Contractor Payments and Reviews

[58a08bd8]

I would like to issue a nominal, promised payment to a freelancer without hiring her, and to leave a positive review for another developer without having hired him. How might these goals be accomplished?

[prestonhunter]

re: "I would like to issue a nominal, promised payment to a freelancer without hiring her, and to leave a positive review for another developer without having hired him. How might these goals be accomplished?"

You CAN accomplish YOUR GOALS!

But you may need to re-orient your thinking a bit. Some of what you wrote makes me wonder if you think that Upwork is about "employment". It is NOT. Freelancing on Upwork is NOT employment. These are business-to-business transactions. So reticence about "hiring" is unnecessary. Once you understand that, you can move forward.

You CAN issue a nominal promised payent to a freelancer without employing her.

All you need to do is create a simple job post (hourly contract), send her a private invite, wait until she accepts, then use the client-side "Send bonus" tool to send her a payment, and then immediately close the contract. IT IS VERY SIMPLE.

I have done it myself, as a client.

You CAN issue a positive review to a developer without employing him.

All you need to do is create a simple job post (hourly contract), send him a private invite, wait until he accepts, then use the client-side "Send bonus" tool to send him a one-dollar payment, and then immediately close the contract, while leaving the positive review. IT IS VERY SIMPLE.

In both of these situations, the freelancer never becomes your employee.

[AveryO]

Hi there, 

You will need to create a contract for these freelancers to be able to pay them on Upwork. You can post a private job and send an offer to the freelancer. Once they accept the job, you can pay a bonus or release a milestone payment if it's a fixed-price contract. Either way, make sure payments are made through Upwork to avoid violating the Upwork Terms of Service.

As for the second freelancer, you will not be able to leave them feedback unless a contract is created. You can only leave feedback when the contract is closed. 

I hope this sheds more light on this. Let us know if you have additional questions.