Upwork reviews from real users. Everything about fees, customer experience, and proposals in one article — read before you start using Upwork!
What is Upwork
Upwork is the biggest freelance marketplace nowadays. It was born in 2015 after connecting the most popular freelance platforms at that time oDesk & eLance. This platform covers almost all possible remote jobs: Accounting, Legal, Marketing, Software Development, Design, Writing, and others. They claim there are 8000+ skills in Upwork Freelancers. And do not focus on a particular niche.
We have analyzed positive & negative reviews on Upwork to give you enough info to answer the question: “Is Upwork good for me or I should use an alternative?”.
Upwork Numbers & Strategy
Upwork made over $300mm in revenue in 2019. Regarding SimilarWeb, UpWork is visited by 38 million people per month. Wich is 4x more than freelancer.com, the biggest competitor. In 2020 Upwork purged 1.8 million freelancers. But there are still 12 million freelancers on the platform.
Its CEO said Upwork would be focusing more on serving the biggest companies rather than smaller ones. For those types of clients, there is an Upwork Enterprise account that includes an account manager. So if you are an early startup founder looking for an extra pair of hands, it may be worth trying a more individual-oriented company.
How Upwork works
Upwork connects direct clients with independent employees all over the world. The client registers an account and creates a job description with specific conditions, like budget & timeline. Within a couple of hours, dozens if not hundreds of potential applicants respond. Then client chooses one or a few. In case of issues with work/payments, the Upwork support team reviews & analyzes the situation and makes decisions.
Upwork Pros & Cons
Upwork Pros
? There is the ability to leave a review & rate each client & consultant.
?♀️ Upwork has special tests, that cover language, and skill.
? The biggest variety of freelancers on one website.
Upwork Cons
It’s often hard to check if the text on the freelancer platform true or not, regarding experience, education & even completed projects (outside of the platform).
⌛The time-consuming process of choosing the right freelancer, communicating and analyzing work performance on the project.
? huge competition forces new freelancers to dump and to apply to not absolutely relevant projects
Upwork Scams
? A lot of users from China & India are trying to buy US/European accounts. We saw a couple of cases when they offered 500-2000$ for an account.
? It’s hard to control who actually works on your project. A person who talked with you on a sales call or another, low-qualified freelancer.
To be honest, these problems are actual for almost any freelancing platform. Not only for Upwork.
Real user Upwork Reviews
We’ve gathered reviews on Upwork across the web, review sites, social platforms.
Is Upwork good for Clients?
In this article, we cover Upwork reviews and experience only from client’s perspective.
Best Upwork reviews from clients
my comment
Worst Upwork reviews
Upwork tests exist & involve in freelancer rankings but they are not required. Usually, you need to check if a freelancer qualification is good enough for your project.
The Upwork support team analyzes each case flagged by the client or freelancer. And it usually takes some time to get a solution.
Upwork reviews on Social Media
Upwork Hourly Rate
The minimum hourly rate on Upwork is 3$/hour. Let’s get some real-life examples: software development services may cost from $15 to $150+/hour.
Upwork reviews from Twitter
Best reviews:
Worst reviews:
Upwork Fees
Upwork fees are taken from freelancers’ payouts and depend on the project budget. The bigger project is – the less percentage will be paid to UpWork. That’s why working on a lot of small projects is much more expensive for a freelancer.
For the client, it costs +3% for payment fees.
There are 3 pricing plans for clients. Free, Plus (50$/month) & Enterprise (custom).
Better alternatives to Upwork?
Generic freelance platforms like Upwork are Freelancer.com, Fiverr.com. On these websites, you can find employees with a full variety of skills.
Specialized freelance platforms: Gun.io, TopTal.com for software development. They are better in freelancers vetting although their minimum hourly rate is significantly higher than on Upwork. 99Designs.com – for creative work & design.
For technical startups looking for software development, it may be worth working with a software team focused on 1 project at a time. In this case, you are getting a tight-knit team with a track record of launched startups. The downside of this approach is that you may need to wait for a couple of weeks until the team is busy.