Availability Badge is Now Available to All Talent: Feedback and Questions.

[kochubei_valeria]

The testing period has ended and the availability badge is now available to all talent!

For more information about the feature, please see this announcement and let us know in the comments below if you have any questions or feedback.

[4695e8e3]

I can not beleive the audacity of charging to turn your availability on 

[AveryO]

Hi Alfreda, 

I want to clarify that this feature is optional. Freelancers can choose to add an Availability Badge to their profile using Connects to more accurately signal when they become more or less available for new work. It allows clients to quickly see which freelancers have indicated in real-time that they’re ready to take on more work. The goal is to enable everyone on the platform to save time and get projects going faster so everyone can get more work done efficiently.

Freelancers may choose not to turn on the badge anytime, or not use it at all so that they don't get charged Connects. The availability badge does not impact where you appear in search results. You may read more about it here, and here.

[the3dguru]

Its optional but only in the sense that using the site is optional. If the badge is not on, the freelancer will get no invites. The only way to get invites is to have the badge and have it set to available.

[bionic86]

I would never tried this availability badge for the reasons many have said and I will not repeat. The problem arises when I realize that since this feature is available, I am getting a significantly less amount of invitations. So today I had no other option that at least try to turn this badge on to see if something changes. Thank you for this.

[crart]

---

Carlos Alberto P wrote:

I would never tried this availability badge for the reasons many have said and I will not repeat. The problem arises when I realize that since this feature is available, I am getting a significantly less amount of invitations. So today I had no other option that at least try to turn this badge on to see if something changes. Thank you for this.

---

**Edited for Community Guidelines** There was never a problem with getting jobs when one was able to create professional offer, discuss details with potential client in civil manner and manage their time and availability. Instead of teaching people how to manage their freelance work, UW is taking away any skill level from the platform, it doesn't matter who you are and what you are able to do, **Edited for Community Guidelines** To me personally, it is a disaster I cannot overcome as I simply have no means to survive left, as I repeat in many threads because YES IT IS PERSONAL - I lost income to continue my medical treatment. This is serious yet not even one greedy robot of UW is acknowledging this. They treat us like second category cattle and milk dry.

[numbsain]

The availability badge is not needed because you could already turn off your availabilty in real time. There was a little deception involved by only giving it to certain freelancers at first. When this started i was not given one and my invitations flatlined. Then i got the badge and paid to turn it on. I immediately got a couple of invitations. So i had to keep it on. and i reported that it helped. I'm sure others had the same experience.

So apparently Upwork took the initial good feedback (which was only from people who were getting it) and determined that it worked. then they gave it to everyone at which point it made no difference, obviously. Now everyone has it and there is no difference in how many invitations I get, or it may be a little less. So it is useless except for giving Upwork more of my earnings which i don't cotton to and i'll tell you why.

.1. Upwork does little things like this and doesn't make it clear to the freelancers what's going on . 2. they won't tell us when our profile comes up in the rotation so for years I wondered why it was feast or famine. 3. When my client used a stolen credit card, they just took the money out of my pending file with no explanation of why. I was on the verge of quitting when i figured it out with the help of another member. Apparently, Upwork didn't want me to know that can happen even though it's exasperating not knowing why they gave my money back and marked the contract that I gave the client a full refund. They expected me to just accept that? No, they knew i'd be upset about it which is why they worded the response in a way that sounded like i had violated the terms of service.

A lot of other people had it happen to them too and were really upset. These are just 3 examples of how Upwork treats us. It's disrespectful and we deserve better. So the availability helps us lose our money. Just what we need in a  struggling world economy where the CEOs are becoming fabulously wealthy while the rest of us seem to face more financial challenges every day. In capitalism, if one entity plays dirty, they all have to just to keep pace. I wonder what would happen if a business came along that built its model on fairness. equality, compassion—Oh, excuse me, my unicorn is here to fly me to a utopian fantasyland where they have warm snowflakes and no spam robocalls or pop-up ads

[crart]

Only people not able to earn money honestly invent such things like those this platform is inventing for last months. Make them get a real job and pay for themselves and they will vanish. It's like politicians - incapable of surviving without people feeding them. That's called parasite in biology.

[kafas]

i cant TURN ON availability badge. It says You can't turn on this badge because your profile is set to private or unavailable.

But when I tried to set my profile to available its looks like this

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Kafas, I see you've already requested for your profile visibility to be reset and it's been done. You should now be able to turn your Availability Badge on. Let us know if you still run into any issues with that. 

[b0e89661]

Hi Respected upwork Team,

Being an upwork freelancer I do wanted to know that what is the benefit of availability badge for the freelancers who didn't even get hired for the first time by any client.Is the availability badge beneficial to the top rated,rising talent or expert vetted freelancers only?Please Clarify.

Thank you!

[AndreaG]

Hi Ahad,

The availability badge lets clients know you are ready to receive invitations, not that you are online at the moment or will respond immediately. You can turn the badge on when you really want more invites and turn it off when you’re at capacity. As a freelancer, turning on the availability badge is a way to use your Connects to control your workflow and manage your time.

[b0e89661]

Okay.Andrea.Thanks! for clarifying.

[researchediting]

All well and good, except that's not what "available now" means. That's what the old availability status meant, and still means.

Turning on this misleading signal is a way for Upwork to collect more random pennies from us.

[crart]

---

Andrea G wrote:

Hi Ahad,

The availability badge lets clients know you are ready to receive invitations, not that you are online at the moment or will respond immediately. You can turn the badge on when you really want more invites and turn it off when you’re at capacity. As a freelancer, turning on the availability badge is a way to use your Connects to control your workflow and manage your time.

---

Is any of the mods/admins/whoever actually ready to take responsibility for fake advertisement? Genuine question, no bashing whatsoever intended. In the end, you operate in big business, with rather not small money changing hands and as far as I know, at least in EU where I live, false advertisements and selling something different than announced is against the law and consumers have all right to get their money back and there are pretty hefty fines at times for such practices of companies. As is, you yourself just admitted that the old availability status and new availability badge are essentially the same. Then what is the point of new badge? Except for milking naive freelancers. It was advertised as something to show clients we are available but you just admitted that the old badge does that. Any comment? 

[aramidewrites0]

I think Upwork should remove the "Available now" functionality. This is meant for Freelancers with tens & hundreds of reviews on their profile, and not new freelancers. New Freelancers can only send proposals - apply to jobs, and this is even a bit strenuous. Conversion is no kid's play. 

To rank freelancers profile on Upwork isn't easy. This functionality is meant for top rated sellers, expert vetted and top rated plus.

Why?

Simply because their accounts have been ranked already, and prospects can view their profile on the search map, unlike the account of new freelancers. I've completed seven projects, yet I still get less than five profile views weekly. Of what relevancy is then using the badge? 

I know there are myriads of freelancers out there with no profile view per week, yet are burning their connects on the badge, which isn't yielding them impressions, not to talk of direct invitations. 

Of what essence is then using the badge(6-connects per week is a mole to the chest).

New freelancers get confused and use this functionality, without any proper awareness that their connects is only getting burned. 

Upwork, you can do better! 

[gratified]

What is the actual point of the "Available now" badge? Why are we paying 6+ connects a week just to announce that we're available for jobs? It does absolutely nothing to drive new project invites. Invitations have actually went down significantly since it was introduced and even more so since UpWork's version of Fiver was introduced (Catalogue). I guess it's no wonder why their stock has plummeted over 50% in the last year (see attachment). It really seems as if they're flailing and failing on every new feature they can throw at the platform, hoping something will work. In the meantime, the platform is in freefall and its long time freelancers that were once it's bread and butter are now leaving and companies are no longer sourcing top talent here. I'm not exactly sure what's going on at the top of this compnay but whatever it is, it's not good. 

[00137e0a]

I wouldn't call it a scam, but I tried turning it on and off several times and it made no difference at all indeed. It's just another incredibly bad feature. 

[designgraphix]

Great points! I have been feeling like all my proposals are going into some black hole over the last few weeks. I've been on the site for years as a side stream of work but just over the last few weeks the functionality feels so off. I've sent in multiple requests for assistance and always get generic responses. Agree completely on the 'availability' feature. I don't even get it. I've turn it on n off just to try to understand if it makes a difference and I still don't get it. If I'm online, not invisible, sending out proposals, well, duh I'm available! SMH. It's just gotten ridiculous. 

[gratified]

Here's a great work around for not wasting connects on the "Available Now" badge, since over 1/4 of our connects that we pay for in a monthly subscription are wasted on it. That badge has not drawn any more potential clients (actually way less since it was introduced) and is just another **Edited for Community Guidelines**  by UpWork. This nickle and diming needs to stop. This platform is a shell of what it once was, from both the freelancer and client sides. All credability has went down the toilet.

[9c8f0515]

Agree. I had it on for a month. No difference. Turned it off and it's been off ever since. Why would a freelancer be on upwork but not available? It doesn't even make sense.

[gratified]

Exactly, it's just another way to squeeze every last dime out of us before the ship goes all the way down.

[skytouch_s]

I have still facing this issue ..... Profile Shows Unavailable 

[97ed3db5]

I heard there's a way to wait until the beginning of each month or pay each connect for $0.15 how much do you receive at the beginning of the month if you don't pay $0.15 is it 60 or 10 connects?

[skytouch_s]

60

[numbsain]

So we're right back to where we started except we have another thing to pay
and keep track of. Not a helpful feature and there are plenty of things
that aren't working well on the site that aren't being fixed. And boosting
bids is a big waste of time too because it doesn't tell the client whos
best for their job, just whos hungriest. Only paying when you get a job was
the whole appeal of Upwork. With the cost of living so high now is a really
bad time for these new "features" which only cost the little guy more
money, time, and effort

[skytouch_s]

Its affect if client review your profile, shows unavailable badge, is your client call you for the interview or not .

[wordsmithing]

This is another blatant attempt by Upwork to rake in more cash—there is no reason why we should be charged connects to say whether or not we are available. Upwork used to be a great service, but they have become more and more avaricious over the years, while the quality of the service they offer (particularly in terms of the jobs they recommend) has slowly declined. I've started moving away from this platform to sites that have a bit more respect for freelancers, and I suggest that others do the same in the hopes that Upwork will start treating us like people rather than cash cows.

[skytouch_s]

can we  raise this issue infront of upwork .... as a new freelancer its hard to get the job with this type of features.

[numbsain]

Yeah talking to the community seems to only be good for earning worthless "participation badges," a total waste of time. Nothing said here ever seems to get heard by anyone who can do anything about it even if they wanted to. I've cited flaws with upwork for years, some that would benefit both it's members and the business itself but nothing changes because I am just a lowly freelancer talking to lowly moderaters. People with power only listen to themselves or other people with power. And people with power only see their bottom line which grows at the expense of the bottom feeders.

And I'm still having to answer questions that have no relevance to the job. Like "where do you get your inspiration from? or "What jobs have you had recently that are similar to this one and how did it go?"

I wonder if anyone has answered "I had one exactly like this and i really screwed it up. Didn't go well at all. I don't know what happened!"

[fa9d1717]

This is devastating, I have very high hopes for Upwork. But how come the longer you work in Upwork the more you realize and see that freelancers are treated poorly on this platform. There are many clickbaits and freelancers like me who are very honest at finding opportunities to work is being sunk in by this system of applying for jobs to buy more and more connects for just nothing. I'm not even talking about chances of being picked or yes I am aware, there are others who are applying as well but can we talk about those accounts posting fake verified payment jobs with good reviews, who spent a lot, and such? the ones who post jobs that did not even hire a single candidate or the ones who have the same algorithm proposals that if you view your job history proposals you can definitely see they have a very similar job post proposals like spam? Am I the only one who notices that Upwork is somehow letting this happen? here I thought working hard, building a good career here on Upwork having more successful job history feedbacks from different clients can get you somewhere but what I'm doing here as a freelancer is spending more money to apply for jobs rather than earning them... this is sad and it's so obvious already, there are so many ways to take advantage and make freelancers desparate to buy more connects especially when you can just make a fake account and post a good descent offer as a clickbait with verified payment, high spending account and what not. This is not the Upwork I used to look up for, this Upwork is becoming more like other freelancing platform and it's very sad. I can't even afford to buy any connects just to apply for a job and I really feel like giving up, I feel so down. Why Upwork? if you're not tolerating this then why are you letting this happen? Do I not deserve to a have a good future here on Upwork? I work so hard... yet I feel like I achieved nothing in return.

[6cb51e87]

I thought it seemed like a good deal when I signed up and registered - that UpWork would earn off my work a small percentage from the jobs I complete, and that would be it.   I wasnt even aware that that I had to pay to make connections when I started the sign up process. - I then discovered this Connects purchase fee, but I continued to build my profile becasue it was told to me that I would get 40 free connects. - Then  I discover that this no longer the case - and I will have to hand over money just to look for work-  I can only imagine this platform making fake jobs and fake accounts so desperate freelancers give up money in hopes of finding work. I read your post and it upsets me that this is all an elaborate scam - And I have entered all kinds of personal data and I feel like I have been raped. 

[fa9d1717]

I'm really upset too, I can't believe this is happening in Upwork. It's so obvious any freelancer can see and feel it. Especially when you have good numbers in buying more and more connects to apply for jobs. The more you apply the more you will notice and even see it in your job history proposals that have been disregarded are intentional. I know this types of behaviour, It is really know on other freelance websites. Honestly, I don't want this to happen on Upwork but are they in this? why not just add more and more moderators to verify legit job proposals? a refund for those clients who did not hire any freelancers from that specific proposal? I'm stressing out because I have no more money to dig. I literraly spent all my money proposing on this platform for nothing...

[e6746612]

Feeling disheartened with my recent experiences on Upwork. There seems to be a growing trend of companies outsourcing work without understanding the job,maybe that's why the connects were introduced ? It is affecting freelancers like me, like us! Recently, I took on a writing contract without realizing it involved creating fake reviews for a company in China. The pay was minimal, and the time investment far exceeded the compensation despite what they said, and I still haven't been paid. Despite this, I left an honest review, how a fast fashion clothing company, is just that, you get what you pay for!  This has left me feeling uneasy. To add to the frustration, I've been approached to record content in Japanese for a suspiciously low payment, 7.5 usd for 1.5 hours, allegedly for Apple. These encounters have left me questioning the fairness of opportunities on the platform. It's disheartening to see the challenges freelancers face on Upwork, especially with the prevalence of fraudulent job postings and the increasing cost of applying for jobs. It feels like the platform is taking advantage of freelancers, making it harder to succeed without spending a significant amount of money. I used to believe hard work and a strong job history would lead to success, but now it seems like I'm spending more than I earn just to apply for jobs. This isn't the Upwork I admired, and it's making me question my future here. I've put in so much effort, yet it feels like I have nothing to show for it. I really hope Upwork addresses these issues and provides a fair chance for freelancers to succeed.

[marjan22]

They sunk and merged your post also in order to hide it from the newcomers so they cant read the truth
Read more from Top rated freelancers here: https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Upwork-Is-Officially-Dead-It-s-Become-a-Cheap-Casino-Whe...

[fa9d1717]

That's why I couldn't see my post, you could even see the names of the ones you mentioned who are trying to sink and merge my post. This community should be about helping each other. I really see good potential in Upwork and if this doesn't stop I'm worried Upwork will end up like other freelancing sites.

[the-right-writer]

I just posted in another thread about the moderators merging/hiding posts. I see no other conclusion, after reading many of these, most that are not related, than it is to hide them and diffuse any ongoing conversation.

[e2d99147]

my profile ability bage is on 

[793cf420]

I'm not particularly sure if I should put this in coffee break but this is about an observation I made with the availability badge. over the past week I've had the availability badge turned on, before now, it's been turned off and I've views on my profile everyday (no invitations sadly). I've had an average of 11 views per week since the beginning of the year. After turning on the badge and observing for exactly one week, I now see a flat blue line at 0 views. it's quite an interesting situation. I'm unsure of why it turned out that way but my conclusion would be that the availability badge does not promise any visibility. should you turn it on? if you so wish but I'd advise saving those connects and using them to send proposals.

[celgins]

Joseph,

A lot of folks believe the availability badge shows desperation. I'm not sure I agree with that assessment, but I understand how some could think that. For example, if I am a potential client, will I be more attracted to a freelancer who is always available (meaning, the freelancer may not be getting many offers or winning many bids) or a freelancer who is in higher demand?

I guess it is much like a social environment. Are we more attacted to the person who is "available," or the person who is super popular and seemingly unattainable? (Not the best analogy, but I think you know what I mean!) 😁

[793cf420]

hey Clark, I think I understand what you mean. but in contrast to your analogy, I think clients should be interested in the people who can get them results for the services they need, regardless of an availability badge. for instance, if I were a client in need of certain service, and I see a freelancer with skills that are relevant to what I need done and same freelancer is "available", that should be enough to get me attracted to the freelancer and I believe that was the thought behind the introduction of availability badge. sadly, it doesn't work as it was intended to, at least for most people. I believe other factors influence a client's choice in inviting freelancers to their projects such as geographical region and presentation of their profile among others.

the sad reality is that the availability badge doesn't help you appear more in searches. what helps you appear more is how optimised your profile is (this includes keywords in projects you've handled in the past).