I spent 2 weeks tracking ghost jobs on Upwork. 19 screenshots later, I'm done being quiet about this.
Look, I don't usually rant on Reddit. But this has been building up and I think a lot of you are dealing with the same crap so I just want to put it out there.
I freelance in cybersecurity on Upwork. Pentesting, Cloudflare setups, security audits - that kind of stuff. I take my proposals seriously. I don't copy paste some generic "I'm the best fit" nonsense. I actually read the job, understand the scope, write something specific. That takes time. And connects. Real money.
So imagine doing all that, and then... nothing. Crickets. The client just vanishes.
And I'm not talking about one or two bad experiences. I'm talking about a pattern. I started screenshotting every ghost job I came across and I hit Reddit's 20 image limit before I even ran out of examples. I could've easily done 50+ or maybe more then this.
Here's what I keep seeing over and over
Jobs sitting there for a week. Two weeks. Sometimes over a month. "0 hires." Proposals still showing "under review" when clearly nobody is reviewing a damn thing. The client posted the job, got 20, 30, 50 proposals from freelancers who actually put in effort... and just bounced.
And Upwork? They just let it sit there collecting more proposals. More connects being burned. More money in their pocket.
That's the part that really gets to me. They KNOW these clients are inactive. They have the data - last login time, whether they've even opened a single proposal, everything. But why would they close those jobs? Every proposal is connects spent. Connects = money. Ghost jobs are basically passive income for Upwork at this point.
Let me put some numbers on this so it hits different
Average job charges what, 8-16 connects per proposal? Let's say 12. A ghost job gets 30 proposals before it dies. That's 360 connects. At Upwork pricing that's like $54 burned on ONE dead posting. Now multiply that by the thousands of ghost jobs sitting on the platform right now. Yeah.
And it's not just connects. Every proposal I write takes me 15, 20, sometimes 30 minutes if it's a complex job. I'm reading their requirements, thinking about their architecture, writing something thoughtful. When that goes into a void because the client logged in once and never came back? Man, that wears you down.
Oh and the cherry on top - Upwork's own algorithm tanks your profile if your win rate is low. So you apply to 20 jobs, 12 of them are ghost posts where you literally never had a chance, and now YOUR metrics look bad. Make it make sense.
Check the screenshots, this isn't me exaggerating
I attached 20 screenshots. Scroll through them. You'll see the same story repeating:
- jobs posted 7-10+ days ago, zero activity, still "open" and accepting proposals
- clients who clearly haven't logged in for weeks but the job is still up there eating connects
- posts with 20-50+ proposals that just never went anywhere
- budget listed, scope described, looks legit... but the client was just window shopping and we paid for it
20 images and I had to stop because Reddit said no more. That should tell you something about how widespread this is.
Co what should actually change? here's my take
put a cap on proposals. Why can a single job get 50+ proposals? That's insane. Nobody is reading 50 cover letters. Cap it at 15-20. Once you hit the limit, the job stops accepting new ones. This forces the client to actually look at what they have and it stops freelancers from throwing connects into a black hole where they'll never be seen.
give clients a deadline. You post a job? Cool. You have 7 days to shortlist someone, message someone, or close it. If you don't do any of that, the job auto-closes and every freelancer gets their connects back. Simple. You asked for people's time and money - follow through or give it back.
auto-refund connects on dead jobs. If the client hasn't logged in for 5 days after posting, or hasn't viewed a single proposal, just refund the connects automatically. Upwork has this data in real time. They could flip this switch tomorrow if they wanted to. They just don't want to because dead jobs = revenue.
show us what we're getting into before we spend connects. Before I apply, let me see when the client last logged in, how many proposals they've actually viewed, and their hire-through rate. Like, does this person actually hire people or do they just post jobs and ghost? I shouldn't have to gamble my connects on that. Give us the data.
punish repeat offenders. If a client posts 3 jobs and never hires on any of them, restrict their posting. Make them fund escrow first or something. Freelancers get punished for bad metrics all the time. Why are clients immune? They waste the entire community's time with zero consequences.
some kind of "verified buyer" badge. If a client has a history of actually hiring and paying, show that. Let freelancers know who's serious. It would help everyone - serious clients get better proposals because top freelancers aren't wasting time on ghost posts anymore.
Why Upwork won't do any of this (and why they should anyway)
I'll be real with you. Ghost jobs make Upwork money. There's no mystery here. Every dead post that collects 30 proposals is pure profit through connects. They have zero incentive to fix this.
But here's what they're not thinking about. The good freelancers - the ones who write real proposals, who actually deliver quality work, who make the platform worth using for clients - those people are getting burned out. They're leaving. Going to Contra, going direct, building their own client base off-platform. And when the talent pool drops, clients stop finding good people, and the whole thing falls apart.
You can't keep squeezing one side of the marketplace forever. Eventually it breaks.
I want to hear from you all
Seriously. Am I tripping or have you noticed this too?
- how many connects you think you've wasted this month on jobs that went nowhere?
- certain budget ranges or categories where ghost jobs are worse?
- any tricks you've figured out to spot ghost posts before applying?
- what would you change if you could?
Drop your experiences below. And if anyone from Upwork somehow sees this... we notice. We keep track. And we're tired.
TL;DR: Been tracking ghost jobs on Upwork for weeks - jobs where clients post, collect 20-50 proposals, and disappear. Attached 20 screenshots showing the pattern (would've attached more but hit the limit). Freelancers are burning real money on connects and hours writing proposals for jobs that were never going to lead to a hire. Upwork needs to cap proposals, set client deadlines, auto-refund on inactive jobs, and show us client activity before we apply. They won't do it because ghost jobs make them money. But the talent is leaving and they should care about that.
