Low-cost Enterprise

[cobeste]

Hello, 

I do not know what is your experience with Upwork Enterprise jobs but here is mine: 

1. Mostly they are fixed price and mediated exclusively by Upwork managers

2. When engaged in interview, managers ask me many times re-estimating the quote sending new info for often poorly described briefs.  

2. I only managed to start /finish one job with Enterprise client (one of the famoust IT gigant), the task was relatively simple but the communication was extensive and biased due to not having direct access to the client. 

3. Majority of job postst/invitations for Enterprise clients are low-cost. The history of these  budgets is hidden on Enterprise client side, but the evidence is clear when you check the money earned on a specific project on freelancers side. 

4. The notifications and invitations from Enterprise clients comes regularly and I get involved in long communication with Upwork managers that ends up suddendly and are tremendous waste of time. 

I am not complaing here for not winning Enterprise jobs.  I have enough non-Enterprise clients, that pay good money, without extensive and mediated communications . Since it is not allowed to post companies names here, I just cannot express enough how deplorable some of these jobs are. There are, often just budget placeholders but then you can see from one freelancer's history that he/she get paid 10/20USD for some logo work. The picture can be made. I think these big companies brings a dangerous and exploitative culture here and it is very bad for this market. I do not have to care, but these Enterprise clients have access to send plenty of notifications and invitations to top freelancers, engage them in long hiring discussions using Upwork managers wasting a time of many people. 

I have no idea what is the added value for Upwork here. How much of these clients pay to be part of this programme. Maybe there should be some kind of other programme for these  low-cost jobs for freelacers who are willing to be exploited by big corporations.

What are your experiences? 

Thank you 

[tranvanhieu]

I have no experience with Enterprise Client yet.

But thank you for sharing, I always thought they would pay higher than regular clients!!

[wendy_writes]

Stefan, I've never worked with Enterprise clients but have heard/read your list of comments many times.  I'm sure some FLers will sing the praises of Enterprise clients but your list is exactly why I decline those invites.

[petra_r]

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@Wendy C wrote:

Stefan, I've never worked with Enterprise clients but have heard/read your list of comments many times.  I'm sure some FLers will sing the praises of Enterprise clients but your list is exactly why I decline those invites.

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 Well, a big chunk of my Upwork income to date comes from 3 different Enterprise clients but hey, what do I know 😉

[imedium]

Hi Petra,
would you please share your successful experience with us?

[cobeste]

Thank you for your feedback Petra.

Do you have any Enterprise contract that is on hourly basis? Have you ever communicated with someone from the Enterprise company? 

From your profile, I cannot tell what are the Enterprise clients in your case. In my case they typically have specific naming convetions: Like MSFTUP049, UL1159AR, MED032. (Hopefully, I am not violating community guidelines here.)

I woud not complain if I had just few experiences. My chat room is full of dead conversations with Upwork managers. High Upwork staff members even contacted  me directly via email. They told me I was to be hired by one IT gigant. After two weeks of negotiations, studying briefs, setting up milestones and quotes it suddendly stopped. I do not want to be suspicious, but I cannot resist enough the idea that Upwork is hidding here someting. Maybe pushing the top freelancer's prices down while securing their own prices for these Enterprise clients, and thus maximising the profit from a particular deal mediation. Unfortunatelly, I am not a sales person with unlimited time and resources for budget negotiations. I am designer, I know my value and my goal is to maximise the time on creative side. 

[imedium]

Hi Stephan,
Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
I noticed the same about the low-cost and the long communication process.
I applied for some job posts and i felt that it is a waste of time and connects.
Once an entreprise client posted a job looking for a specefic freelancers, more than 50 applied and the client hired a freelancer without even givin a chance for interviews to the rest of freelancers.
I decided to work with regular clients, nice and resposive each time.