The "Available Now" badge does indeed cost one Connect per day to maintain. Upwork introduced this feature to allow freelancers to signal their availability to clients actively looking for immediate assistance.
If you no longer wish to incur this daily Connect cost, you can simply turn off the "Available Now" badge in your Upwork settings. This will stop the Connect deduction while the badge is not active. To turn it off, go to your Upwork profile settings and look for the "Available Now" feature. You can toggle it on or off as needed.
