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Upwork, a popular freelancing platform, offers a range of use cases for both individuals and businesses. Users have utilized Upwork as a …
Starting at $49.99 per month
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What is Upwork?
Upwork headquartered in Mountain View, California offers their eponymous freelance management system (FMS).
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$49.99
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per month
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Free
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- No setup fee
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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What is Upwork?
Upwork Video
At Upwork, we believe the best companies win with the best talent. But great people can be hard to find. Through Upwork, you can hire and collaborate with high-quality independent professionals with the exact skills you need to get the job done. Watch our short video to learn ...
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| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Upwork headquartered in Mountain View, California offers their eponymous freelance management system (FMS).
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.1.
The most common users of Upwork are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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Upwork, a popular freelancing platform, offers a range of use cases for both individuals and businesses. Users have utilized Upwork as a customer acquisition channel, enabling them to create a higher number of blog posts, copy for ads, and graphics for social media and Google ads at scale. The marketplace provides the opportunity to hire contract developers for small to medium-sized projects, allowing users to prioritize marketing tasks over content creation. Upwork has also become a go-to platform for agencies looking to find clients that match their specific Amazon seller skills, while facilitating billing and invoicing processes. Freelancers leverage Upwork to build a client database and generate extra income by utilizing their writing abilities. With its hourly service model, Upwork helps businesses grow in client volume and build trust through regular screenshots.
Additionally, the platform is used for short, randomly-occurring tasks that don't require hiring permanent staff or when departments are overloaded and specific skills are needed. It solves administrative pain points by providing virtual assistance for general administrative duties and data analysis. Upwork can be a quick way to outsource tasks or projects without upfront expenditure and ensures that freelancers get paid worldwide. This has proven beneficial in boosting efficiency in workflow and roadmap by providing candidates for different project lengths and commitments. Overall, users have found that Upwork streamlines the process of finding, vetting, and managing an outsourced workforce while effectively tracking hours worked and facilitating payment activities.
Valuable platform for finding verified talent: Many users have found Upwork to be a valuable platform for finding reputable and verified designers, writers, and creative talent. They appreciate the extensive candidate pool on Upwork, stating that it almost guarantees finding individuals who specialize in the specific skills they are looking for. Convenient communication and project management: Users appreciate how easy it is to communicate with customers and keep track of billing, tracking, and conversations in one place on Upwork. They also like the messaging service available on Upwork's desktop app, browser app, and mobile app, which allows them to stay in constant contact with clients regardless of their location. Flexible payment options: Some users find it useful that Upwork offers both fixed bid and hourly options. They mention that these options are helpful for different kinds of projects and provide flexibility when working with freelancers.
Difficult to contact customer service: Many users have expressed frustration with Upwork's customer service, finding it difficult to get in touch and feeling that the company lacks transparency in their decision-making processes.
Upwork does not prioritize freelancers' best interest: Reviewers frequently mention that Upwork seems to prioritize its own interests over those of the freelance community. This has led many freelancers to feel disposable and undervalued on the platform.
High fees charged by Upwork: A common complaint among users is the high fees charged by Upwork, especially for freelancers who are just starting their businesses. These fees are seen as a significant barrier and make it challenging for both clients and freelancers to use the platform cost-effectively.
Users recommend the following when using Upwork:
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Be patient and put in consistent effort to find good clients and build a good rating. Thoroughly fill out your Upwork profile and explain your needs clearly.
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Send multiple pitches per week and bid lower than others when starting out. Take on jobs outside of your preferred skills to get the first few 5-star reviews. Start with small, quick turnover projects to build your portfolio. Ask for fair pricing to avoid charging too little.
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Use a guide and review freelancers' performance on Upwork for reliability. Conduct thorough interviews with candidates on Upwork and communicate only through the platform. Make sure to explain what you need in detail and have a clear idea of what you want.
Overall, users highly recommend trying Upwork for freelancing opportunities and finding qualified professionals. They believe that Upwork is a great platform for achieving business objectives, economic independence, and connecting with excellent freelancers quickly.
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Reviews
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September 22, 2022
Upwork creates and aide in business Efficiency!
Our company utilizes Upwork for our workflow shortages, and for short/long-term projects different departments may need assistance with. Upwork allows us to find candidates for different project lengths and commitments while also boosting efficiency in our workflow and roadmap. We have utilized Upwork for basic data entry needs, and for interim product owners and scrum masters while looking for more permanent replacements.
- Short term staff replacement.
- Helpful with projects.
- Business Growth.
- Workplace efficiency.
- Billing notices.
September 14, 2022
Upwork is great
We hire contractors from all over the world to do some simple tasks for us. It provides a flexible workforce that without having the burden of starting with a lot of upfront expenditure. Since we are an AI company we use it for data annotation mainly. We can hire as much talent as we want for as much time as we want, and we don't worry if they are going to be able to get paid or not. Upwork always makes them get paid anywhere in the world.
- Easy access to talent
- Allows us to bring our own talent if needed
- Easy and safe payment system
- NA
June 28, 2022
Upwork Is A Freelancer's Dream
As an agency, we use it as a way to find clients that need our specific set of Amazon seller skills. Once we find the client, we use it as a way of billing and invoicing them, which is all done through the platform. We also use it as a means of client communication through their chat and video chat features.
- Provides means of easier communication and contract setup
- Matches our skillset with people in need
- Makes it easy to bill and invoice clients all in one location
- They are really particular about not taking people off the platform, which can make things difficult during the initial meeting process if they want to know more about us or if they have trouble using the call features. It is understandable though, so Upwork doesn't lose the business off the platform.
- Their calendar sync feature can be a little tricky and make it hard to schedule calls or meetings. I was able to figure it out, but it took me a bit.
- I don't really like how you have to pay for connects when applying for jobs, but I understand why Upwork does it.
We use Upwork to find and sort clients for our organization. Upwork makes the screening of potential clients easy as well as communication with potential leads. We use Upwork to communicate with current clients and collect payment as well. All of our employees use Upwork to track time for client work and to communicate with clients. One of the most beneficial features is the billing, makes collecting invoices so much easier and it is automatic.
- Finding clients
- Screening clients
- Collecting payment
- Tracking time
- Application occasionally has bugs.
- Better messaging integration to the application.
April 23, 2020
Great platform to bring together service providers with business owners in the most agile way
It is used by departments independently, rather than a top-bottom approach. Our company lead and managed a significant amount of its wor through outsourcing and that's exactly where UpWork comes into play. UpWork makes it possible to find a vast range of skills in pretty much any area from graphic design to software development or simply translation. Hence, our organization uses UpWork within departments according to rather spontaneous needs, different departments having different business needs.
- Outsourcing
- Services Platform
- Contract
- It is a bit hard to distinguish good, high-quality service providers from the mass, huge amount of population. Due to high competition, even high-quality services are forced to lower prices and this can be realized only once the service is completed. So UpWork has room for improvement to distinguish quality from the mediocrity.
- Even though it is supposed to increase the overall quality, the entry barrier is a mechanism to prevent quality service to enter into the free market, too. So, rather than simply disallowing new memberships, there must be a better way to filter good service providers.
November 06, 2019
Upping the Freelancer Game
We use it to hire talent, from creative personnel to developers. For any skill we need or any job too tedious to be done by the core team, we outsource through Upwork. The external team fluctuates a bit, due to changing needs, but we also have a core team of freelancers who stay for a few months at a time.
- It provides access to talent across the globe -- location is no longer an issue.
- The feedback/rating system helps with choosing the right candidate.
- The escrow system is great for us to feel safer. It can be scammed still, but only to an extent.
- The error messages are quite prevalent. The system isn't fail-safe.
- I signed up to receive notices about partial disruptions, etc, and I get a handful of notifications weekly.
- The mediation services that help with the return of escrow are not always just.
December 07, 2018
Upwork offers flexibility, credibility and trust to your outsourced workforce search
I currently use Upwork to outsource various marketing, sales and development tasks for several side projects. It's a great tool to find, vet and manage an outsourced workforce. Upwork saves a great amount of time that would be wasted searching and vetting potential contractors. It also makes it very easy to hold contractors accountable by automatically logging their hours, creating milestones and brokering payment activities.
- Ratings and reviews of outsourced workers help add credibility to your potential contractor.
- Payments via escrow once milestones are agreed upon and executed makes for a seamless transaction.
- The ability to filter on several dozen categories allows you to find the contractor with the precise skill set you are looking for.
- Searching for contractors could use some help as keyword search drives many applicants that are not qualified.
- Although the current filters are great, more precision could be added to drill down deeper into categories.
- When posting a job, the responses you get are canned from about 75% of applicants. It would be nice if Upwork developed a system to flag applicants that respond with the same verbiage to everyone.
December 02, 2018
Expands your network to around the globe
We've been using Upwork to prospect new clients and offer our services abroad. It helps us expand to another markets in North America and Europe.
- It has a lot of job opportunities (single projects)
- Great amount of companies searching for developers and designers
- The search tool is awesome, offering tools and filters to display exactly what you are looking for
- They could offer better pricing for small companies
- Change the way they handle company accounts (who are offering services), it's somewhat confusing
- Since there are so many developers, they could better distinguish job offerings from individuals to companies
June 27, 2018
Quality work for a fair price
We use Upwork to find people who are specialized in a certain kind of work that we need help on and do not have time to train our in-house team on. We are using Upwork specifically for the needs of the marketing team. We have hired Upwork contractors to work on things like Google Analytics, design, coding etc.
- Great interface. It is easy to navigate around and find the type of work you need
- Able to read reviews of others who have worked with the individual
- Safe and fair payment for both sides of the job
- Upwork is in a difficult business where their success depends on the reliability of the people who use the product. I think if they continue to focus on their customer service they will be going in the right direction.
- It would help to have the option to communicate more with them prior to hiring.
- More payment methods.
June 04, 2018
Upwork is the best online jobs marketplace!
I basically use Upwork to find clients and work with them. My clients at times ask me to do recruitment on Upwork on their behalf. Upwork gave me a career-changing opportunity. It allowed me to find the clients I liked to work with and not have to entertain clients that don't align with my principles.
- Upwork allows you to easily filter the job listings and find the job that fits your preferences.
- Upwork allows you to feel secure with every transaction with their payment system in place.
- Upwork allowed me to do what I love and earn more while I'm at home or traveling.
- Upwork should focus on allowing people to part of the platform based on test results and not just not accept them because there are lots of freelancers already with the same skill.
- It should also be strict with some of the job postings like suspending those with just soliciting for free work or proposals.
- Upwork should proactively provide free valuable to its top freelancers.
- They should improve the metrics they use for the "Job Success Rate."
I have been using the Upwork freelance hub since 2012 (back when it was oDesk and Elance). Upwork offers good exposure to clients looking for contractors (freelancers). Over the years, Upwork has bettered itself, making it easier to bring together contractors and clients to work on projects big and small. It is a paid service, but I find I enjoy the security that comes with vetting contractors and clients to work together to get great things done.
- Messaging service is available in a browser, Windows, and Android, so I can communicate with clients wherever I go.
- Project searching is very powerful, which makes it easy for me to find projects to bid on.
- Scaled project fees make great sense for long-term commitments.
- Ratings and feedback system make it easier to spot good clients.
- Tech support is active and always responsive.
- Scaled project fees make it hard to get started with some clients.
- Kinda wish we could chat with clients before making a bid, but it seems to make sense the way it is right now.
March 30, 2018
Great platform for beginning your freelancer experience
I don't use Upwork at my organization, however, I've been an Upwork member for a year working as a freelancer in analytical writing and mostly in Spanish to English translations and vice-versa. It is a great tool for creating a clients database for freelancers like me who like producing extra money by using my writing abilities.
- Upwork's payment platform is really secure since it counts with direct bank account linking Upwork counts with hacking prevention and a high level of encryption. Also, it is always really responsible for its payments, if you do the work listed in the time provided, then expect to be paid.
- Other sites have a minimum rate, in Upwork this is free, so the competition with other freelancers gets interesting. And there is a progression once you get more work, which allows you not to be stuck with the same work rate.
- When trying to hire a freelancer, it's really easy to set the money you will expect, since the freelancers provide a fixed or hourly rate. You can specify a preference in your job posting depending on your needs.
- Upwork is pricey, they take 10% of every transaction of the freelancer, and if you have a premium membership the cost gets higher.
- Doing your first freelancer job can be difficult since there are so many freelancers on that website, so be prepared to set a really low rate at first.
- The website can be a bit laggy. I have lost some jobs just because I'm not able to load the information before the clock finishes just because of some lag issues.
Upwork is used in our company as a quick way to outsource when all departments are overloaded with enormous numbers of tasks or projects. This allows us to focus on developing more strategy or more important tasks in order to maintain business objectives. This also helps us if we are in short of some particular skills needed to finish the job (for example, content translation to a different language).
- Reaching out to talent for short-term projects: It is a quick an easy way to have extra manpower for your project, all you have to do is create an account on Upwork and post your project online.
- Easy to manage your freelancer's performance: once you have found the right freelancer, you would need to direct them to finish your project as you require. Using Upwork, you will be able to monitor your freelancer's work online. Working hours are recorded and screenshots can be requested through Upwork's software (need to install Upwork on your computer).
- Easy to make a payment to your freelancer: You can make payment to a freelancer half way around the world through Upwork which makes it extremely convenient for both freelancers and project owners.
- More payment methods: at the moment, an online transfer is available as the only payment method to freelancer. It would be nice if both project owners/freelancers could choose other payment methods (such as gift card or discount of a particular product/service).
- It would be great if Upwork can have a quick test for project owners to use to test the potential freelancer (for example, quick language test to make sure the freelancer is capable of translating a particular document).
- Giving points to freelancer: some freelancer that do particularly well on a task could be rewarded by project owners and those points could be converted into some prizes to encourage a freelancer (currently only reviews are available).