Is this allowed on UpWork: to get other people to help with your projects?

[tomliuwhite]

I am still new on UpWork. Sometimes I find out if I can get someone to help with certain part of my projects. The quaility of the work will be much better. Just give you one example, I got one translation project, inside there are some technical terms which I am not that familiar, can I have a more professional person to translate that part? or after I finish translation, can I have another person to help me to proofread(I will also proofread after my translaion, but sometimes I may not spot the errors easily.). I am aslo trying to follow the rules on UpWork.

So my question is: is this allowed if I give certain of my projects to a more professional person to do?  I will oversee the quailty, but just get some help from a  more professional person. Is this allowed?or the projects should be 100% from my hand. 

Thanks.    

[AveryO · Accepted solution]

Hi Jian, 

Thank you for your question. It sounds like you're referring to subcontracting some of your work to another freelancer. Here's an excerpt about subcontracting in the Upwork User Agreement, Section 2.1 Relationship with Upwork - 

"(vII) ...Freelancers are free to use subcontractors or employees to perform Freelancer Services and may delegate work on fixed-price contracts or by agreeing with their Clients to have hourly contracts for Freelancer’s subcontractor(s) or employee(s)."

Please make sure that your client is aware that you will be subcontracting part of your work to someone else. 

[bisability]

Hi Avery O, I am finding conflicting information about using subcontractors or employees on UpWork. Is the no answer in other posts on this question only related assigning a contract to a different UpWork person or agency asigning a different person within the agency (which I don't really understand)? For example: I am expensive and part of the work I often do can be done my my employees or subcontractors for much cheaper. I would like to lower my bill to clients to provide more value by doing this. How would this work? Do I simply agree with client that I will be using employees or subcontractors to reduce my fees because my high rate of pay is not required on everything? How would I then enter Work Diary Timesheet for this agreement? Example: If my employee is half my rate, do I simply enter 1 hour for my work and 1/2 hour for employee work on my single timecard (when the employee actually worked 1 hour)? Besides the agreement with client that I am lowering their bill by using employees or subcontractors, what is the procedure or process to bill for two different per hour rates on my single timesheet logon? David

[AndreaG]

Hi David,

You may be finding conflicting information since the Terms of Service have been updated and there are likely posts from before and after any changes. To check the current Terms of Service, you can scroll down and click on Terms of Service below. 

[martina_plaschka]

If you work on an hourly contract, only you are allowed to use the time tracker, since otherwise you would allow another person access to your account, which is not allowed. 

You can subcontract fixed price if the client knows, on hourly it can only be another freelancer on upwork who uses his own account for time tracking. In that case, those hours and earnings don't show up on your profile, only on the other freelancer's profile. If you use fixed price, you pay the subcontractor out of your earnings, a transaction completely outside of upwork. If the subcontractor is on upwork, he/she probably would prefer to have the job recorded on their profile. 

You can also create an agency, but be sure to read how it works on upwork, since it's not as you would expect an agency to work.