Expensive and not helpful: "Pay $2.5 for each job proposal! Proposals views not guaranteed!"

[webpolis]

I have been developing my career in Upwork for more than a decade. But suddenly, during the last couple of years, it started to be too expensive to land a minimal quality job: 16 connects to apply for a single job! While the Plus plan gives you 80 connects a month, you may only be able to apply to just 4 or 5 jobs a month... which is absolutely insufficient because there are probably +50 others freelancers as applicants, hence you just waste your money and your proposal isn't even viewed.

I have a Top Rated badge plus great reviews from my clients but I am not receiving any response from proposals I sent weeks to months ago. Only 1 out of 10 of my proposals are viewed.

What is going on here?

Upwork has become the least reliable platform to find a quality job. It has now become into a money making machine for their management staff but not for the freelancers.

[sullivanliz]

Do you have evidence for this claim?

[25005175]

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Nicolas I wrote:

That's undeniable.

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To quote Inigo Montoya, "I don't think that word means what you think it means."

[the-right-writer]

If it is undeniable, you won't have any problem at all showing the community the facts. Perhaps you are unaware that public accusations require evidence? Otherwise, you are posting falsehoods to cover for the fact you have not been able to refute basic business facts. Surely, no reasonable adult would be so vindictive over having to be an adult in self-employment.

[tlsanders]

He's also apparently unaware of defamation law, and the damages that might be associated with repeatedly declaring that a freelancer's profile is fake in a forum read by clients. 

But, I don't want to beat up on him too much because his tragic commitment to the idea that success is an unattainable fantasy kind of breaks my heart.

[25005175]

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Nicolas I wrote:

It is way too expensive. I have tried (and currently trying) several other platforms: none of them charge anything for submitting proposals.

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Of the big three - Fiverr, Freelancer, and Upwork - only 2 allow Clients to post jobs to which Freelancers can submit proposals. Of those 2, both use tokens (Upwork - Connects; Freelancer - Bids) for submitting [uninvited] proposals.

Other platforms that I'm aware of usually take a 20% fee unless you are part of the internal talent pool.

[wlyonsatl]

Nicolas,

Upwork has provided no information to confirm that boosted proposals have a higher rate of acceptance by clients. Or that clients' experience with freelancer who boost their proposals is better than clients' experienced with freelancers who don't boost their proposals.

My own very spotty testing of boosting my proposals has shown that many of them are not even viewed by clients.

My typical project is relatively high value, so my partially-educated guess is that the kind of smart clients with decent budgets I want to work with don't focus on hiring freelancers simply because they pay Upwork to be put at the top of the list of all proposals on a new job. I keep busy with new projects, though I'm seeing fewer projects when I search for new project than used to be the case. But I still see no reason to boost the proposals I submit on projects that interest me.

In fact, the whole boosting idea is odd if Upwork expects clients to focus on Upwork's own ranking/rating of freelancers using the Job Success Score algorithm in choosing the freelancers to interview and hire. As far as I know, boosting has no effect on a freelancer's JSS.

I expect the kind of clients I want first decide what their budget is and then rank proposals (or the freelancers they actively search for) that fall within their budget using the JSS or some other criteria. If they then can't find the quality of freelancer they prefer, they can either increase their budget and look at a different set of freelancers, accept a lower quality freelancer within their budget or look elsewhere.

I feel bad for freelancers whose specialties are pretty much commodities with commodity pricing, which means their clients likely are far less picky about their freelancer choices and figure a boosted proposal at least reflects a freelancer who really wants to work for them, even if that freelancer's work quality is not the best their money can buy.

[wlyonsatl]

Update

Upwork now tells us that the freelancers who boost their proposals to the Top Four list increase the likelihood of posting the winning proposal on a job by 24%. Divided by four, that means a Top Four listing listing increases the risk of each Top Four freelancer by 6% on average.

So, for every 16 (100% divided by 6%) or so proposals a Top Four freelancer submits that freelancer wins one new project. 

I recently submitted an unboosted proposal on a new job posting where the top proposal in the Top Four included 100 connects.

[marjan22]

16 connects per proposal or 10 -20 to maybe land a job. Expensive and not helpful! 

They should rename the site to ConnectsWork  

[debi-f]

That's why I suggest:

Not buying connects, not boosting bids, not applying for jobs that doesn't fit your skills, or that seem to be scammers. I suggest even not paying for a membership. Just use the 10 connects they give you for free and buy 10 more ($1.5) ONLY when you find a good job for you. I always check the client's Profile before sending a proposal, even when it fits my skills.  

Maybe if Upwork will not earn extra-money from us, will decide to control the platform and the clients that post jobs.

Possibly, Upwork should rate the clients. For example, if they posted 10 jobs and didn't hire anyone, or they even didn't read the proposals, and, of course, if they are scammers that post jobs almost every day.  It's time to delete them and avoiding them to post new jobs. 

[elytn]

I don't know about y'all, but for me, 0.15$ is before VAT, so 1 connect = 0.18$ with VAT.

That makes 1.44$ per 8 connects job, 2.16$ per 12 connect job and 2.88$ per 16 connect job.

Invitation rate, Hire rate, and Job post Budgets are hitting the ground, and I'm not crazy enough to buy (i.e. burn money on) connects.

Edit to add more context:

Up until end of May I was able to apply to 2-4 connects jobs that had good scope and budgets, but less traction. That was my way of managing my business nad my connects economy. That would have been 0.36 to 0.72 $ per application, occasionally I would apply to 6 or 8 connects jobs.

As per my stats for 2023, it takes me about 17 proposals to get 1 hire. About 50% of my proposals get read, and about 11% of the proposals get me an interview. Only 5% of the proposals get me a job.

Now let's do the math: it used to cost me anywhere between 12 to 16$ in connects to get a 100$ job. Since June, the same amount of connects would cost me 48$. This! This is why (most) people are upset. We're unhappy with the new "investment" policy, which, btw, does not yield better ROI - on the contrary.

[wlyonsatl]

Yeah, Upwork's the big (maybe the only) winner with the new connects costs. But the company needs to do whatever it can to eventually report profitable operations to its shareholders....