Possible client didn't want to pay upfront

[mumfordesign]

I was being interviewed from one of my proposals and when they were ready to hire me, they learned they had to "pay upfront" as he put it. I sent him a UpWork link to help him figure out the process. In the end, he said "Nobody should have to pay upfront. He asked if I would work outside UpWork and I declined.

2 questions:

1. Does this happen often?

2. Any suggestions on how to to turn them around and keep them from leaving? Good stats maybe?

[tlsanders]

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It sounds like the client didn't understand escrow. Did you explain to him that you Upwork would be holding the money and would not release it to you until either he released it or he let 14 days pass after completion of the milestone without requesting revisions?

[mumfordesign]

I did mention the escrow and that the money would not be released until the job was complete and he has ended the project.  But no, I didn't know about the 14 days pass.

[BojanS · Accepted solution]

Hi Peter, 

Thank you for flagging this for us! I do understand your concern and the possibility that this new Client might not be aware of our processes. I'll share it with our team for further review and appropriate actions will be taken according to our internal processes.

Please read more about working and getting paid on Fixed-Price contracts in this Help article.

Thank you!

[wlyonsatl]

Or the client did understand and didn't want to be on the hook for paying you.

No reasonable business person would fail to see that a freelancer would not just trust that they would be paid by a complete stranger.

More than likely, this client understood what he wanted to understand - you probably dodged a bullet by not working with him. If he wasn't willing to understand how Upwork, good riddance.

[prestonhunter]

I always advise clients to not pay upfront.

Funding escrow is NOT paying upfront.

If a client does not want to do that, he can simply use an hourly contract.

[gilbert-phyllis]

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Preston H wrote:

I always advise clients to not pay upfront.

Funding escrow is NOT paying upfront.

If a client does not want to do that, he can simply use an hourly contract.

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For some projects, I require an upfront payment that reserves my capacity for later phases. If a client bails partway through, for whatever reason, I likely will have turned down other work that could have filled the rest of that timeline. Blanket statements about this kind of thing are not worth the pixels they're painted in.

[tlsanders]

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Phyllis G wrote:

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Preston H wrote:

I always advise clients to not pay upfront.

Funding escrow is NOT paying upfront.

If a client does not want to do that, he can simply use an hourly contract.

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For some projects, I require an upfront payment that reserves my capacity for later phases. If a client bails partway through, for whatever reason, I likely will have turned down other work that could have filled the rest of that timeline. Blanket statements about this kind of thing are not worth the pixels they're painted in.

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I require partial payment up front when there is a lot of up-front work required before there is a deliverable (such as writing a book, when research may take up thousands of dollars worth of time before anything is committed to paper).