Never ending contract impact

[grimesr]

Is there any impact on ratings/scores when a freelancer enters into a fixed price contract with 2 milestones and no due dates. The first milestone is start of contract and the other is end of contract. If the contract goes on for months with no activity, is there any negative impacts on the feelancer? Is there any reason to try to get the client to close the project?

[petra_r]

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Robert G wrote:

Is there any impact on ratings/scores when a freelancer enters into a fixed price contract with 2 milestones and no due dates.

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No 🙂 As long as you've been paid something.

If nothing has (ever!) been paid, then leaving it open will, eventually, have a negative effect, and after 3 months with no activity and a funded milestone, Upwork will close the contract and refund the money in escrow back to the client.

[grimesr]

Ok, make the contract a bit different. Have only one milestone, end of contract. Does that change things since no money will be paid until the very end?

[feed_my_eyes]

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Robert G wrote:

Ok, make the contract a bit different. Have only one milestone, end of contract. Does that change things since no money will be paid until the very end?

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As Petra already said, if you have an open contract for several months with no money paid, then yes, it'll affect your JSS. But even if that weren't the case, it would be rather risky to work for such a long time without getting any payments.

[prestonhunter]

When I work on hourly contracts, I get paid EVERY WEEK that I do any work.

When I set up fixed-price contracs, I want to get paid AT LEAST that frequently.

In fact, when I set up fixed-price contracts, I typically set up milestones that require no more than one day of work. Sometimes I finish more than one milestone in a single day.

I have no interest in working for an Upwork client for multiple weeks or months before finally getting paid.