What conversion rate from a proposal to an accepted contract do you have?

[4be91601]

Hello good people!

I am new to Upwork. For the last 2 weeks I actively sent proposals. To be more specific, my stats on Upwork showes that for the last 30 days I sent 42 proposals and only 5 of them were viewed. Seems like a very poor result to me.

Whithin these weeks I experimented with my cover letter. I created a few customized templates that I tailor for every project. 

I also experimented with the first 2 lines of each proposals a client sees in the list of recieved applications, to get more attention.

I also experimented with the type of projects to apply. I DO NOT send a proposal to a project with 50+ applicants. I apply to a project with 20-50 applicants only if there is some activity from the client, meaning the client is actively interviewing freelancers. But mostly I send proposals to the projects with less than 20 applicants. Though these bellow 20 applicants projects get to the 20-50 applicants in a few hours or in a day I subbmitted a proposal.

Last week I boosted almost every proposal I sent. Only few of them get to the top, the majority gets outbit.

And yet, I can't even get to the viewing part so far. Forget about invitation to the interview or getting a contract.

I read a lot of tips here and on other websites and forums on how to get your first contract on Upwork. What I didn't see so far is there any avarage conversion rate for each category? My category is Ecommerce Website Development, highly competitve, as I can see from the avarage number of proposals for a project.

Could anyone share what's your conversion rate in general? How many proposals do you need to send to win a contract? And what is your category? 

I would really appretiate it. Thanks!  

[clayton_sanchez]

I just ran a lifetime report for total contracts and total proposals. My conversion rate came out to 10%. But this includes a ton of poorly written proposals from my early days when I didn't have any or many jobs yet so. I am an Excel VBA developer.

I'm going to start tracking this month to month now that we have this new setup.

To anyone who reads this, Upwork is a great entry point into freelancing, but its not feasible long term unless you have great long term clients on here. Their customer service is horrible and their new 10% fee structure makes this an expensive long term gig. Imagine, you made 100K, but 10% of that goes to upwork, and then 24% goes to the federal goverment - thats a 34% tax. Thats not including state and local taxes.  

[d9fc6d8d]

For me, it really varies. But it's somewhere between 25%-30% (9 proposals, 6 viewed, 3 interviewed, 2 contracts). Usually, I'd be happy with anything above 10%.

[yofazza]

My 2023 conversion rate is 8%, you can see me venting here 😁

You shouldn't worry too much, you're not the only one.

Also don't worry about you being new. There are new people having a much better hire rate than me.

Also in the past 7 days I'm sure I saw two people having bad feedback (one in their first job), bad JSS, but can continue to get contracts. Not related to you, just want to say it because...

In summary, don't take it too seriously and don't depend too much on this site. Upwork has their own agenda that doesn't have to be in line with the well-being of the freelancers.