Availability Badge is Now Available to All Talent: Feedback and Questions.

[kochubei_valeria]

The testing period has ended and the availability badge is now available to all talent!

For more information about the feature, please see this announcement and let us know in the comments below if you have any questions or feedback.

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Shahmeer,

Thank for asking! Availability badge and how you use it will not have any effect on your Job Success Score.

[2f971d01]

How to Strengthen Profile by Availability Batch.

[jvbonzi]

We need to BID on our "availability"... 

Freelancer: Ah ok, I am available, I will pay for that to show that I am (which is an absurd already, but then it gets worse:...)

Upwork: OK, but your competitor is paying more to show that they are available too. Will you match their offer to show that "you are available too"?  (Seriously?)

Clearly a feature created not aimed to solve anything, but to squeeze out the most of freelancers...

[onthebutton]

I get highlighting you're available because people can easily overlook it otherwise. However, better would be an auction for position, similar to Google Ads. Specifically taking not only bid, but quality of history into account. This way someone can't just bid a fortune to be in top spot.

[podcaststudio]

I'm seeking answers and clarity to the following questions related to the new "Available Now" badge. 

1) If I decide not TURN ON the badge, will my profile no longer display in search results to would be clients?

2) If I TURN ON the badge, when are the Connects deducted from my account,  daily or weekly?

3) What are the pros and cons of using and NOT using the badge?

Thanks in advance to all who reply.  🙂

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Michael, 

I'll be merging your post with a thread dedicated to questions and feedback about the Availability Badge and encourage you to check out the announcement here.

To address your questions, no, the availability badge does not impact where you appear in search results.

The cost of the badge is paid out over the course of the week as long as it is turned on. Here are some cost examples:

• If the badge costs 7 Connects, 1 Connect will be deducted from your balance every 24 hours.
• If the badge costs 3 Connects, 1 Connect will be deducted from your balance every 56 hours.
• If the badge costs 3 Connects per week but the price changes to 7 Connects (within your maximum) 2 hours later, you will be charged 1 Connect when you first turned on the badge and then charged an additional 1 Connect in 22 hours.

In general, we believe this badge may be most beneficial to freelancers who already catch the eye of clients because they have a history of doing great work on our site. So, for example, if you already receive invites on a regular basis, we anticipate this badge will be a good tool for you. 

[wlyonsatl]

I have been wondering why I’ve been getting very few invitations to submit proposals from potential clients over the past couple of weeks compared to the number of invitations I usually get.

Then I noticed what to me is a new “feature” on my profile – an “Available Now” icon that can be toggled on and off – by me or Upwork, apparently. (I see this has been mentioned briefly in other threads on this board.)

My status is currently toggled off, although I have not in any way assigned it that condition at any time.

How long has this “feature” been applied to my freelancer profile?

And how does it work? The explanations provided are as clear as mud, including “The price to turn on the badge may go up or down depending on how many people have it on. We’ll turn the badge off automatically if the price exceeds your maximum.”

Huh? How many of what people?

Or, “You can set the total number of Connects per week you'd like to use on the badge.”

Huh? I’d like to tell all potential clients that I am available all the time. How much will I have to pay for that?

Upwork, you should notify me when you are going to tell potential clients I am not available to work on their projects. Previously we could manually mark our profiles with an indication that we didn’t want more projects at any given time, but it looks like the default now is to tell potential clients that I am not available unless I pay Upwork with connects to “Turn on availability badge.”

This makes no sense, other than providing Upwork with more connects-related revenue. But I already pay Upwork $14.99 a month for providing a platform to connect me with new clients. And I won’t even mention the total revenue I have generated for Upwork over the years. Now I need to pay Upwork still more for the privilege of letting potential clients find me to work on their projects?

If this is a feature being tested, please remove it from my profile immediately. This is not a test I want to participate in.

Thanks in advance.

[martina_plaschka]

It's not a test, it has been rolled out to all freelancers. The somewhat complicated and convoluted manner you have to pay for it with connects, IMO, is due to a few developers being gamers (well actually all of them), who felt the need to gamify the platform a little, especially now that bidding connects for jobs has vanished down the drain. I don't feel the need to turn in on myself, since I'm never immediately available. It looks a bit desperate. 

[petra_r]

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Will L wrote:

If this is a feature being tested, please remove it from my profile immediately. This is not a test I want to participate in.

---

By not buying the badge, you are "not participating".

I find it completely misleading, as many clients will think that it means the freelancer is available to start working on the project right now, this minute. This was confirmed in the original huge thread on this when it was first announced last year.

Many freelancers who currently buy it are probably wasting connects they can ill afford because they rarely appear high enough in search results to get any invites, so the badge is useless to them because it's never even seen.

[tagrendy]

It's sneaky. While technically they are not blocking you from getting an invite, they are confusing the client by the 'available now' badge. It leads the client to believe the rest of freelancers are busy, when that's not true at all.

[petra_r]

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Tatevik G wrote:

It's sneaky. It leads the client to believe the rest of freelancers are busy, when that's not true at all.

---

Well, that's presumably the idea, so freelancers feel pressured into turning it on (paying for it) too because they don't want to miss out. I have seen freelancers with it turned on who will not get any benefit from it because they are so low in search results that chances of any client seeing their badge are slim...

It DOES strongly suggest to clients that people without the badge are "not available" - even though that is allegedly not the purpose.

If the true purpose really WAS to give us a chance to better communicate our availability, there wouldn't be any cost associated with it.

[pgiambalvo]

I turned it on for a week, saw no difference in invites, so turned it off.

[ericaandrews]

Don't worry:  If you have the Availability Badge turned OFF, there is nothing special added to  your profile specifically saying "I'm not available",  unless you set you "hours" of availability to "Not available" or "As needed, open to offers", etc.    

However, if you do turn it on, it just adds a silly icon that says "Available now". 

Even if you have the badge turned on, there is NO way for employers to explicitly search for freelancers that are 'Available now' if that's what they are looking for.  If you go to the 'search' bar  on the UW website and select 'Freelancers' and do a search, you'll see there is NO way for Employers to filter by who is 'Available Now', and it doesn't even show 'Available Now' in the search results.  The Employer will not see the badge unless they actually click your profile and open it, making the feature pretty useless.  In other words, even with the badge turned on, it doesn't make you 'stand out' to Employers searching for freelancers in any way, shape, or form like other 'badges' do. 

Value for the 'money' verdict - waste of connects: I tried it for a week or 2 and it seems like a big gimick to burn up connects:  I saw no increase in 'profile views' and the only increase in invitations I got were those 'automated' invitations sent out from Upwork (not the actual clients) from the "Upwork Talent Specialist" bot thing that are almost never a match and I have to spend each day 'declining' to keep my 'responsiveness' score up:  'Spam" invites, as I call them because some Upwork algorithm or AI bot just "spams" out dozens of invites to a job based on a 'keyword' in your profile without anybody reading the profile and seeing if the job actually matches your interests.   They weren't the real invites from CLIENTS that actually looked at my profile and decided to invite me.   Turning the badge on just seem to 'flag' me to the 'Talent Specialist' 'algorithm bot thing to start 'spamming' poorly matched invites my way.

Also, UW added new features to the 'Stats' section under 'Find Work' - 'My Stats' so you can see how many profile views, invites, and hires you got with the badge on vs. off.   Again, no increase in 'views', but a significant increase in 'paid invites'  (The ones UW is paid to send out that are never a match for my profile, creating invitation 'junk' for me to clean up each day.)   If you don't go in and 'decline' all the junk within 24 hours, your 'responsiveness' score goes down

Advice: Just ignore the 'feature'. It doesn't seem to impact things one way or the other.

[petra_r]

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CJ A wrote:

it doesn't even show 'Available Now' in the search results.  The Employer will not see the badge unless they actually click your profile and open it, making the feature pretty useless.  

---

This is not true. It is prominently displayed in the list of freelancers (search results).

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CJ A wrote: ...there is NO way for Employers to filter by who is 'Available Now'

---

yet....

[data_divas]

Most of the invitations I receive are useless anyway so no loss here.  Over the past 5 years I have only received 2 that resulted in an actual job I was interested in that matched my skills.  Right now I have my profile set to private because I'm too busy with several long term clients.  I will probably never use this.

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Will and others,

I will be merging this thread into a thread in the Feedback section so that we can keep all feedback and conversations around this feature in one place. We have been sharing this feedback with our product teams. 

I'd like to note that the testing period for this option has ended and it is now a feature available to all talent. While we can't remove this feature from appearing as a setting on a specific account, it is optional to turn it on and entirely up to you. This is just another way for freelancers to market their business and availability to clients, if they choose to do so.

[wlyonsatl]

I see this new "feature" went live only 16 days ago.

Show clients you’re available to work right n... - Upwork Community

...which might account for the number of invitations I received from new clients since that date plunging from its usual level prior to February 1.

There can be no doubt whatsoever that clients will interpret the “Available” icon being unlit as meaning a freelancer is not available. Blue means “Go,” gray means “Move along, nothing to see here.”

This new “feature” will not improve my Upwork experience in any way. If you needed more revenue you should have either increased the $14.99 I already pay you each month or the 12% or so of my client revenue you take in fees, rather than bolloxing up my freelancer experience with an unnecessary detail (and cost) to deal with.

My profile indicates I spent a net of 4 connects over the time period from 12/31/21 thru 2/17/22. I will light the icon now and see what happens. I’ll be interested to see what my connects costs rise to now that I have to keep the new icon lit at all times.

[gilbert-phyllis]

The problem with this for me is that availability is not a binary condition. I am virtually always available to discuss a new project and virtually never available to start one immediately. How soon I can get something new underway and how soon I can wrap it up depends on scope, complexity, and what else I have going on right then. If I turn the blue light on, then clients who need something right this minute will waste their time and mine reaching out to me only to discover we can't get our timelines to mesh. If I leave it off, then clients who are not in a big hurry may think I'm completely unavailable and pass me by. Using the 'available as needed, open to offers' setting on my profile has worked great. This new development is potentially a no-win situation for me.

[arunasalman]

So available now badge also takes connects and then when we submit proposals that also uses connects, am I right?

I had just started receiving some offers and then this badge thing happened, I bought 40 connects but didnt turn on the badge, so now I feel as if my connects got wasted. 

Either we use connects for proposal or for availablility, but for both I think it does is a bit unfair to freelancers.  😞

[lacamacho]

All points mentioned by everyone else regarding the availability status, and other points, are very much valid. In any case, I decided to give it a go since I had Connects to spare. Turned it on for roughly 2 weeks, saw no improvements to invitation numbers. Turned it off again, and will leave it like that for good. Seems like a FOMO feature...

[ronald_allan-zam]

I tried the badge for two weeks and my verdict is not even effective at all because I only got like 1 invite per week even if I did respond immediately or within 24 hours. But when I updated my profile as well as the portfolio, I got several more invites even without using the availability badge.

[485003da]

I personally feel really confused about this feature. I can't be sure if I am available for a project until I know what they want. It's a bit different proofreading an 800-word article or researching and writing a 3000 word one on a specialist subject.

I don't understand the payment terms, are you taking a connect a day? When I looked it said it was going to cost 6 connects then that it would take more every day? I can't afford to spend all my connect's on something when I don't even understand its usefulness. 

I feel like because I have not taken up this feature I am suddenly not getting invitations for work, when I first joined Upwork a few weeks ago I was getting a lot of hits on my bids, now I am getting none. Is that because I have not turned on this feature?

I am really unhappy with this feature. Aren't we already indicating we are avaliable by bidding on a job?

[0ca903d3]

It makes no sense that the price of the badge fluctuates based on factors which we don't have access to, and the fact that there's no way of determining how effective it is makes it seem like a shady gimmick which solely benefits Upwork's bottom line.

I'm also suspicious of the fact that, when I just went and turned my availability badge off, there's a banner on the page saying that I've had no profile views today, which is not true. Someone told me earlier today that they'd done a search and had found my profile and taken a look. I can only hope that this person is somehow wrong and there isn't some outright deception being employed.

[akinpelu_isaac]

I have had it on for about two weeks now, and I didn't notice any improvements in my stats. Seems to be a waste of my connects at this point.

[m_terrazas]

Questions for mods.

A client posts a job. Receive X proposals.
Upwork also sends client a link to a page where the client can invite more freelancers.
That page is headed by freelancers who have the availability badge activated.

Doubts:
- Does this mean that even if I (read any freelancer) have more experience, better skills, etc..., I will appear below those who have paid?
- As far as I know, clients are not informed that this badge is there because the freelancer is paying for it. It only says that "This freelancer is promoting they're open to more work"
Shouldn't it be clear to the customer that this badge is paid for?

If this is so, it seems that Upwork is forcing us to have the badge on if we don't want to get lost among "so many"

[LuiggiR]

Hi Maria,

Thank you for your questions. The availability badge does not impact where you appear in search results. Clients will see the badge in search results, recommendations, and on your profile but it does not impact where you rank in search. In addition, we are letting clients know that freelancers are adding this badge by including the lightning bolt icon and a pop-up explaining that the feature is promoted.

[m_terrazas]

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Luiggi R wrote:

Hi Maria,

Thank you for your questions. The availability badge does not impact where you appear in search results. Clients will see the badge in search results, recommendations, and on your profile but it does not impact where you rank in search. In addition, we are letting clients know that freelancers are adding this badge by including the lightning bolt icon and a pop-up explaining that the feature is promoted.

---

Thanks, but I am not referring to search results, but to a link sent to the client, once they have published a job, to show a list in case they want to invite freelancers.
The explanation in the pop-up does not make it clear that it is a paid promotion. This makes it seem that those of us who do not have it activated are not "open to more work", which is what it says.

[PradeepH]

Hi Maria,

Thank you for your message. I would like to clarify that there is a variety of factors considered while displaying the list of freelancers to invite to a job post. We encourage freelancers to have complete profiles and update with their latest work and relevant skills to increase their chance to be part of that list. 

Thank you

Pradeep

[e2d99147]

• hi Maria,
• Very nice comments and questions/anwers.
• if you mind mem, kindly help me for the write path in upwork, because i m new to upwork.
• please mem kindly requested.
• Thanks alot.

[m_terrazas]

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Hasan A wrote:

• hi Maria,
• Very nice comments and questions/anwers.
• if you mind mem, kindly help me for the write path in upwork, because i m new to upwork.
• please mem kindly requested.
• Thanks alot.

---

Well, I can't quite understand what you're saying, but after seeing your profile, several notes:
- If I were you, I would deactivate "available now". With your profile, it will only serve to receive invitations from scammers, and being so new, it's wasting connects.

- I'm afraid that the level of English you've set doesn't match what was written in your presentation. I think basic would be more accurate, right?
I am not an English speaker, but even I realize that it is misspelled.

- Before sending proposals (you will spend connects for nothing), you should read these posts:
* https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/To-all-freelancers-looking-for-help/m-p/1222058#M731117
All links included.
* https://community.upwork.com/t5/Community-Blog/Top-Red-Flags-for-Scams-From-Community-Member-Wes-C/b...
So that you are safe (as far as possible) from scammers.

Your presentation, in addition to talking only about you, is a gibberish of things you do and/or like to do. The client is not interested in that in the least. They want to know what you can do for them to get their project off the ground.

If you have multiple skills, you should create specialized profiles.
But, focus on what you can and know how to do professionally. Then you will add skills and profiles if you see that it may interest you.

And last but not least, PORTFOLIO.
How will customers know you can do the job?
You must show them your work, it is not necessary that they are created on Upwork, but only and exclusively work that you have done. DO NOT copy other people's work.

Luck!

[m_terrazas]

Thanks, but this doesn't clarify anything I've said.
I have a "...complete profiles and update with their latest work and relevant skills..."
I still have the same doubts.
- You cannot tell me "the variety of factors" that make you be on the list that you send to the client. But can you tell me if the availability badge is one of the important ones?
I ask if I should seriously consider activating it since it seems that if I don't have it, I'm not interested in more work.
- And on the other hand, what about not making it clear to the client that it is there because the freelancer has paid for it?

[VladimirG]

Hi Maria,

I fully understand your question and can confirm that having the badge turned on will not affect freelancer's ranking, both in talent search and within the invite freelancer results in job posts.

[m_terrazas]

Thanks.

[fcca14]

So.. nothing else to say,

except that the Availability Badge is a good tactic to get connects from freelancers, Bravo!

[sofia2008]

No one is forced to use it.

[fcca14]

Still.. a well-thoughtout tactic for discrimination of freelancers… from those who are “forced” to, (i.e. who can afford more connects).

[petra_r]

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Ejaz u wrote:

Still.. a well-thoughtout tactic for discrimination of freelancers… from those who are “forced” to, (i.e. who can afford more connects).

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How is anyone "discriminated against"?

Nobody is forced to use it, a huge number of people who have it on are wasting their connects because they aren't high enough in search results for anyone to even see it.

Unless someone regularly gets invites, there is absolutely no point, so whether you have it or not makes no difference to you.

[fcca14]

i need not answer your question mark.

the fearture should have been given free by upwork to all freelancers, and it to be their choice whether to turn it on or off.. depending on their workload.

plz no bother to reply if to keep remain with and keep justifying the site owners.

[MichaelJ]

Hi Ejaz,

I want to clarify that this feature is separate from simply setting your availability. Anyone can set their availability for no cost. You can learn how to do that here.

[the3dguru]

You don't get invites if you don't have it.