Marketplace Updates: Boosted Proposals and Connects

[ShannonL]

Two new Marketplace updates: 

1. Introduced a fourth slot in Boosted Proposals, increasing your chances of being noticed, while continuing to let clients see who is most interested in their job post.
2. Adjusted the range for the cost of Connects per job to better match the demand for jobs in the Marketplace.

Check out the product release for Marketplace Updates: Boosted Proposals and Connects and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

[williamtcooper]

Karmin,

That chart is a function of the worldwide pandemic, the current macroeconomy and AI. Again NOTHING to do with your points. All freelancing sites have experienced similar results.

[a1ebd38c]

That chart is the result of COMMAND ECONOMY 😂

[imcaptain]

Seems you live on another planet bro, It's clear you are one of the FEW people will benefit from this system and new increasings as it raises your opportunity and exclude a lot of freelancers away as you already have big budgets can make your bidding easier.

But remember you are one of the "FEW", not the majority, and that's not good for the business, in the end, will impact you as they turning it into a CLOSED circle on who has money to consume it.

Your selfishness at the present time is logical, but as I mentioned earlier, sooner or later you will be affected.

Good luck, at the end.

[d_samuel_udokpok]

I wouldn't want to engage William in any kind of argument. He's obviously benefiting from the system. Moreover, he lives in the US where clients are ever ready to pay very high to get their job done. You can only try to survive. He believes the policy is to weed out those underperforming freelancers without for a second considering freelancers that live in developing countries. 

This new policy is damaging, there's no valid explanation for the increment. They're always ready to take 20% after taking connects 

[imcaptain]

How is it now ?! DO REMEMBER ME?

Look how it started and how it has gone now ?! This is all because of the bad decisions of the administrators by destroying their labor.

[williamtcooper]

Karim,

This has nothing to do with not having enough freelancers on Upwork.

There are 4,000,000 active freelancers and 827,000 active clients.

According to the first quarter stockholder meeting, the company has seen a drop in enterprise clients due to the macroeconomy and generative AI. By the way, all the freelancing companies are experiencing the same issues not just Upwork.

Freelancers need to have expert in-demand skills to prosper during the new generative AI revolution or will most likely need to seek a job especially as 2023 progresses.

[kelly_e]

From 59 bucks a share less than two years ago, to under 8 bucks as I looked an hour ago. It's a business that doesn't look good to investors because it isn't fulfilling its promise. It isn't matching employers to fls to make remote work the new way of work. User numbers don't tell the story when users no longer match up like they should. That's down to having too MANY freelancers—such overwhelming quantity (and such low average quality) that they are causing potential employers to leave. (Or too few job listers, to look at it another way—but satisfaction and w.o.m. on the interactions already taking place would go a long way toward encouraging more potential employers to jump in.)

Often referred to as the paradox of choice. Or the jam research by Sheena Iyngar: "For her Doctoral dissertation at Stanford, she set up two tables inside the entrance of a supermarket in Menlo Park, Calif.: one with six kinds of jam and one with 24 kinds. Thirty percent of shoppers who stopped at the table with six kinds of jam bought something, but only 3 percent of shoppers who stopped at the table with 24 kinds bought something. They were overwhelmed by too many choices."

2023's macroeconomy and 2022–3's AI trendblabber are amusing to blame in a shareholder call, but the problem goes back farther and it's management, management, management. If H.B. were a baseball manager she'd be out on her ear.

Watch her stock selling... I couldn't figure it out, but maybe she thinks she is heading out on her ear.

[a1ebd38c]

They really don't care even about the UW profits nor stock price and especially not care about smaller clients and for freelnacers - they care only to get talent cheap as they can. Shareholders are big corporations whose main problem is UW as it was before and other platforms, since they provide freelancers with opportunity to NOT work for corporations and earn as much as they would have if they worked in corporations. That opportunity for freelancers hugely affected the quality and numbers of workforce in big corporations. Shareholders of UW are all multi-billion dollar corporations and the loss per year UW is making is insignificant in comparison with the amounts those corporations operate with. So, they are here for cheap labor, nothing else is of much interest to them, including the profitability - they will get REAL profits if they manage to do what they intend.  Just look at the whole propaganda that is spread in last year or two - "we are changing the ways of working", all the articles about big corps success in sourcing talent on UW etc.

[imcaptain]

Man AI is coming to the markets now, If they continue to fight the labor force (Their freelancers)  on which they build their entity and expel them in this way, in the end, they will find no alternative but collapse.

[a1ebd38c]

Yes, but you are misrepresenting "they" for someone that is actually really part of UW - "they" are shareholders who hold stocks and set the board, choose CEO, there is no "they" that care for a long a time, "they" are all officials appointed by the board. And don't worry about AI, it is still largely in the domain of propaganda and it is questionable if it will ever make an effect that is promoted it would make - the real problem is creating crisis where you are forced to work for peanuts, that is behind the whole story.

[imcaptain]

Stock exchange shares contribute to determining the "value" of the enterprise, and when those shares go to critical levels, "everyone will jump" from that ship.

We have seen many of these situations and financial fluctuations throughout our lives.

[a1ebd38c]

If we assume that not all the shareholders are big corporations, then big corporations will cheaply buy those remaining stocks when "everyone" starts jumping off the ship. My own guess is that all stocks of UW are actually held by big corporation(s) for whom is nothing to pay the yearly loss of almost 90 million. Even if they are not owners of all stocks, they will eventually be, so nonetheless they can direct goals where they wish. Do they really wish to work and make the plaform profitable, clients wanting to engage and freelancers treated fair or they want to just take the people from the most popular platform cheaply for their big corporations, where former freelancers will multiply those billions and billions, is up to you to determine.

[sophiefilo]

I still remember when Upwork didn't have Connects at all. Those were good times...

[a1ebd38c]

I really don't see any difference in bidding and gambling, yet they don't allow people to gamble 🤣

[alex-nemchyn]

I recently saw a freelancer on LinkedIn asking if Upwork was going to work in 2023.
I think he knew something.😂

[2433d635]

We need to more connects for members

[e8d1e4ab]

Please help...Im a newbie in this platform and would like to know how to increase my connection.... Need advice so i can send my proposal successfully.

[ankitmws]

It is simple, Upwork has found this new way of making more money where they can get people to spend the connects and buy more connects. 

They first started this with boosted proposal where freelancers can chose the number of connects to boost a proposal, they saw the interest (read money) made a few changes to the logic and gave freelancers first three places to boost proposal, they saw the profit and have now given the option of boosted proposal upto 4 places and increase in the number of connects for submitting a proposal to a basic job. I will not be surprised if this increases further.

They are running the business and want to book more profit which is fine but then probably a few things need to happen on the quality of projects posted as well, like how about having more verified leads, addressing the projects which never close and freelancers are still applying and wasting their time and connects on them, why not associate the number of connects based on project size in a more transparent way.

[4ca1ea5b]

Has anyone else noticed that the cost of bidding on most jobs has increased from 6 connects to 8?  While there still are some for less, it seems that the norm is now 8 connects which is a sneaky way of raising the price for all freelancers.

Also, why is it that people post jobs and instead of putting the JOB TITLE in the appropriate field, they put THEIR OWN JOB TITLE????  It is both frustrating to freelancers and results in fewer proposals as freelancers have no idea what the job being advertised is for.. The instructions for posting are pretty clear yet it still seems to confuse people.

[celgins]

Yes... the Marketplace announcement is here.

Some clients might type irrelevant or incorrect job titles, but the really bad job titles may be from scam jobs.

[4ca1ea5b]

the link you posted talks about using upwork on 2 computers.. not sure how it's relevant

[yofazza]

Here's a 7 pages discussion: https://community.upwork.com/t5/Feedback/Marketplace-Updates-Boosted-Proposals-and-Connects/m-p/1269...

[celgins]

Sorry about that. I copied the wrong link.

Radia's link is the correct one.

[6652376d]

I would be curious to see the data upwork has to measure the effectiveness of this move.  
They obviously know better but from the perspective of freelancers, unless very successful, this move kind of suck. I am also unsure that clients will find it satisfying.    
At this cost this will wipeout any unsuccessful candidates and make it very undesirable to position oneself on a smaller job or questionable job.    
New clients testing the water of upwork will get less interesting profiles to choose from as well.   

I got all my few jobs out of sheer luck so far, luck I did not mind going for considering it was only 2 or 4 connects.   
At 8 connects+ a proposal, it just feel like either wasting connects or spending money on nothing if buying connects to keep getting new clients is now a must. 

[4ca1ea5b]

Love how upwork justifies the increase in connects required to bid on a job with "to better meet demand."  Anyone care to decipher that one?  Let me try... "We have seen that there is an easy way to extract more money from freelancers by increasing the number of connects required and we will wrap it up under the guise of "better meeting demand."

Hey upwork..just be honest and say that you are raising the costs for ALL freelancers instead of posting nonsense.

[4ca1ea5b]

Upwork is creating the climate for a competitor to step in.. Continually raising the cost of your service without adding any additional value is the quickest way to failure.

[4de36e0d]

Boosted proposal system is harsh for only new freelancers.

Hi,

    Let me explain the title first. A freelancer is a person who doesn't have a job and looking for other opportunities on the online market it means that he has no source of income and is desperate to find work for a living. And then he came to Upwork to find a job with expectations from the top marketplace in freelancing and here he/she find that Upwork charges 20% of the earning he will get from the client, fair enough. But as he/she goes on and starts submitting some proposals, find an option of “boast proposal”. He/she has a limited amount of connects which he/she can use to submit proposals for the whole month. To have more connects he/she has to pay and the price for 1 connect is $0.15 or $15 for 100 connects.

Now for example I’ve seen a project with only a $10 budget with boosted proposals with a bid up to 65 connects and more. If the person bidding with 65 connects gets the project, who is very desperate to get that. How much he would have earned from that, let's do some calculations.

Client pay = $10

Freelancer will get = $8

Price he pays in term of connects value = 65 x 0.15 = $9.75

So total earning = 8 – 9.75 = $-1.75

It means after doing all this the freelancer will lose $1.75 from his pocket.

That’s not all there are more desperate freelancers who bid 2nd, 3rd, and 4th position for a little less connects than the winner and their connects are waisted. Now you do the calculations of the money Upwork gets for this little project of $10. Most of this money is generated from desperate freelancers who are struggling already to find some work.

Just think about that!!!!!!.

I am new to Upwork and feel very disappointed after thinking about this "Boasted Proposal" system. You can see my profile I've done all the hard work and followed the instruction to complete my profile but still not getting any views, invites, or jobs.

https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~014afbdf170aeac2b2?viewMode=1&s=1110580749684690944

Please guide me If you are an expert and guide the higher management of Upwork to earn more from the people who are earning more from Upwork, not the newbies like me.

[imcaptain]

They don't respect anyone now but who PAYS more, they are using freelancers now to make their own profits. At the end as you said you will find youself earning nothing.

[a1ebd38c]

Freelancers PAY, their work PAYS, pays for better service and better meeting of their needs - it was mutualy benefitial relationship, then all of sudden UW decided to "change the ways of work", like anybody of freelancers and clients who spent their money on UW care if the ways of work are changed or not, noone paid UW to change the ways of working, to help big corporations adjust to "new ways of working", literally not a single dollar anyone ever spent here should ever be invested into that kind of dogma, but only in improvment of the platform for those who PAY.

[6652376d]

I am not sure my answer is applicable to everyone but I have never boosted a proposal and I might also not understand the system very well. 

Anyway my feeling  is that it is better to just submit lowest bid, hope to get picked and hope to get returning client and/or more visibility after a while.   

As you mentioned, 45 dollars will get you 300 connects so betting 60 for a 10 dollar job means you will be loosing money. It is only relevant for a job that would pay in the hundred of dollars and for these, a client is more likely to go with someone who already has a proven record of delivering.  And of course it is even worst when you are not getting picked which there is not guarantee you will no matter how many connects you spend. 

In the end , the sad reality is that it is better to offer a service for which one is more likely to be picked or otherwise it is going to be near impossible to stand out from the 50+ people offering and able to do the same job. 
 And I thought CAD design was maybe niche but I see more than 5 pages of freelancers who earned more than 10K and take more than 40$ an hour so there is most likely staturation there as well.  

Good luck, the toughest is to get started for sure.

[4de36e0d]

Yes, Gregoire, your last line is a bitter truth, and this boosted system is making this even worst. Actually, the new freelancers are the people who are worried about small projects more to make a score on their profile page. Once you get 3 or 4 small projects completed, then you'll have something to show to the clients and also you have clients also who know you. Then maybe most people don't care about the small projects and boost system.

That's what I'm trying to say that this system hurts newbies the most. 

[feed_my_eyes]

---

Raheel M wrote:

Boosted proposal system is harsh for only new freelancers.

Hi,

    Let me explain the title first. A freelancer is a person who doesn't have a job and looking for other opportunities on the online market it means that he has no source of income and is desperate to find work for a living.

---

My definition of a freelancer is NOT a desperate person who can't find work anywhere else; a person like that is unlikely to become successful. My view is that a freelancer is a person who wants to run their own business and is prepared to invest time and money and hard work towards making that happen. If one website doesn't give them a good return on their investment of time and money, they look elsewhere for ways to market themselves and build up their business. They don't expect a company like Upwork to take pity on them or care about whether they can afford to use their website or not.

---

Raheel M wrote:

Please guide me If you are an expert and guide the higher management of Upwork to earn more from the people who are earning more from Upwork, not the newbies like me.

---

I've done more than 400 jobs on Upwork, but lately I can't even get an interview. If Upwork doesn't care about whether I stay or go, then they're not going to care about freelancers who haven't earned any money. That's the harsh reality.

If Upwork has raised their prices, this is about simple supply and demand. If there's a high demand for your services, you can raise your prices. Every business does this - including mine - and you'll do it too, if you become successful. 

[26564007]

Why is Upwork charging $4 connects for $5, $10  jobs and so on ? 

[celgins]

Four (4) Connects is not worth $4. If you are on the basic plan, you receive 10 free Connects each month. You can buy additional Connects for $0.15 in bundles of 10, 20, 40, 60 and 80.

So, you would be four (4) Connects for the $5 job.

[26564007]

I used to require 2 connects to bid on $5, $10 or $20 jobs but now it has been changed to 4 connects. I have to use 4 connects even to bid on $5 jobs.

[4de36e0d]

Yes, you are right, and also boosts the proposal system forcing new freelancers to return the hard earn money back to Upwok. Sorry to say that also.

[vicspado]

Sorry to say, but they're getting greedy.

[babarsuhail92]

Raising the max connects to 8 is pure**Edited for Community Guidelines**. Clients can posts jobs for free, yet Upworks wants us freelancers to spend even more money to apply for jobs. Ridiculous. 

[792a5534]

This is very disappointing to see Adjusted the range for the cost of Connects 

[dad5e9dc]

I see nothing on my job feed like 2 connect job anymore! The connect Hike just have 2 faces! One bad, one good! Can i know the reason  why suddenly the connect hike is happening?