I started my freelance career back in 2012 on Upwork. Back then it was a nice platform with lots of interesting projects. Freelancers wouldn’t have to pay anything in order to apply on gigs. However, Upwork charged a certain percentage on each hour worked (in hourly jobs) and on each milestone payment (in fixed jobs), which is fair. I earned a decent amount of living each month from Upwork and my profile continued to grow. Currently I am ranked as a Top-Rated-Plus freelancer on Upwork. Any developer can earn this badge if they do a $15k project, and earn a certain amount over the last 12 months.
Fast forward to 2024, nowadays, working on Upwork is a disaster. First you have to buy some connects (Upwork tokens) in order to bid on a job. Then, once you get the job, you will be paying 10% to Upwork. This 10% doesn’t cover any disputes that come up with your client. To settle the dispute, Upwork requires an additional $250 apprx. per dispute, which also doesn’t guarantee that you will get the justice, as Upwork is more inclined towards clients rather than freelancers.
Plus, when you buy their tokens and use those tokens to apply on jobs, most often you will never get a reply from client. Even if client hires someone, nowadays, you will never get a notification email from Upwork, telling you that, “Some other freelancer is hired for the job you applied.” Back in old days, we used to get such notification email, which made us find other jobs on the platform. Currently its fire and forgot approach, meaning you spend money to apply on a gig which you most probably will never get.
Also, most freelancers think that Upwork is not doing much against spam jobs being posted on the platform, as this is a source of revenue from them. One fellow Upwork freelancer summed it perfectly in the following LinkedIn comment:
“Upwork just find a way to make money like if a job has 50 proposals and each proposal is taking average of 20 connects, Upwork has earned a total of 1000 connects (It means Upwork has earned $150 even though job has not been awarded to anyone). Going further if 2 jobs are going to be posted in one minute then in 24 hours 24x60x2x150=$432,000
So Upwork is earning above $400k/per day without any hiring fees”
On top of that, it’s getting more and more difficult to get a gig worth the time, as most clients propose a minimal budget. All of these issues forced me to switch to a 9 to 5 job with steady source of work and income, and without scams.
At the age of 40, I got a developer job in a startup and so far I am content with it. The platform I relied so much on, for the past 12 years, has introduced unfriendly policies due to which I foresee more people will be forced to leave it.