Number of Proposals

[graywolfdesigns]

Hi. I am new to Upwork. I am a freelancer looking for work. I am curious ... what does "proposals: 5-10" mean on the listings? Sometimes it's "under 5" or "10-15", etc. Thanks

[michael_skaggs · Accepted solution]

That number is how many proposals the client has already received from other freelancers on that particular listing.

[richard_wein]

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Michael S wrote:

That number is how many proposals the client has already received from other freelancers on that particular listing.

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To be precise, proposals that the client has archived or declined are not included in this number. That makes the number much less useful, since in two otherwise identical cases, you could see very different numbers depending solely on whether or not that client is one who likes to archive proposals that they're not interested in.

[graywolfdesigns]

Thank you guys. When it's more than 5-10, I wander if it's worth my time and money to bid on the job. Do employers actually look at that many proposals before making a decision?

[yitwail]

Donna, some do and you can’t assume the client sees them in the order the proposals were sent. In my line of work, 20-50 proposals is not uncommon.

[graywolfdesigns]

Well, that's interesting, John. Thank you.

[000457e5]

So just to be clear - the number does not include archived or declined proposals - so the number of people proposing to the job is likely much higher.