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monicajaco5
Community Member

Availability Badge - Nickle and Diming Us

I wanted to come here and vent.

 

Upwork is a great platform for helping freelancers and clients connect but I am about ready to say goodbye. It apparently insn't enough that they get 20% of our first $500 with a client and then 10% after up to $10,000. NOW you want us to pay to show that we are even available for work??? The amount of money you have received from freelancers like me who has made 400K+ is astounding. As a top-rated plus, expert vetted freelancer I would think that the powers that be would want to keep us happy so they can continue to take our hard earned dollars. PAYING to let people know I am open to discussing a job to me is the last straw.

 

And don't come back and tell me that my profile is still "visible" because newbies on the client side think that freelancers without availability badges aren't available for work. I have spoken to at least 3 who have said along the lines of "I wasn't sure if you could take this project on because you don't say "available now."

 

I feel like at this point I should really focus on client referrals and LinkedIn marketing because Upwork is getting more and more greedy and has very little regard for the people that make them their money.

 

Rant over.

5 REPLIES 5
tlsanders
Community Member

I guess if the percentage-based fees were good enough, they wouldn't be bleeding money every month. If you've earned $400,000 here and paid an average of 10% in fees, you've made $360,000 more in profit than Upwork has in that same time.

 

I've not bothered with that silly badge and it doesn't seem to be hurting me at all, but if it's important to you...if you've earned $400,000 here, surely that extra few dollars of investment isn't the dealbreaker? 

 

 

Over the course of 10 years that is, so over 10 years they got 40K out of me but multiply that times all the freelancers that do well here. 

 

Sure, I make plenty of money but the point is I MAKE the money and for them to charge us to tell clients we can work so THEY also make more more is BS. Luckily for me only about 15% of my work comes from Upwork so for me it's more about principal.

 

Upwork is losing money because they don't take care of their highest earners and we leave for greener pastures. The powers that be over at Upwork should read this. Hits all the nails on the head. https://medium.com/alpha-beta-blog/why-cant-upwork-make-any-money-1057c25d5b23

williamtcooper
Community Member

Monica, I am not sure the reason for the Availabilty button is economic because it's only about $1 per week for Upwork, therefore I am not sure about the nickel and diming. My guess is that it allows the true active Profiles to stand out from the majority of Profiles that are inactive as well as the causal users of Upwork will not pay that $1. Only a guess. Thanks!

$1/week times 1 million freelancers is $1 million/week.

25005175
Community Member

And how many of those client relationships that formed on the platform would you have without Upwork? That is the fee you are paying. You pay for the marketplace. You pay a fee on earnings that you would not have otherwise. You pay a fee for contract facilitation. You pay a fee for automated billing. You pay a fee for Upwork to advertise to potential clients that they can find freelancers like you via this platform. You don't realize it, because it is all the same fee!

 

Why is paying such a paltry fee to advertise as Available so much of a deal-breaker? Every complaint that I have seen along these lines all seem to boil down to this: "I don't want to pay Upwork any money". Cool. Completely understandable. Except, to do any healthy amount of remote freelancing, there are costs associated with website hosting, data storage, bookkeeping, advertising, payment processing, etc. You'll either pay them on Upwork or pay them to another platform or pay them to a myriad of specialized services. You say that you've been freelancing for at least 10 years. Do you simply reject this reality? If so, with what and why?

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