Is Upwork solely a pay to work site?

[3michael2609]

I have submitted 20+ pitches yet have not yet been awarded an opportunity. I am out of credits (well, two left). Is Upwork solely a pay to work site? To me, JMHO, if I am participating to be a benefit to consumers and I am not chosen and my credits are gone, charging to gain work is not a business model that is attractive.

[petra_r]

You're not "paying to work" - you're paying to have access to clients looking for what you offer.

If your proposals aren't leading to being hired, then you're still not "paying to work" because you're not actually working.

Personally I see it as "paying to earn" but if your proposals aren't leading to earnings then maybe your personal ROI on this site isn't great.

[wlyonsatl]

Michael,

It can take some time to find your niche on Upwork. Or you may never find it - there are millions of registered freelancers on Upwork and only about 92,000 of them found work on Upwork during the first six months of 2019.

If you are experienced in your field and find many potential jobs to apply to - say, 20 - 30 solid applications a month that you find by using Upwork's search function - you should start to get some traction. There is a bias for clients to prefer using freelancers with a history of success on Upwork, but everyone had to start with zero work history here.

There a few things you can do to reduce your chance of wasting your time and connects. These are the ones I think apply to the types of jobs I apply to:

1) Don’t bid on projects posted by the client more than a few days earlier. If you can search every day for the specific types of jobs you’re looking for, do it until your so busy you don’t have time for it, then just do searches as often as you can. (Clients have no obligation or incentive to close their Upwork ads even after they hire a freelancer and they have no intention of hiring a second freelancer.)

2) Don’t bid on projects where there are already 20 or more proposals. The competition will be fierce and unless you think your bid will be at the low end of the range of bids received by the client for that project, your chances of you sending the winning bid are low. (But always consider bidding on projects where you think you are the ideal freelancer, regardless whether you expect to be the lowest cost bidder. Some clients know they will get the quality or work they are willing to pay for.)

3) Don’t bid on projects that mention something like, “There is a lot more future work for the right freelancer.” This means the clients wants to lowball you on your rate for this job. And there is unlikely to be any future work from this client at a reasonable rate of pay, if at all.

4) Don’t bid on projects for clients whose historical pay rate is well below the range acceptable to you. If a client has paid freelancers an average of $4.00 on previous projects and you are looking for projects that pay $20/hour or more, it is unlikely the client will find your proposal the most attractive one (s)he receives. (It appears Upwork recently changed the form clients use to submit hourly jobs, so maybe the range you now see on such projects is more indicative of whether the client will look at your proposal.)

5) It can be smart for a new Upwork freelancer to submit proposals at pay rates lower than the range they want to earn over the long term, but don’t bid too low. Quality clients will ignore very low bids because they have low expectations of the quality of the work they’ll be paying for.

6) Don’t avoid submitting bids on fixed price projects if you prefer hourly projects, or vice versa. It is possible a client is primarily looking for the right freelancer and willing to revise the project type for that freelancer.

Starting out on Upwork you'll have a very steep learning curve and, depending on your area of expertise, a lot of competition. Persistence will be your best friend.

Good luck!

[a14e9907]

 "there are millions of registered freelancers on Upwork and only about 92,000 of them found work on Upwork". So 908000 regietered freelancers paid upwork for credits and did not receive any work at all. nice little earner for upwork.

[lysis10]

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Marcello L wrote:

 "there are millions of registered freelancers on Upwork and only about 92,000 of them found work on Upwork". So 908000 regietered freelancers paid upwork for credits and did not receive any work at all. nice little earner for upwork.

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sounds like 908000 freelancers need to git gud.

[petra_r]

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Marcello L wrote:

 "there are millions of registered freelancers on Upwork and only about 92,000 of them found work on Upwork". So 908000 regietered freelancers paid upwork for credits .

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Chances are that the VAST majority of the ones with no earnings never paid for connects either and just have accounts that have been abandoned years ago. Paid connects are a relatively new thing.

[tlbp]

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Marcello L wrote:

 "there are millions of registered freelancers on Upwork and only about 92,000 of them found work on Upwork". So 908000 regietered freelancers paid upwork for credits and did not receive any work at all. nice little earner for upwork.

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That would only be true if 90,800 freelancers were required to pay to register on the site. Freelancers, even now, receive a set of free connects to begin searching for jobs. That they are not receiving free tokens to remain on the site after their initial failure is not a fee to register. Those registered freelancers can choose whether to use the access they gained by registering or not. Businesses like Upwork are under no obligation to allow lifetime access to their resources free of charge. 

[renata101]

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Hi Michael,

Are your pitches more comprehensive than your profile? Maybe there's something about your pitches that's not as effective as it could be, or maybe you could build your profile in a way that gives people a better idea of what you do. 

And how are you sending pitches? Are you sending them in response to client invites, or are you responding to posts? 

[charlesmartinjr]

I second Renata - polish your profile a bit.  It isn't terrible, but you sort of throw a lot of repetitive information at potential clients.  Your second paragraph in particular stands out - either cut it, or figure out how to incorporate it into the first paragraph.  I would cut it, personally, but that's obviously your call. 

One other thing you might want to do is give a few concrete examples of risk management jobs you've done (if appropriate).  SImply saying, "I'm good at this" doesn't fly when someone is trying to figure out whether or not to spend their money on you. "I handled the time XYZ Company had an e. coli outbreak," on the other hand, might go further.

Just my two cents, for what they're worth.

[tlsanders]

No, you're not paying to work--you're paying for Upwork to do your marketing for you,and they're charging you to bid because when they didn't, clients ran away after being flooded with garbage proposals.

I think the problem with your profile is that it's exceptionally dry when you're targeting a market that has something to be upset about. No major celebrity with a management team or big brand is going to be shopping Upwork for this type of service, so you have to talk to the human who is experiencing negative press. They don't want to hear about "reputational" this or that--they want to hear that you understand how much their situation sucks and what you can do to help change it.

If you've only used your free credits, then you haven't begun to dig in enough to start attracting clients. Some people make a good connection in the first few tries, but it's far more common for people to bid on 20-30 gigs before landing their first contract here. That's really not a big problem, because it's about $10-15 worth of connects, and at your posted rate you'd be in the black before you reach the 10-minute mark on your first project. 

[a_lipsey]

Another thought: it's possible that framing yourself as being in "risk management" is confusing to clients.   Most people think of financial forecasting and liability when thinking of risk management, not communications and PR , basically damage control and rebuilding social media capital.  

It might be better to specify what you do in plain language. 

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi All,

Noting that a few posts and replies on this thread have been removed as they were in violation of Community Guidelines.

[krnage72]

You're absolutely paying to work. More accurately though, you're paying to apply. And with no guarantee the client will even hire anybody, a lot of times you're just paying to type a bunch of words nobody will ever read. And don't let these folks with $300k earned and a list of 100 Fortune 500 clients under their belts tell you it's easy or worth it. It's not. It used to be. But for most people, it's not worth it anymore. 

Almost $20k earned on this site with 100% job success score, top-rated, and 5 star reviews across the board and I haven't even had an interview in the past 40+ proposals I've submitted. I used to land about 10-20% of the jobs I bid for. Now, at least 1/2 of these jobs don't hire anybody and a lot of them don't even interview anybody. Not sure what happened, but it's very discouraging. 

[gilbert-phyllis]

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Kevin N wrote:

You're absolutely paying to work. More accurately though, you're paying to apply. And with no guarantee the client will even hire anybody, a lot of times you're just paying to type a bunch of words nobody will ever read. And don't let these folks with $300k earned and a list of 100 Fortune 500 clients under their belts tell you it's easy or worth it. It's not. It used to be. But for most people, it's not worth it anymore. 

Almost $20k earned on this site with 100% job success score, top-rated, and 5 star reviews across the board and I haven't even had an interview in the past 40+ proposals I've submitted. I used to land about 10-20% of the jobs I bid for. Now, at least 1/2 of these jobs don't hire anybody and a lot of them don't even interview anybody. Not sure what happened, but it's very discouraging. 

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As Tiffany pointed out, you're paying for access to clients who are looking for FLs. As a FL for more decades than I'm gonna acknowledge in writing, I've never not "paid to work". It used to be designing and printing business cards and other collateral material; website design & maintenance; costs associated with attending conferences and other venues to network in person; professional assn dues; printing, mailing, FedEx; taking clients to coffee, lunch, dinner; a business wardrobe; multiple landlines (phone, fax).  Nowadays, it's website hosting (and occasional help with refreshing); broadband access; multiple computers and associated infrastructure (backup, security, etc.); occasional tech support; electronic payment fees.

I agree things have changed but IME things always change. UW has never been an ideal model for everyone and it never will be. It seems to be working better for some people now and less well for others. In that respect, it's like pretty much everything else about freelancing. Markets shift. Industries get disrupted. Customers vanish over here and re-emerge over there, looking for something different. 

The first and last rule of freelancing is 'adapt or die'. 

[krnage72]

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Phyllis G wrote:

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Kevin N wrote:

You're absolutely paying to work. More accurately though, you're paying to apply. And with no guarantee the client will even hire anybody, a lot of times you're just paying to type a bunch of words nobody will ever read. And don't let these folks with $300k earned and a list of 100 Fortune 500 clients under their belts tell you it's easy or worth it. It's not. It used to be. But for most people, it's not worth it anymore. 

Almost $20k earned on this site with 100% job success score, top-rated, and 5 star reviews across the board and I haven't even had an interview in the past 40+ proposals I've submitted. I used to land about 10-20% of the jobs I bid for. Now, at least 1/2 of these jobs don't hire anybody and a lot of them don't even interview anybody. Not sure what happened, but it's very discouraging. 

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As Tiffany pointed out, you're paying for access to clients who are looking for FLs. As a FL for more decades than I'm gonna acknowledge in writing, I've never not "paid to work". It used to be designing and printing business cards and other collateral material; website design & maintenance; costs associated with attending conferences and other venues to network in person; professional assn dues; printing, mailing, FedEx; taking clients to coffee, lunch, dinner; a business wardrobe; multiple landlines (phone, fax).  Nowadays, it's website hosting (and occasional help with refreshing); broadband access; multiple computers and associated infrastructure (backup, security, etc.); occasional tech support; electronic payment fees.

I agree things have changed but IME things always change. UW has never been an ideal model for everyone and it never will be. It seems to be working better for some people now and less well for others. In that respect, it's like pretty much everything else about freelancing. Markets shift. Industries get disrupted. Customers vanish over here and re-emerge over there, looking for something different. 

The first and last rule of freelancing is 'adapt or die'. 

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I do understand this. And I almost didn't want to reply to this because I didn't want to perpetuate the thread. But in light of new information, I felt it was appropriate. This morning, I received this message...

"Hello Kevin,

Thank you so much for your interest in my project. I would love to view some of your recent work before making a decision. Your upwork portfolio is private unfortunately. Would it be possible to make it visible to view?"

After no hits on a bunch of proposals, I changed my strategy from attaching samples to my bid to linking to samples in my portofolio. I thought that might be better because they can read the write-ups and click through a few related samples. They wound'nt have to download a bunch of files, etc...

I knew my profile was private, but I thought I remembered reading somewhere that clients for jobs that you sent proposals can see your profile. I can't find that information anywhere now, and I think it may have been a bad error on my part. I'm still not 100% sure that none of the clients for those bids could see my profile. But I wanted to reply to admit that I think I made an error since my post was bitter and negative and probably a bit unfair. 

You may or may not be happy to know that I did in fact land that job and now love Upwork again. For now. 🙂 Sorry for the bitterness. It's been a rough month. 

[petra_r]

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Kevin N wrote:

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You may or may not be happy to know that I did in fact land that job and now love Upwork again. For now. 🙂

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That's indeed great to hear and we all have months like that!

[krnage72]

But I just actually did find where it says...

PRIVATE

Your profile will not appear in search results on Upwork or search engines. It will not be visible via a direct link for non-Upwork users. Upwork users who have a direct link to your profile will see limited information. Clients you have worked with or submitted a proposal to will see your full profile.

So, now I'm confused. I was sending a direct link in my proposals, but it says clients should be able to see my profile anyway if I bid on their jobs. Maybe I was being optimistic thinking I was not getting interviews because they couldn't see my profile. Sigh. 

[petra_r]

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Kevin N wrote:

But I just actually did find where it says...

PRIVATE

Your profile will not appear in search results on Upwork or search engines. It will not be visible via a direct link for non-Upwork users. Upwork users who have a direct link to your profile will see limited information. Clients you have worked with or submitted a proposal to will see your full profile.

So, now I'm confused. I was sending a direct link in my proposals, but it says clients should be able to see my profile anyway if I bid on their jobs. Maybe I was being optimistic thinking I was not getting interviews because they couldn't see my profile. Sigh. 

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The problem is that you sent a link. (NO need to ever send the link to your profile in a proposal, clients can access your profile directly from your proposal, which then works even if you are set to private.

If a client clicks on the general link you included, however, they see the set-to-private page.

[krnage72]

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Petra R wrote:

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Kevin N wrote:

But I just actually did find where it says...

PRIVATE

Your profile will not appear in search results on Upwork or search engines. It will not be visible via a direct link for non-Upwork users. Upwork users who have a direct link to your profile will see limited information. Clients you have worked with or submitted a proposal to will see your full profile.

So, now I'm confused. I was sending a direct link in my proposals, but it says clients should be able to see my profile anyway if I bid on their jobs. Maybe I was being optimistic thinking I was not getting interviews because they couldn't see my profile. Sigh. 

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The problem is that you sent a link. (NO need to ever send the link to your profile in a proposal, clients can access your profile directly from your proposal, which then works even if you are set to private.

If a client clicks on the general link you included, however, they see the set-to-private page.

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Well, that is certainly good to know. I can see that being annoying to clients if they clicked those links. Thank you so much.