...

 

Ooops sorry Martina, I wrote this before seeing yours, but I have upped the ante! 


Nichola L wrote:

Phyllis G wrote:

They could start charging one connect to post a comment in the forum. Two connects if it is a question about how to get paid. Four connects for asking how to get paid without a contract.

 


______________________

Ten connects for "Why has my JSS gone down?" ...

 

Ooops sorry Martina, I wrote this before seeing yours, but I have upped the ante! 


You did. 10 connects sounds more reasonable for that matter. 


Richard W wrote:

In Upwork tests they could charge you for each answer you give, to discourage guessing when you don't know the answer.

 

Of course, questions where you need to choose two or more answers world be more profitable, so we could expect more of those in future.


They should charge $10 for choosing the correct answer even though there in none.


Martina P wrote:

Isabelle Anne A wrote:

Reading your post is the first thing that's made me smile since receiving that bloody email from Upwork. And knowing this company, they'll take your recommendations seriously!


At least they'll share it with the team!



Martina P wrote:

Isabelle Anne A wrote:

Reading your post is the first thing that's made me smile since receiving that bloody email from Upwork. And knowing this company, they'll take your recommendations seriously!


At least they'll share it with the team!

How about getting charged 7 connects every time the answer to your question includes the fatal  "I'll share it with the team"? People would think twice before adding their silly question to the forum.


Luce N wrote:

At least they'll share it with the team!How about getting charged 7 connects every time the answer to your question includes the fatal  "I'll share it with the team"? People would think twice before adding their silly question to the forum.

I'd love to see a $5000 price tag on the lack of humor. And a kick in the behind.

aleksandrhovh
Community Member

Part of me hoped someone in marketing forgot to check the calendar and sent out Upwork's April Fools' joke a day late. Guess not!

johnny5r
Community Member

I feel like the new charge per connect is more of an adoption of the payment model from those penny auction sites. Buy a bundle of auction tokens and hopefully you'll get the product - eventually!

 

Those sites don't get their money from the monthly fee, they get it from the purchase of tokens – or "connects" – it's how they cover the cost of selling an ipad for $40. Disguise it all you want as weeding down to serious freelancers only, but it still smells like a money grab. Now we'll have to pay a monthly fee, pay for the priviledge to use the platform and pay to get paid.

 

The only thing this will do is separate the poor freelancers just starting out, from the freelancers that have money to burn. 

savysb
Community Member


John B wrote:

 

The only thing this will do is separate the poor freelancers just starting out, from the freelancers that have money to burn. 


Nobody has money to burn. Who has it, doesn't need freelancing.

mdrabik
Community Member

I am pretty much done with Upwork, these fees shut us out especially with the cheap bids. One thing that would help is to make sure that the clients are VALID, and have presented payment information. Too many jobs here have no verification and are just put up to fish.(or to send a virus to your computer) Now we have to pay for connects it will be even worse, talk about a waste of money and connects for a job that will never be anyway. Elance was a good company and  was destroyed when they merged with Upwork, it's been a spiral down since then. I have applied for 3 jobs this year that were bogus and had a virus attached to scripts for voice over. Upwork doesn't do anything. I will just work with present clients and only apply for high paying jobs. Nice work Upwork, let's just put the freelancer last as usual, but make them pay more.

kat303
Community Member

Charge $100,00 for every post that begins with "My friends account is suspended....."

re: "Charge $100,00 for every post that begins with 'My friends account is suspended.....' "

 

So annoying!

 

Are any of you like me and wonder what's up with that?

 

Are all of these people really talking about a friend, or are they talking about another account of their own. And what's up with all these people having friends who also use Upwork?

 

Upwork isn't a company where you go to an office and make friends with the people you meet there.

 

Upwork is for anti-social hermits who have no friends.



Preston H wrote:

 

Are all of these people really talking about a friend, or are they talking about another account of their own. And what's up with all these people having friends who also use Upwork?

 

Right! And before reading up on how the platform works, they start making up their own theories how it is supposed to work, as evidenced in the endless "why don't I receive invitations?" threads. Because you are supposed to write proposals. buster! 

Upwork is for anti-social hermits who have no friends.


Exactly, thank you for understanding me, Preston! 

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