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geeta_sharma
Community Member

Is upwork dying slowly?

I have a software development company. We started working through upwork in 2009. The number of clients and the quality of projects is detoriating slowly. The pace of detoriation has increased multifoldes recently. Despite having the title of a top rated agency and doing good work for so long, we are not getting enough business from upwork.

Any suggestions to increase conversion rate would be appreciated.

 

50 REPLIES 50
arjunagroupdotin
Community Member

Yes i observed the same !!

 

People are attracted to cheap bids and jobscore.  this is the fact.

more over upwork allows unverified people to post rubbish projects free of cost, similar problem ruined freelancer.com and the problem exists today also.

 

Even experienced freelancers are fedup with the fake projects posted - never reply to the bids and waste of credits.  20% commission of upwork + 18% GST - budget becomes big and this discourages freelancer to work seriously.  

 

upwork is a matured platform, they shoud't treat unverified accounts like "SON IN LAW".  these guys are wasting upwork infrastructure and resources.  specially projects posted from INDIA - NIGERIA - PAKISTAN - BANGLADESH.  some thing fisy going on.

 

Thanks

Yes you are right I lose my many  connect due to this type of fraud or fake projects 

I have been a freelancer since the days of Elance.com. Given my skill set, I used to get the work quite easily. For the past few months, I have noticed that it is quite hard to get the jobs. Also the number of jobs in my domain have reduced and moreover the fake jobs seem to be growing up. It is very hard to get a response from the clients. It is really hard to be a freelancer. I think it is time that I start looking for a job.

Very difficult to get the jobs. If you are lucky enough for the client to respond (sometimes none appears as connected, I have got to suspect of my app is which is failing to get the online state), if you enter into an hourly contract, they can have you idle for much time. You say hi, hi hi, daily and they don't respond. I an getting dubious of using upwork as the sole source of income.

Of course it is and it very logical for a company to outsource their work if it's cost benificial for them. In these Pandemic times we're getting In-House developers team cheaper and on top of that we get Tax Deduction for hiring new people, than outsourcing (we're in South-East Asia) so why would we be attracted to outsource the work?

 

We've also experienced Low Quality Control in outsourcing work where we had to completely redo the work ourself and on top of that outsourcing companies are charging in currency not of their own country which introduces additional (unnecessary) Inflation to us. Calculating all these aspects it's no longer WORTH IT...

caldus
Community Member

I don't really notice any changes in the quality of the job posts myself. To me, it has always been the same since I joined several years ago. There will always be a few fake job posts lurking on here. There will always be a few job posts asking you to build the next Facebook or Google for $100. There will always be some job posts that are just too vague to really know if it's something you should send a proposal for. To me, that's how it has always been and I simply just ignore those job posts when I'm browsing through them. It's easy to just ignore them and move on. Are they annoying to deal with? Sure.

 

My situation is the opposite to yours. At the beginning I was struggling, but now that I have several stellar reviews on my profile, 100% Job Score, and a large portfolio of past work, getting jobs is becoming easier and easier for me. For the last year and a half things have been going much better for me. Do I still struggle sometimes to find work? Yes. But I don't blame Upwork for it. Some days there are just no clients looking for the exact skill set I have. That's just life. And that's OK. Or at least that's how I try to view it. I get frustrated sometimes though. I won't lie about that.

 

The reality is that freelancing is unstable in general. There will be highs and lows. It's not like the full time jobs I used to have where I work, get a paycheck, and go home never worrying about it. But the freedom freelancing offers is something I never want to give up. I just have to accept that sometimes things won't go in my favor and that sometimes it really is out of my control. But I don't blame Upwork for it.

 

Either way, I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Maybe you should take another look at the types of proposals you're sending to clients. I took a quick look at your profile and the first thing I noticed is that you don't have a portfolio of past work to show. I think it could help you win over more clients if you have an attractive portfolio. Also, you have some not so good reviews at the top of your profile. I bet that potential clients see that and become hesitant despite the other good reviews you have. You should try replying to those bad reviews and explain why the project didn't work out so well (be honest of course).

Hello and thanks for your valuable comments.

You are happy because good number of reviews clients get attracted which
means new comers are not considered at all.

Reviews also has a magic role. i get a project for full one month and a
single review. others editing html / images / some code modifications get
many reviews in a week.

The question is 20% commission + 18% GST (indian tax) what about my bread
and butter? paying from pocket and applying to fake projects etc..when
upwork is charging so heavy - should't entertain this foolish act.

A client is in need of work - never replies - never opens for months and
days - the moment we offline messages a complaint is raised inappropriatel
which we never come to know.

upwork is a matured platform. i suggest no client should be allowed
without funds deposit. there should be a deadline of 5 days to select a
freelancer or loose money. this will make upwork spam free.

monthly i apply 30 porjects - few responds and never select a freelancer.
well we can only suggest. this encourages me to come with my own platform
next year competing upwork.com sooner.

We these are my few comments. man earning will praise and other hand gets
frustrated. i know this is a competetation but should be fair.

Thank you.

I think the clients are fed up with the low-quality work of **Edited for community guidelines** freelancers. Either there are many low-quality clients or the clients are too interested in connecting with their local workforce that they do not afford to hire anyone from outside their time zone or work culture.

With this, industry also changes, so services that you were providing in the past might have now become outdated due to introduction of new methods.

Hi There,

 

I want to reply on your this para: 

 

The question is 20% commission + 18% GST (indian tax) what about my bread
and butter? paying from pocket and applying to fake projects etc..when
upwork is charging so heavy - should't entertain this foolish act.

 

First of all, I am new in this platform but I am aware very well about Upwork. As far as I know, the commission is 20% only up to 500 USD after that its less. Secondly, As I know that you don't need to pay GST 18% on any overseas payment its already expected and if you have Undertaking from GST website.

All Payment on Export for our IT Services GST is exempted. Please consult with your CA.

 

As far as getting jobless is a concern, there is a lot of competition and if you stick with one skillset so for sure huge competition will ruin the job gradually. 

 

I am sorry if I said something that hurt you. I know you are very senior to me and you know well. I justed pointed what I thought should be corrected. 

 

Winning a job is not only in your hand. Bidding on value and worthy project is the key to earn more. 

 

Yes, people always expect to hire for 30 days in 100 USD but good people will not hire if we bid less. So why we are ignoring good clients. I pass the cheap bids and bid on those jobs which pay good and I can provide good work with services. 

 

Thanks,

 

I noticed the job posting are declining and now you have to pay for the "connects", there are a lot of FAKE job posted.

 


monthly i apply 30 porjects - few responds and never select a freelancer.
well we can only suggest. this encourages me to come with my own platform
next year competing upwork.com sooner.

That is a really great idea! 

It would be great as well for the client to post an hourly rate budget. So we don't have to blindly bid an hourly rate that is out of their budget.

florydev
Community Member


Kevin G wrote:

I noticed the job posting are declining and now you have to pay for the "connects", there are a lot of FAKE job posted.

 


monthly i apply 30 porjects - few responds and never select a freelancer.
well we can only suggest. this encourages me to come with my own platform
next year competing upwork.com sooner.

That is a really great idea! 

It would be great as well for the client to post an hourly rate budget. So we don't have to blindly bid an hourly rate that is out of their budget.


The last thing I want is to know what the client thinks my work is worth.  Your rate is your rate, what goes into it is the considerations you have.  You may have to justify why it is a value to the client but that is really the job in a nutshell.

if it was only truly like that. 99% of clients on upwork now are seeking a cheaper solution to their problem (obviously online workers are naturally cheaper), but they take it to far they want the cheapest possible one and then they find out that after spending (wasting) $5 because tthey hired someone who tried their best for 10 hours (for $5 haha) didnt quite give them what they wanted. now they think that nobody is capable.......i personally blame slave driver i want it all for free lazy small business owners for killing my particular field (programming and macro building). upwork has dropped its standards in this field. even with 100% rating i spent 3 months applying without barely a single reply, this past month or 2 out of 3-40 applies ive had 2 or 3 responses that just disapear, i think over the last year ive had a single $100 job... upwork is fast becoming a joke to me.

Appreciative and a mature comments.

 

**edited for Community Guidelines**


Thank you.

Hi Ajay, 

I had to edit your posts as it violates the Upwork Community Guidelines. Kindly refer to the link above for more information on what activities/discussion are allowed here in the Community. 

I would appreciate if you can be mindful of the guidelines when posting in the Community, or when replying to a thread. 

Thank you, and let me know if you have other questions.


~ Avery
Upwork

Sorry.  My apology.

Hi Ajay,

 

Clients have a 3% payment processing and administration fee and they can choose our Basic or Plus plan. You can share this Help Article with your clients so that they can learn more about membership plans. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

Can you share proposal tips and ideal proposal template with me? As i'm struggling to become TOP rated freelancer. Thank you

tomzilla1
Community Member

I think what Ajay S was trying to say is Upwork is charging a 20% premium, and should offer more carefully selected employers rather than anyone who pays a few dollars. 

 

I agree, for example I've seen so many "Featured" jobs recently with 0 hires, 0 spending, yet, they are "Upwork Plus Client" . LOL.

 

 

Yes !!
Any one can login for free and eat away your credits.

Month 6
Offer $5 - $10
Credits required 6
Never opens or replies. keep waiting till you did.
Refunding is confusion. some time......

Regards..
Ajay

Hi Ajay,

You did't mentioned the allowing number of Proposals:  50+ (with 6 Connects required to apply)

So, Upwork just earns easily by a job post min $0.15 x 6 x 50 = $45 (definitely Upwork is not dying, haha!)

And each freelancer loses $0.15 x 6 = $0.90 if there is no response/win from the client. Imagine if the 100 or 1000 such job posts!

Is there a policy at Upwork to refund the connects to freelancer in the cases where the client didn't repond at all?

Regards,

Shamima.

Hello Shamima,
Thanks for the post.
No refunds. only in case of project cancellation credits are refunded.

If some one posts a project and you apply. he opens or not does't make any
difference. credits are consumed. only refunded when client cancels the
project else no refunds.
jswaringen
Community Member

Geeta,

 

I have to agree that there are a lot of crap jobs out there.  There are other places besides UpWork that offer similar features.  A lot is dependent on what kind of work you do.  I know before I started on UpWork I spent some time researching it.  I checked if there were a lot of jobs for my skillset.  I constantly check that every day.  One thing I've done is to use the advanced search and apply filters.  My filter only looks at jobs that charge $500 or more.  That pretty well squelches alot of poor jobs. 

 

I have been reading a site called Freelance to Win.  Search for It and also for Simple Programmer.  Those sites have a lot of free info as well as courses that can really help improve your chances of landing good clients.

 

The other day I actually turned down a client because of some of the feedback he'd gotten. Research, Qualify, repeat.  That's the only way things get better.

 

Sincerely,

 

John

b7ed75d0
Community Member

Haha, this is so funny - I feel the same, and I am on the "opposite site". I have been with Upwork as an employer since 2016. And at that time everything was great, Upwork had such an amazing list of super capable people. 

 

In the last year I have had my fair share of headaches searching for the right talent. Higher budgets or lower budgets, does not matter. I found myself paying for job that was not done, having to fix someone else's mistakes myself, I even got my dev site destroyed "by an honest mistake" (that was an absolute surprise, never before heard of or seen) and there was this one time when a high scoring offshore team could not log into the SFTP my server guy provided for them...

 

Not sure what is changing, but I am definitely feeling this:). When I provide a project I take the time to provide a well scoped PDF doc with screen grabs, explain how my site works, its elements, what exists and what needs to be done, etc. And people just don't want to even read, haha. 

 

Hi,

Cheap resources have taken over the portal completely.

I am also facing the issue of upwork disabling our developer profiles for lame reasons even after interviewing the developers live on skype.

The management needs to give a deeper thought on what ever they imeplement.

 

Hope to see some positive steps from the upwork management soon

 

Yes EXACTLY what we've experienced as a client, we provide the EXACT specification sheets of what needs to be done which is drawn by our In-House developers and even so 80% we get Bad Quality Control from the Outsourcing Company and many times our In-House developers had to Re-Do the whole codes which costs us more time and money, not to mention we have to assign a dedicated Project Manager/s just to control these freelancers which is a Headache.

Besides this in these Pandemic times it's even CHEAPER to hire an In-House Team and on top of that we get Tax Deduction for hiring that brings the cost lower than Outsoutcing the work to an Offshore entity.

Freelancers should open their eyes and get a grip on the reality of the current condition. 

sunlucenttrend
Community Member

Guys... Upwork adds a new membership policy for clients. You need to PAY a membership fee if you want to have the ability to select in search form TOP-RATED profiles. So, basically, right now we are competing with a lot of newcomers on Upwork. 


Mykhailo M wrote:

Guys... Upwork adds a new membership policy for clients. You need to PAY a membership fee if you want to have the ability to select in search form TOP-RATED profiles. So, basically, right now we are competing with a lot of newcomers on Upwork. 


That is true, basic accounts cannot select Top Rate or Rising Talent freelancers in a search (they can search by JSS).  What is more upsetting is they limit basic invites to 3 a job post.

Upwork is getting more and more money minded each day

Yep, hope this won't become another Odesk.

re: "hope this won't become another Odesk."

 

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

 

Upwork IS oDesk (combined with people from and some aspects of Elance).

Odesk is dying at that time. Elance is more favorable, until they are bought up by Odesk. And here we are now all in Upwork.

anima9
Community Member

Well, that explains why I no longer get invites as much as I used to.

And why my list of clients are drying up.
mendespaul
Community Member

What are some alternatives to Upwork? It seems upper management has lost touch with their community of freelancers. 

seashore660
Community Member

Upwork not dying. People are making it to dye.

 

There are many non sense people who have no strong experience and have joined upwork they also offering their services i very less cost so buyer attract and give importance to cost not to quality when they get poor work they say this platform is not good and there is no quality work, Upwork is best place for getting good work.Sensible people always have a meeting before hiring. This is the right way they should start with a small milestone.They should must check the profile and reviews of sellers before hiring.

 

When buyers will give importance to low cost then they will get low quality work and Upwork will be dye.

 

 

Not necessarily Low Cost = Low Quality, all your Apple Products is produced in a Low Cost country (China) and it still retains Good Quality. There is also NO GUARRANTEE that High Cost = High Quality ok. Just learn to compete with the world giving your best effort instead of complaining too much.

lucioric
Community Member

I have found Upwork way more serious than Workana, where a client made me work and never signed contract nor got back to me.

Here are my observations:

 

- Upwork has significantly changed its business model - by charging "monthly" fees for both freelancers (in terms of "connect" fees or monthly fee) and clients. They want to make money from either end of their  2-sided market place. What this means is that they do not seem to have a clear picture of who (which side) they want to add more value to. It's not very easy to charge on both sides of the market place & keep both sides happy at the same time. While it may seem to Upwork that they (Upwork) are covered because anyway they are making money monthly, it will surely not last as more freelancers / clients will quit if they don't see consistent value. Most importantly, Upwork is less reliant now on actual "transactions" between clients and freelancers and more reliant on "Monthly" subscription fees. This model simply pays Upwork - but does nothing for freelancers or clients.

 

- "Basic" subscription clients are no longer able to use advanced search capabilities nor are they able to invite more than 3 freelancers. This is probably the single largest contributor to projects drying up. Any client (especially clients with no long term relationships on Upwork) is unlikely to pay up front (in terms of monthly fees) without a guaranty that they will actually find freelancers that match their requirements. What this means is being "top rated" means much less now - as clients are probably not even seeing your profile, leave alone being able to invite you. (From my own experience, I am "Top rated with a 100% JSS (at the time of this write-up) - but invites are now only from the so-called Upwork "agents" - who prod you to bid on some projects of their choosing; not from end clients themselves.)

 

- On the question of "Fake" projects: I have noticed that a lot of the postings on Upwork nowadays seem like "job" postings and not like postings for freelance work. It makes me wonder if there are some "bots" or some "paid humans" that are copying & pasting some job specs from job portals on to Upwork. Of late (the last couple of months), I have noticed that almost 90% of these posters have not responded or interviewed anyone (whether the number of proposals is less than 15 or more than 50). That seems to be very strange to say the least.  Obviously these "job" postings simply eat up freelancers connects with absolutely no return (for anyone who has posted a bid). A simple fix for Upwork should be to return these Connects back to the freelancer should the client not select anyone from the bids. That would be an ethical practice for Upwork - otherwise it is daylight **Edited for Community Guidelines** & shouldn't last. 

 

In the end one of the biggest impact changes that Upwork can probably make is to allow at least newer clients to search freely for freelancers on the site - including for top-rated and allow them to invite - say at least 20 freelancers for their posting. If these clients do not end up giving any business to freelancers or to Upwork within a reasonable time frame, then Upwork can start charging them monthly (something like a "dormant account" fee). 

 

Hope someone from Upwork is listening to this feedback - I am going to hang around on Upwork for maybe 3-4 months - if the situation does not improve, it is just a waste of time being here.

Yes Appreciative.

**edited for Community Guidelines**


thank you


Subbu M wrote:

A simple fix for Upwork should be to return these Connects back to the freelancer should the client not select anyone from the bids. That would be an ethical practice for Upwork - otherwise it is daylight **Edited for Community Guidelines** & shouldn't last. 

Hi Upwork Moderators,

Is there any update on the above topic?

Upwork should also stop freelancer to submit proposal when it meets the number of Proposal Limits (eg. Less than 5) to save connects for them.
Regards,

Shamima.