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nickgeo2010
Community Member

The month I've been dreading for a long time has arrived.

The month where I make $0 from Upwork.

 

It's been coming for a while - the taking 20% from the first $500 of every job combined with charging clients just to list jobs saw my yearly Upwork intake dive by about 1/3rd. The rise of a program somewhere else that rhymes with Bliverr Blo diminished it even farther starting last summer, and the rollout this past spring of the "no hire, no talkie outside of Big Green" was the very heavy last straw that is finally breaking the proverbial camel's back. 

 

The month after the rollout, my Upwork income dropped from $681 to $148. As recently as 2018, I was averaging just under $4,000/month on Upwork. In August 2020, I tried to connect to a client via Upwork's video service 6 times to interview for a job for $3,600. It kept failing and he kept saying let's do Zoom or Skype, but every time he typed those words they got flagged and I was too paranoid to agree. I flagged the problem and sent a help request. By the time they had responded, he had hired someone else, who didn't have a problem using Zoom because the Upwork video also wasn't working for them either.

 

Last month I made $48 on Upwork - 1 hour of work. It's late in the day on September 22 and I have not done one stitch of work for an Upwork client this month. There was a time when Upwork was the saving grace of my profession - allowing me to edit and write from home and make good $$ doing so.

 

Now it's like negotiating a mine field. Sorry, can't talk on the phone, only Upwork calls! Sorry, just beause the whole world is using Zoom doesn't mean we can, try Upwork Video! Not working again ? No worries, enjoy hiring someone else! Hey, remember how we used to charge 10% of your profit? Now it's 20% from you and 2.5% from the client - that's sort of like your favorite hotel deciding that your $150 room with the view is now worth $337.50 - the reason being, well, no reason. 

 

This month I'll take a net loss on Upwork. $0 in earnings, $14.99 in membership fees. Something's wrong with that. 

1 REPLY 1
lysis10
Community Member

**bleep** dog that's bad. The one with the phone call is especially frustrating. I just had a client today kinda not happy about the call requirement. Luckily, the other girl on the call finally got it to work but the guy was frustrated. All you can do is apologize and agree with them that it sucks. 

 

I've found that calls outside of the US aren't that reliable. 

 

Do you feel like there are other reasons for your drop? I've always seen an ebb and flow, but I was down last year and I think it was the invite limits they put on clients. I ride on invites so I never bid much. Didn't get a lot of new clients last year so just rode on repeat clients. This year is much better.

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