How to get paid for outsourced work?

[digital_naveen]

I am going to work for a client for social media markeitng  on hourly basis but I might outsource some of my work to a freelancer not on upwork. How can I bill my client for the outsources amount of work?

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Naveen Kumar,

Please, make sure to discuss this with your client and make sure they don't have any issues with some of the work on their project being subcontracted. Also, note that if the contract is hourly, another person won't be able to work on it and track time so you'll only be able to subcontract on fixed-price contracts. For more information about your responsibilities when subcontracting please see section 2.1 of the User Agreement and Optional Service Contract Terms.

[yitwail]

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@Valeria K wrote:

For more information about your responsibilities when subcontracting please see section 2.1 of the User Agreement and Optional Service Contract Terms.

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 Valeria, this seems to be the relevant clause in sec. 1.1 of the User Agreement (parts underlined by me):

Freelancers are free to use subcontractors or employees to perform Freelancer Services and may delegate work on fixed-price contracts or by agreeing with their Clients to have hourly contracts for Freelancer’s subcontractor(s) or employee(s).

Do the "hourly contracts" mentioned have to be Upwork contracts? But if so, why does it mention employees at the same time, since technically Upwork freelancers are not employees? Either way, if an Upwork contract is required for any hourly subcontractor used by an Upwork freelancer, then the client in such cases has to have separate contracts for the original freelancer, and any subcontractors used by the freelancer, and the subcontractors get paid directly by the client?

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi John,

You are correct, freelancers are not Upwork's or client's employees with few exceptions. This section is referencing employees of the freelancer not of the client or Upwork.

And you correctly noted that if hourly contracts are used, each subcontractor, agency member or employee needs to have a separate contract and track time on that individual contract.

[yitwail]

Thank you Valeria for the clarification. So to answer Naveen’s original question, he can’t himself bill a client for hourly work done by a subcontractor and since his subcontractor is not an Upwork freelancer, the client would pay the subcontractor directly outside Upwork, or is use of a non-Upwork subcontractor disallowed? I hope I’m not testing your patience.

[kochubei_valeria]

Not at all, John. Naveen would either have to discuss creating a fixed-price contract with his client, subcontract some work on it and process payments through this contract. Or if they prefer hourly model, his subcontractors will need to create accounts on Upwork and be hired by the client on separate hourly contracts. In that case he can also look into starting an agency on Upwork.