I may be leaving UW WHY? because of the policies. Here are my reasons.

[mohsin-bhatti]

Long story cut short, I was earning good before people started telling me hey you are good at photography, so start your own business. So I left my job, I had to pay my bills so I started part-time as a photo retoucher and editor on UW last year yeah the response was great. I can easily earn 300-400 bucks in a month with not a lot of work and still can manage to create my portfolio within this amount. I don't have a long list of expenses but I am married with a daughter so at some point I have to meet my needs. 

other platforms were competitive in their own way but in my field, some guy is always willing to do it for free just for a better portfolio. things started to come crashing down when UW changed its policies. I got some of my clients in better days while sending proposals to more than 90 clients and got lucky with 3 of those luckily they are still with me and send me some work when they have it. but now I cannot compete with bigger companies that have hundreds of dollars for marketing.

I belong to a 3rd world country and here McDonald's will pay you 100 dollars for a month as a salary without any benefits (read in an article here "then you should go and work at Starbucks) and no company wants to hire an engineer who has a 3-year job gap in its CV though he may have tried for a better opportunity in business. I am not blaming UW but after spending 15 dollars on connects I realized none of the clients was responsive enough to even ask for sample work. 

In the end a guy like me would like to take his daughter to park for a cup of ice cream instead if he knows spending 15 dollars on connects is going to get wasted without any response. 

[AveryO]

Hi Mohsin, 

I'm sorry to learn about your situation, and I hope it gets better soon. A lot of freelancers experience some slow months from time to time. I checked your account, and can see that your profile's visibility was automaticaly to private because of not earning in the past 30-days. As such, I have set your profile visibility to public so that your profile shows up on client searches. 

You have a Job Success Score of 95%, and have a good work history. I would recommend that you check out these articles from our Hiring Headquarters to help you create proposals that win jobs, and help you boost your career on Upwork: 

• 17 Tips for Boosting Your Success on Upwork
• How to Create a Proposal That Wins Jobs
• 8+ Tips to Help You Create a Profile That Stands Out
• Upwork Profiles: Why a Great Title and Overview Can Make a Difference

Please also make sure that any websites that have a way of contacting you outside of Upwork is removed from your profile overview as it is a violation of the Upwork Terms of Service.

Hopefully this helps Good luck!

[stenafio]

That sucks.

[mohsin-bhatti]

Thank you Avery O. I will definitely take a look at it.

[feed_my_eyes]

Is it possible that you could raise your prices? I know you say that making $300-400 per month is good money in your country, but as you've already realised, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to earn that much every month. There are going to be ups and downs when you're a freelancer, and you need to charge enough money so that if you have a bad month, you won't have to worry so much.

To use myself as an example, I normally have so much work that I need to turn down new clients, but in April just this year, I went for the whole month without making any money at all - and I have no idea why. I know that I also need to cover myself for slow periods like Christmas, Easter, and August, or in case I need to take a sick day, or if I want to take a holiday. Plus, I need to spend many hours doing unpaid work - marketing, bookkeeping, updating my website - so I need to consider that as well. Then I also have expenses such as buying new software, which would ordinarily be covered by my employer if I had a regular job.

I think that too many freelancers set their prices by thinking, "This is a good rate for my country." But if it's a good rate only when you actually work 40 hours per week and have no expenses (which is completely unrealistic), then you need to charge more. Then you would have enough money to spend on connects and other marketing - which are costs that every successful business needs to cover.