UPWORK CONNECTS COST RAISE

[8a074783]

Today, I applied for a job at Upwork  and wasted 4 connects when the client messaged me to connect on Telegram, but I declined, suspecting it was spam. After 5 minutes, the job was reposted. The purpose of sharing this is that Upwork  should focus more on clients.

Upwork  has increased the cost of connects, making it impossible for freelancers who are just starting out and struggling to find jobs. Instead of charging freelancers for connects, Upwork  should charge clients for job postings so that they understand the commitment they make when posting a job.

Even if clients are charged $3 or $5 for job postings, it won't be a problem for them, but freelancers are facing many issues. Not everyone can afford to buy connects, as freelancers come to Upwork  to earn, not to spend. I believe Upwork  should carefully consider its decision( raising the cost of connects to apply on jobs). If they continue, I think Upwork  will lose many talented freelancers. What do you think?

[elhasan1]

Hi Kiran S,

according to my experience, you should differentiate between real clients and the fake one, there are some red flags you should consider while searching for a job such as : 

1- payment verification

2- the rating 

3- the country that the client published from 

4- their previous projects if found 

[shamontiel]

As a freelancer who has worked with several new clients who didn't INITIALLY have a verified account because they weren't sure if they'd stick around, #1 is shaky. People have a right to hire wherever they please, so #3 doesn't make sense to me. I agree with #2 and #4 though.

[sadia265]

I totally agree with you. Upwork should reduce the connects for applying for a job. Not all freelancers can afford to buy connects.

[8a074783]

if you apply for a job and client will not see your proposal and hire someone else you will get you connect back. it is another upodate and i think  it really helpful now.

[the-right-writer]

No, you are wrong. If the client hires someone else, you do not get your connects back, nor should you.

[the-right-writer]

If you can't afford to support your business, and spend a few dollars on connects, you will not make it here. I'm not being mean. If you truly have only a little money to live on, do not spend it here because you will lose it.

[studioconstantin]

Its not really like that. As a freelancer you should be "spending" your skills and not your money. The clients have the budget, you got the skills. Otherwise you could just advertiser your  services somewhere else. Upwork was supposed to be helping bringing specialists and clients together.

[emailforcoffey]

The thing is - if Upwork charged the client only, and the freelancer can put in a proposal for free, then the result is this:

Client spends $10 (or whatever)
Client receives 400 proposals, mostly AI/bot spam
Client goes elsewhere

And anyway, obviously freelancers have to spend money to run their business. You have to buy a laptop. You have to pay for a Slack or Zoom or whatever accounts to connect with clients professionally. You have to spend money on PPC to drive traffic to your website. If you have to pay a few dollars to pitch a project that may bring in much more than that, it's part of the cost of doing business. 

[7b88f9c2]

That's not correct reasoning. Ideally that's not how freelance business should work. Up work should never charge freelancers to post proposals. Upwork already is charging service fee. If you are concerned about fake freelancers and more spam proposals why don't you correct your functional logic in system. You can keep filters based on skills, degrees etc so that client can filter genuine proposals in one click. Also while registering freelancers , you can verify their skills through degree or small test. I think this upwork is flawed. We can't pay $2 for 12 connects and then just waste these 12 connects on one job which doesn't even show any interest in interviewing us. I wish upwork must be replaced by some genuine platform which will be more logical. 

[the-right-writer]

I use platforms that charge a fee, in some manner, to the freelancer.

I have no issue with that, because even applying for work in the physical world has costs.

People lie. The freelancers and the clients lie. Upwork can't possibly spend the time and money to verify the credentials. There is no verification of anything, not even the portfolio. I have seen so-called graphic artists using the Honda and McDonald's logo as if they created it. Every single category has fakes. I don't want Upwork spending millions on tracking down who is lying. It takes far more than a test to determine if you have a degree.

How are you going to guarantee the freelancer is genuine? Just think about how much time would be spent on one person? And how will you verify what;'s in the portfolio was actually created by the freelancer who is using it?

The problem is letting in everyone, regardless of skills.

There are well over a hundred other platforms. All of the good ones, charge. I like them, a lot. They limit the number for the platform and the categories, and use random questions for the platform and every skill test for every skill you claim.

[fcac4c1d]

I'll just leave a tiny note here that the skill tests can be cheated even easier than degree proofs.

[the-right-writer]

There are platforms that have tests that are not easy to defeat. The answers are not online, they are not the same for every person, they involve "thinking" questions, not just multiple choice, or fill in the blank, or best match.

You are correct that there are a significant number that use the same, easy questions, and easy to pass on answers. However, it doesn't have to be that way.

Upwork tests weren't too easy, according to Upwork.

Upwork stated that the tests were "too difficult" and needed to be removed. Of course, if you want people with no skills, then of course it was "too difficult."

[fcac4c1d]

Well, yeah. It's possible to make good tests, I won't argue against it. But I mean there's no guarantee a freelancer takes the test by themselves. It's the same problem you mentioned about a portfolio.

Actually, I don't want to debate a lot about this. My idea is different. The platform should filter freelancers somehow as there're much more of them than jobs available. It may be done by rising entry fees like Upwork does now. It may be done by background check as Tushar suggested. It may be done by some sort of skill assessment like you suggest.

But each way has its own pros and cons. The one can speak for each of them or against any of those. If one day the humanity will find a tool to estimate personal and professional skills of any person in 1 hour all the HRs on the planet will exhale in a great relief.

Before that... We have what we have.

[the-right-writer]

The platform should filter freelancers somehow as there're much more of them than jobs available

Absolutely

[7b88f9c2]

There is absolute guarantee that a freelancer will take test by themselves. I can tell you how? Just make those freelancers apply to jobs without need of connects who has qualified the skill assessment. Every genuine freelancer will take test definitely and why to b concerned about fake freelancers. Any platform should work with genuine freelancers. But maybe upwork doesn't want it because genuine freelancers will be very less and result in loosing of numbers which will affect its business valuation. 

[fcac4c1d]

Upwork is another niche. There're platform which do vetting for every incoming freelancer. You're free to apply there. If you can't pass you go to the platform which lets everyone in but limits the number of freelancers differently. So Upwork is good at least as a plan "B".

Also on the platforms with mandatory vetting everything is done manually. I don't remember any of them with automated tests or something like this. It was always a CV, test tasks and a couple of interviews.

[the-right-writer]

There are sites that have testing, and the great ones have extensive testing, with tests that are not online, rotate, and are not pick and choose, multiple choice, etc. The best ones have testing where all the answers could be used, but one choice is the best choice. I have taken tests where I had to pause before I answered. I will not even look at sites where there is no extensive testing. Why? I do not want to be anywhere near another site that allows anyone and everyone to pretend to be a freelancer, with all the accompanying issues.

[fcac4c1d]

I think oDesk had tests... Maybe I'm wrong though. I used another platform before, they have(d) a bunch of tests. I was a fresher then and I took a lot of them as I hadn't much to do getting the first jobs.

I didn't notice they affected something though. Maybe because they weren't mandatory but just gave you some badges which were mostly ignored.

I've got the idea and I have nothing against it. I just can imagine a person who takes tests for the others. Or even take some money for doing this. But probably it will be a bit more than the cost of connects.

[7b88f9c2]

Is charging money for sending proposals solution to this?  Just verify freelancers skills through some automated system leveraging AI. And make sending proposals free for those whose skills are verified through some kind of assessment etc. See how LinkedIn does, it verifies skills by taking assessment. If you have to give excuses to justify the proposal charges by upwork then this system will not gonna work for long and it will be replaced by some other genuine platform. Maybe LinkedIn will do so in future. I need to write to LinkedIn leadership for same . 

[7ba9aa11]

Who's paying for Zoom??  PPC??  It's Upwork!  No one is running overpriced Google ads to bring someone to an Upwork profile!

[7ba9aa11]

Looks like a response from the U.S. In much of the world, $2 is a big commitment for each and every application.  Upwork isn't only for U.S. people....  To you, it's maybe less than half your daily Starbucks order, to others it's a day of food.  We're all sharing this platform.  Charging people a flat price that doesn't represent local économies is, frankly, discriminatory.  The rich get richer....

[tlsanders]

Not all diners can afford to buy a steak. Do you think that means restaurants should offer steaks for free? 

[hoyle_editing]

I disagree, there is a shortage of QUALITY clients on this platform. There is an over abundance of freelancers. Increasing client costs to post a job that they may get 50 sub standard proposals for is not going to help that situation.

generally...

Decent clients want decent, reliable, capable freelancers

Freelancers want clients that are willing to pay a fair price, know what they want and are ready to hire.

Creating a freelancer account has been a quick and easy task for just about anyone, meaning the amount of underqualified/unfit freelancers just chancing thier luck at getting a job is high.

This IMO has resulted in less quality clients looking to have decent jobs done at a fair price.

Aside from the ease of making a freelancer account (which i think is a hard subject to fairly evaluate) I think what they should do is stick with the current connect system/cost BUT all jobs under $50 are free to apply for (this would also require some work educating the client side to entering realistic budgets).

This will allow all the clients looking for rockstar editors for $5 or polyglot translators to translate 30 brochures into 17 languages for $40 to get a whole bunch of proposals from freelancers that are willing to do that. Quite quickly, the freelancers and clients will realise that they may need to rethink things a little. 

Meanwhile, everyone else can continue with trying to earn a living for clients that are not expecting everything for nothing!

[833c3382]

I completely agree! I even just applied for a job today that was 16 Connects! Even with the UpWork Plus account, you still end up buying many more Connects due to how much applying for one job is now. What happened to 6 Connects per application, and if you are awarded an interview, you get the Connects returned. Also, there are SO MANY SCAMS. If Freelancers report scams, we should have our Connects returned!

[the-right-writer]

Freelancers do receive the connects back if it is a scam. However, you can't have participated, even talking to a client outside of Upwork before a contract is in place can get you kicked out permanently.

Learn the rules and follow them, and you won't get scammed. Read and follow this post.

[haroonakram900]

I had start working on Upwork in 2016. Way back than we got 60 connects for free and a single proposal cost was 1 to 2 connects. Now we get only 10 connects a month for free and the cost of a proposal has gone up to 8 to 16 connects. Simply rediculous and outrageous. Upwork should reconsider its connects allocation and the cost.

[yofazza]

I don't remember when I joined but I think there got to be a reason for the proposal cost increase.

It can't simply be raised to get more money and risk losing their 'precious freelancers'.

[haroonakram900]

The answer to the rise is to filter out proposal to a job produced using AI, negligence, and unprofessionalism. Indeed its a good decision but new and tiny freelancers should be given breathing space.

[ai_specialist]

Strongly agree with you. 16 connects, which translates to more than 2 USD for me is a ridiculous price to pay just for applying for a project. I hope they are evaluating whether increased price has really reduced spam proposals ( assuming that is their intention).  With free account you cannot even apply for 1 project per month.

[tlsanders]

What makes you think clients would spend money to post on Upwork--especially with the huge number of garbage spam proposals--when there are so many other places they can post for free?

[studioconstantin]

If you think 5 connects is alot, you havent seen the 16 connects jobs of my field.

But in any case I totally agree with you.  I have spent more than 30$ in the past month just applying, I only got 2 replies. One of them asking me to contact them outside the platform which I refused. No actual contracts even though i am Top Rated. So I  feel you....

[ed6cba40]

Yikes! what did i sign up for here? Brand new as of two days ago....
I saw some posts, i guess they were older, that mentioned it can take a new freelancer here up to 60 proposals, before they get there first gig. So doing the math, with the low connects available, ( and i sent 3 proposals so far, after buying a few more connects with the free account, and now have zero connects left), i'm potentially looking at 20 months before maybe landing a gig?? I'm being a bit sarcastic, and trying to embrace the platform, but i guess i thought it wouldn't be this.

Any advice for a newbie who wants to thrive here, and understands it's a long game?

[mayalee99]

It wouldn't be easy at all especially now but post your portfolio interface yourself and what you can offer and check out tutorials on how to get started in upwork.

It might be difficult but shoot your shot you never know!

Best of luck!

[ed6cba40]

Thanks Mariam, appreciate the tips!

By posting portfolio interface, are you referring to the 'project catalog' feature?

[mayalee99]

Yeah it's a new feature in upwork it might help you !

Also the availability and try to log in as much as you can.

Don't forget the guides included in upwork academy read th all and watch the videos!

[ed6cba40]

very helpful, thanks again!

[mayalee99]

I struggle with connects immensely I sign up for a membership I applied for job and lost all the connects from the membership now I lost more money trying to purchase more connects, and not even the half of the month passed!

I'm overwhelmed by that I used to get jobs but now I'm thinking of quitting I don't think upwork is taking in consideration it's freelancers no more !

It used to be my favorite freelance platform as j got my first job in it!

Please upwork do something about it!

[sergiotinoco]

Yes, I agree with it. Connects are expensive. Who will spend $3 per job with more than 50 applicants. I mean the odds are low. To get a job with 16 connects you have to invest $300 montly at least.

[marjan22]

Agreed, Upwork greed is on Epic level.