How much freelancers are spending on connects each month?

[#1]

What has changed after Upwork started charging for connects? What is your opinion?

[#2]

I think that spammers and people who, judging from their profiles, have no business being on Upwork are slowly been suffocated. I see this as an improvement.

[#3]

Number of applicants has certainly decreased.

[#4]

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Rahul B wrote:

Number of applicants has certainly decreased.

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I can only speak for my area, but I don't feel that is true for certain clients. Clients with a history are getting flooded more IMO, but I suppose only Upwork knows the answer to this.

[#5]

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Jennifer M wrote:

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Rahul B wrote:

Number of applicants has certainly decreased.

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I can only speak for my area, but I don't feel that is true for certain clients. Clients with a history are getting flooded more IMO, but I suppose only Upwork knows the answer to this.

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hence "other" or oubliette  collapsed list on clients' side - looks like they have a new algorithm at work

[#6]

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Sanja D wrote:

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Jennifer M wrote:

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Rahul B wrote:

Number of applicants has certainly decreased.

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I can only speak for my area, but I don't feel that is true for certain clients. Clients with a history are getting flooded more IMO, but I suppose only Upwork knows the answer to this.

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hence "other" or oubliette  collapsed list on clients' side - looks like they have a new algorithm at work

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That's not new. I don't know how long it's been around, but I noticed it months ago and others said that it wasn't new then.

[#7]

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Jennifer M wrote:

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Rahul B wrote:

Number of applicants has certainly decreased.

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I can only speak for my area, but I don't feel that is true for certain clients. Clients with a history are getting flooded more IMO, but I suppose only Upwork knows the answer to this.

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I agree with this, though I'm sure that some postings are getting less. The other day, I bid on a job that had 20-50 proposals...I can't remember having seen that many proposals on a project I was interested in more than two or three times in all the time I've been on Upwork.

[#8]

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Rahul B wrote:

Number of applicants has certainly decreased.

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well - not really - at least in my category. projects with solid budgets still get 50 proposals within one hour of posting. on the other hand, projects with silly budgets get less than 5 (instead of 50+)

[#9]

In my field, the number of applicants seems to have significantly increased the past month or so. 

And the bids are as low as $2 and $3 / hour (which is absolutely NOT the going rate for an accountant)

I have the feed set to 'US Only', so not quite sure what's going on, but while it happened once in a while before, it's very freqently now, almost every job.

[#10]

Hi Karen, 

I would just like to clarify that the U.S. only job feed shows jobs that have a U.S. location requirement. If you would like to check for other jobs, you can click on the My Feed link to see other jobs posted by clients that do not have a U.S. location requirement.

[#11]

I get a chuckle from the people who are on here talking about charging is unfair and they ain't got no money, and you just sit here thinking "ummm, you're kinda exactly who they are trying to get rid of" lol What makes it even more hilarious is then they come up with random ways to get connects back and you realize they don't even see that they are exactly who Upwork is trying to starve out. lol It's so funny to me.

[#12]

Now, I only apply to jobs that are very relevant and well paying.

[#13]

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Rahul B wrote:

Now, I only apply to jobs that are very relevant and well paying.

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Shouldn't that have been true all along?

[#14]

Great point Tiffany.
I can’t help thinking this is why connects are paid.

[#15]

I am not quite as optimistic as Rene but I have definitely seen a decrease in the number of proposals for most jobs. There used to be a big where you could see exactly how many proposals there were and now it’s a range so I see a lot in 20-50 so it’s hard to know if it’s closer to 20 or 50.

The biggest change is a massive rise in people posting here “new billing cycle no connects.”

[#16]

To answer the topic question: same-ish as before.
Used to pay for a membership each month. Now I do too.

For the rest, agree with others. Kudos to all, guys (girls? people? whichever..) !

[#17]

Still haven't spent all the connects Upwork gave me (though almost out). Working three jobs so no complaints.

I notice quite a few jobs with tons of bids, but also many with less than five, which used to be unusual, but now, not so much ... so I think things are working as planned.

I just wish Upwork had done a better job of informing everyone of this change ... those threads about "where are my 60 free connects?" are getting old. I got tons of pop-ups reminding me, to the point of "enough already". Didn't everyone?

[#18]

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Virginia F wrote:

Still haven't spent all the connects Upwork gave me (though almost out). Working three jobs so no complaints.

I notice quite a few jobs with tons of bids, but also many with less than five, which used to be unusual, but now, not so much ... so I think things are working as planned.

I just wish Upwork had done a better job of informing everyone of this change ... those threads about "where are my 60 free connects?" are getting old. I got tons of pop-ups reminding me, to the point of "enough already". Didn't everyone?

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Most definetly (was received by everyone).

Those posts have to be spam.

Cannot accept that any active user managed to miss notifications for 5 months.

Cannot accept that any normal human would rather spend 2+ minutes on creating new topic named 'I haven't received my connects' (often misspelled) than to just type 'connects' in search box.

[#19]

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Antun M wrote:

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Most definetly (was received by everyone).

There is of course no way you can know that.

But, even if it's true, it's easy to miss emails from Upwork since we're constantly flooded with them. No one who has any clients at all could possibly have time to open all of Upwork's email, so it's entirely plausible that many people simply didn't recognize on the skim that this one was the 1 in 300 or so that was important to open.

[#20]

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Tiffany S wrote:

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Antun M wrote:

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Most definetly (was received by everyone).

There is of course no way you can know that.

But, even if it's true, it's easy to miss emails from Upwork since we're constantly flooded with them. No one who has any clients at all could possibly have time to open all of Upwork's email, so it's entirely plausible that many people simply didn't recognize on the skim that this one was the 1 in 300 or so that was important to open.

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That is correct. Was very liberal with my assumptions.

Still can't fathom how one is able to miss significant change on the platform on which one is (supposedly) active.

I don't think Upwork was shy about that one.

[#21]

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Virginia F wrote:

Still haven't spent all the connects Upwork gave me (though almost out). Working three jobs so no complaints.

I notice quite a few jobs with tons of bids, but also many with less than five, which used to be unusual, but now, not so much ... so I think things are working as planned.

I just wish Upwork had done a better job of informing everyone of this change ... those threads about "where are my 60 free connects?" are getting old. I got tons of pop-ups reminding me, to the point of "enough already". Didn't everyone?

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I'm sure everybody received the million or so emails informing them of the change, but feel that they are special and deserve to be treated differently than the other 2+ million freelancers, just like the people who post that their JSS is down "for no reason" and request that upwork "fix that bug." Jeez. 

[#22]

Nothing really. It seems like the proposal numbers are about the same or more in many instances. That's just my observation.

For myself, I am out of connects but not bandwidth for new clients. So I see it as Upworks loss. Unless Upworks accountablity around connects changes (fat chance), I am not going to spend any money on them. So no bidding for me.

Just forces me to find work outside of the four walls of Upwork. Thats the nuts and bolts of it. 

[#23]

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Russell T wrote:

Nothing really. It seems like the proposal numbers are about the same or more in many instances. That's just my observation.

For myself, I am out of connects but not bandwidth for new clients. So I see it as Upworks loss. Unless Upworks accountablity around connects changes (fat chance), I am not going to spend any money on them. So no bidding for me.

Just forces me to find work outside of the four walls of Upwork. Thats the nuts and bolts of it. 

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That is probably the only chance anyone has of getting Upwork to change this is for Upwork to somehow be hurt by it.

[#24]

Unfortunately if it makes it to UpWorks P&L the damage and loss of quality top rated freelancers is already done.

[#25]

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Russell T wrote:

Unfortunately if it makes it to UpWorks P&L the damage and loss of quality top rated freelancers is already done.

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And therein lies the rub.

The top rated (non-niche) freelancers are indeed drawing their own conclusions from recent policy shifts - not limited at all to just the flawed but paid for connects system.