Are there Higher Fees for freelancers with more Project Milestones in a Fixed Rate project?

[laurenkacher]

I am a freelancer on Upwork and have a question while setting up fixed rate projects with milestones with my clients.

I understand that upworks fee is

• $0-$500: 20%
• $500.01-$10,000: 10%

My question is will I pay more in fees if I have more project milestones set with the client?  I am in France (and a different country than my client) and therefore will incur more conversion fees if I withdraw those deposits after each has been paid.

OPTION 1
For example, I have a project for $2000.  I divide the projects into 5 payments, each being $400.

OPTION 2
In a second example for that same $2000 project, I have 2 milestone payments of $1000 each.

Am I going to pay different fees between option 1 and option 2?  Then would I save the most amount of money if I withdraw all money at the end of the project, instead after each milestone has been paid?  Would other freelancers reccomend option 1 over option 2?

Thanks

[petra_r]

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Lauren K wrote:

OPTION 1
For example, I have a project for $2000.  I divide the projects into 5 payments, each being $400.

OPTION 2
In a second example for that same $2000 project, I have 2 milestone payments of $1000 each.

Am I going to pay different fees between option 1 and option 2?  

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It makes no difference. Option 1 allows you to withdraw funds 5 times, or leave the funds on your Upwork account (not too long though)

The only difference is the withdrawal fee if you withdraw several times, but that is minute in the overall scheme of things.

[wlyonsatl]

Lauren K.,

You will pay the same amount in Upwork fees regardless how the total payments on a project or on multiple projects with the same client are structured.

Upwork tracks a running total of your billings to each client across all milestones and projects, reducing the fee percentage once you reach the threshold for change in your Upwork fees for that client.

But the question of how to structure your payments to reduce your total foreign exchange-related fees is only part of the equation. You may not, as an extreme example, want to accept all of your payment in one milestone at the end of the project, especially with a new client. Better to receive multiple smaller milestones during the project to ensure that the client fully funds each milestone before you begin work on that milestone, timely releases payment to you for each completed milestone, etc. (And even a good client may not want to put the full value of the project in escrow before they have begun to work with you.)