How do you budget your connects for the month?

[Kristiyan K]

I spend my connects on jobs I am certain I can do without any hassle. What saddens me is that there are "employers" who post a job, then don't hire anyone. The job is not cancelled and the connects are lost. I've probably lost 20 connects on jobs where the user who posted them did not hire anyone, nor did he/she cancel the job. Those connects I could have spent elsewhere, had I known there are incorrect "employers" out there. Now I have 0 connects.

[Sooraj B]

I am not  happy with 60 connects. I am basically doing small budget fixed price jobs on upwork. For example  budget range (5$-20$). But for that application i lose 2 connects . that means for 2 connect upwork charges 2$ ,

That is, if im doing a fixed budget job of 5$... i will get 3$ after upwork fee and connects charge 2$. for what i have left is 1$.

please make 1 connect for small budget tasks or even 0 connect. That will be great for beginners here to earn some money. Otherwise they will be really upset.

Thanks

[Joachim M]

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@Sooraj B wrote:

I am not  happy with 60 connects. I am basically doing small budget fixed price jobs on upwork. For example  budget range (5$-20$). But for that application i lose 2 connects . that means for 2 connect upwork charges 2$ ,

That is, if im doing a fixed budget job of 5$... i will get 3$ after upwork fee and connects charge 2$. for what i have left is 1$.

please make 1 connect for small budget tasks or even 0 connect. That will be great for beginners here to earn some money. Otherwise they will be really upset.

Thanks

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Sooraj,

The solution to your problem is pretty simple. As Upwork doesn't define a minimum - unlike Elance did, and most competitors do -  define your own minimum. I don't take jobs for less than $25 if I haven't been invited. They are not worth the bother and Upwork is kind of flooded with these jobs anyway. I just had this problem on another freelancer site, a client trying to circumvent the imposed minimum of $25 by making it an hourly job. I simply declined his invitation stating that my personal minimum is $25. Guess what, the client awarded me the job as fixed price at $25. On Upwork it's the other way around, clients trying to circumvent the hourly minimum by turning the jobs into fixed price jobs.

Your suggestion would only lead to an ever increasing number of these jobs, unprofitable for Upwork and for the freelancer. We should not aim at getting more of these jobs onto the platform but less!

[Sooraj B]

A few clients mention some skills and on discussing we understood that need more skills..So that time also i lost my connects. 

[Neil Josef A]

I have a suggestion. Can you give back the # of connects to a proposal that didn't get any response, lets say, for at least 2 weeks. My logic is that, if a client looking for a freelancer, it is given that the need is immediate. So ignoring proposals for a Long period of time, makes it defeat the purpose of freelancing. I Guess a client will get an email from UpWork telling them that a proposal has been submitted. If so, then it is imperative for a client to respond. Or UpWork don't do that?

[Valeria K]

Hi Neil Josef,

Thanks for your suggestion. Connects are returned when the job is closed without hiring either by the client or by Upwork team. However, there are no plans to return connects if the proposal wasn't accepted. Clients are notified about proposals they receive for their jobs but they often take time to consider candidates and keep the job open.

[Preston H]

When I was starting out on Upwork I read about people who received invitations, and I thought that sounded great.

Then I heard about freelancers who only worked on jobs they got through invitations. That sounded even better.

I wasn't sure I would ever get to that point.

But now, a couple years later, I work almost exclusively on jobs I get through invitations. I use an average of one connect per month. So obviously I don't need to "budget" my connects.

Things didn't start out this way, but I worked hard and got the point I'm at now.

Good luck to everybody who is struggling with connects and working toward a more favorable situation, in which they don't need to budget their connects at all.

[#8]

Hello Lena.

Upwork should do itself, and its most talented service providers a favour by limiting the maximum number of connects for all freelancer (basic and plus) to 50 every month.

I mean, what is someone doing with 140 Connects?

Connects should be a scarce commodity.

This will make freelancers apply only for jobs that are a perfect fit for their skills.

With only 50 connects for every freelancer, clients are less likely to complain that they're being spammed.

At present, you get a situation where there are too many proposals (good, bad & ugly) for a job posting. The deserving proposals rarely get noticed. Sometimes clients don't hire because they got too many proposals for a job. Do you realise how frustrating it can be to pick the right freelancer from among 50+ proposals?

Really. The price is brought down badly due to excess supply, and your most talented providers in the US & UK, who desire to make a living wage, won't take that trash. They'd rather find decent work elsewhere. Upwork keeps spending resources processing small, ridiculous-looking payments.

You feel me, Lena? Does Upwork want to attract (and keep) the most talented freelancers, or the cheapest ones in **Edited for Community Guidelines**?

[Vladimir G]

Hi Amaechi,

Thanks for sharing your suggestion in the Community. To clarify, freelancers are currently allotted 60 Connects on the Basic and 70 Connects on the Plus membership plan.  

[Joachim M]

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@Vladimir G wrote:

Hi Amaechi,

Thanks for sharing your suggestion in the Community. To clarify, freelancers are currently allotted 60 Connects on the Basic and 70 Connects on the Plus membership plan.  

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 Vladimir,

That's right. Nevertheless I tend to agree with Amaechi in that at least for the Basic plan there are too many connects allotted. As long as jobs like this 

I need someone to translate 4 PAGES of emails. Budget: $6,5.

receive proposals there is something wrong with the platform.