Is Upwork's Proposal Price Hike Actually Helping you?

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In my opinion, spending around 20 minutes reading a project description and crafting a proposal already eats into valuable time. With my hourly rate set at $20, dedicating this time to proposals means sacrificing approximately $7 of potential earnings. However, the upside is that this higher proposal cost likely deters competition from those who spam AI-generated proposals or have surplus time to spare. Additionally, I've noticed an improvement in my Upwork experience since the proposal price increase.