Fees for Connects and Percentage of My Revenue, It's Getting to be Too Much

[dcatherine]

So a year or two ago the percentage went from 10% to 20% until the job earned $500 etc. Now not only do I lose 20% on most jobs (because most of my jobs are under $500 total) I have to pay to apply to jobs. And regardless of what I have read, most jobs I am applying for require 6 connects or 90 cents. Even for small little jobs asking for entry-level work. It is riduculous. 

And there has been no benefit as far as I can see for myself as a freelancer. The jobs out there are not any better, I am not getting more responses than I used to (really less responses) and the invitations I receive are not suited for my skills at all. As far as I can tell Upwork is taking more and more of my earnings without doing anything to help me earn. 

Upwork really needs to implement some sort of penalty or reimbursement on jobs that you apply to in good faith and use connects for and never get any sort of response or the client doesn't take any action at all (never hires anyone) If the client never touches the offer again then anyone who submitted should get their money back. I would say 50% of the jobs I apply to and check out later never have any further action.

[florydev]

To start, I disagree with the way you are using the word revenue.  Revenue is income, the cut that Upwork takes is before you get it, that is not your revenue, it's theirs.  You think 20% is too much then you should not look for work on Upwork.  Honestly if I could find all the work I need, all the time, outside of Upwork I would never come back.

But...I do find it handy as an easy source of customers.  Anything that Upwork does to harm that, like their recent changes to client accounts, bothers me way more than anything you have mentioned.  Penalizing clients in some fashion as you suggest is not something I am down with.  I would rather wade through tons of bad clients to find that one gem than lose that gem because they were put off by some Upwork policy.

20% does not bother me.  That's their cut and, if anything, I would see as an expense that my business must pay to have easier access to work I would never even know about without paying it.  To my way of thinking 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing.  Beyond that though, I am a business and the reality of business is you pass expenses on to your customer if you think they can bare it.  

To put it simply, you do good work, you are a proven commodity on Upwork, you should charge more.

[ahm-creative1]

I JUST typed the same thing to their feedback section, but accidentally deleted it....but I share your pain!

My suggestion was for top rated freelancers who have earned $30K+ that we pay a 15% fee for contracts under $500 and 10% for those over $500.  And I was going to mention the increased Pro Account cost.  They are taking more, and we are getting nothing.

I would also love it if they mandated that all seeking to hire verify the payments before posting any jobs, so I/we no longer have to chase payments for work we have done.

I don't feel like retying my feedback just yet, but I will send them my thoughts later today.

Glad I'm not the only one.

[tlbp]

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Ahmed R wrote:

I JUST typed the same thing to their feedback section, but accidentally deleted it....but I share your pain!

My suggestion was for top rated freelancers who have earned $30K+ that we pay a 15% fee for contracts under $500 and 10% for those over $500.  And I was going to mention the increased Pro Account cost.  They are taking more, and we are getting nothing.

I would also love it if they mandated that all seeking to hire verify the payments before posting any jobs, so I/we no longer have to chase payments for work we have done.

I don't feel like retying my feedback just yet, but I will send them my thoughts later today.

Glad I'm not the only one.

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You should not begin working until payment is verified. Engaging in negotiations without payment verification allows both freelancer and client to determine if moving forward on a project is worthwhile. 

[petra_r]

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Catherine D wrote:

As far as I can tell Upwork is taking more and more of my earnings without doing anything to help me earn. 

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You can do something to help you earn: Up your rates! You are very cheap, which will turn the good clients off because they will assume you're not particularly good and leave you with the bargain basement clients who are as mean with feedback and ratings as they are with money.

If you upped your rate to $ 25 an hour or thereabouts (and adjusted your fixed rate fees in line with that) all fees and connects would pay for themselves and you'd access a better class of clients.And earn more.

[gilbert-phyllis]

Ditto what Mark and Petra said. Also, if you shift to working with a better class of clients, you'll be more likely to get some repeat business which will lift you past the $500 threshold into the 10% service fee for those clients.

The system they're using to assign connect cost to job posts is a mess and who knows when or if they'll straighten it out, so we all need to just assume proposals will cost six connects each.