r/UpworkOfficial

Why doesn’t Upwork introduce a small fee for posting jobs?

Right now, the platform is flooded with spam posts, low-intent clients, abandoned jobs, and people trying to move freelancers off-platform. Meanwhile, freelancers spend real money on Connects and waste hours applying to jobs that often never lead anywhere.

A simple solution could be requiring clients to pay a small refundable fee before a job goes live. Even something minor would instantly filter out a huge percentage of spam and unserious postings.

It would also ensure that:

• clients have a verified payment method
• Job posts come from people with actual hiring intent
• Freelancers waste fewer Connects on dead-end jobs
• “actively hiring” tags become less necessary because every posted job already carries some level of commitment

Most serious hiring platforms already charge companies to post jobs. Upwork is one of the few marketplaces where posting is essentially risk-free for clients, while freelancers carry most of the upfront cost.

Curious what others think, would this improve job quality on the platform, or would it hurt legitimate clients too much?

Hey everyone,

I recently started an Upwork profile focused on digital marketing, SEO, and AI visibility services.

The biggest challenge I’m facing is that most clients naturally prefer freelancers with reviews, completed projects, and earnings history. Since my account is new, I currently have 0 ratings and no completed projects visible yet.

For those who successfully grew a new Upwork account from scratch:

• How did you land your first few clients?
• Did you reduce pricing initially or avoid that?
• What type of proposals worked best?
• Is it better to niche down heavily at the beginning?
• Any mistakes I should avoid in the first 2-3 months?

Would genuinely appreciate practical advice from people who’ve already crossed this stage

Is that a good average? HOw many proposals did it take you to get your first interview? was it a video interview with the camera on?

I can go through twenty freelancers and all of them are just giving me AI replies, and their profile descriptions are AI. Even if I tell them not to they will give an AI reply - it's insane they think that writing perfect English will land them more jobs - or are the clients that dumb that being an AI bot will give you more work?

How am I supposed to evaluate their understanding of the project when I am essentially writing with a chatbot.

Almost unusable service. Atleast for someone who is looking for work that doesn't cost $50+ dollars an hour.

Good news for freelancers!

Job postings on Upwork now have the "Actively Recruiting" tag. This will help freelancers gauge the client's intent to hire. As for how to land a job, it is still up to the client to judge whether you are a good fit for them or not.

A friend of mine has a question regarding Upwork account policies and wanted to understand if this situation is considered risky or not.

Several years ago, he started creating an Upwork account but never completed the profile setup. The account was never identity verified, never connected to a bank account, and never used for client work or submitting proposals.

Later on, he created and actively used a different account with his real identity and information.

The old unfinished account still exists because he never properly deleted it, and he only remembered it recently after seeing old emails about connects.

Would this kind of abandoned/incomplete account create issues from a Trust & Safety perspective even if it was never operational or verified?

Just trying to understand how Upwork generally views this type of scenario.

Is there a customer support number I can call? My account was wrongly suspended because Upwork thinks I have more than 1 account and freelancers who I would’ve hired are backing out of their proposals and I cannot contact anyone to get this fixed. It’s been 4 days and Upwork support isn’t responding to me. This is insane and I will probably end up paying double on Toptal for my work but at least they’ll let me hire someone

Heyy guys, Im a full stack web and application developer and want the projects so does this fiver and upwork premium will help me to get the projects over there and does it work or not please let me know

#freelancer #webdevelopment #mernstack #appdevelopment

EDIT 1 : how does these badges work, like i am about to buy IDV , but like the others , availability and the boost ? are they useful and if yes then how to use them in the best way ?

edit 2 : please i humbly req you to not givee answers from AI i know its not wrong but it just tells what i already know please your comment would be super useful if it is from your own experience

original post
so i recently joined a digital marketing agency, and they want me to start their upwork account, are there any tips of to do or donts on upwork , i have already gone through this reddit community but just on surface level like the top posts, and on ai it just says the usual stuff that i already know like sent proposals where only 10-15 proposals are there etc

but like is there anything that is going to help me a lot that only experienced people know ?

also i will regularly update what id be doing so if you want to follow me you can : ps its not a promotion nor i am looking for anything in return this is my personal account and i am doing an activity - going from beginner to expert and making big $$ on upwork

Do you have any recommendations? I’m trying to hire a freelancer for my job but Upwork will not let me respond to those who submit proposals

I’m doing an hourly gig for my client who gets on a 2-3 hour call with me and get live changes done on the work (I’m a designer) so they’ll tell me to edit this part.. remove this part etc..

Should I turn on my Upwork work timer while on the call with them or is it considered unethical?

I’ve already had 2 historical calls the same way..

I’ve been thinking about some features that could seriously improve the job feed experience on Upwork, especially for freelancers who spend hours filtering through low-quality or irrelevant posts.

A few ideas:

• The ability to block a client permanently from appearing in your feed. For example, if a client repeatedly posts vague jobs, unrealistic budgets, spammy listings, or you simply had a bad experience working with them before, you could block them and never see their jobs again.
• Better country filtering. Right now filtering feels limited. It would be useful to exclude specific countries from the feed instead of only searching broadly. Example: “show me all jobs except from these countries.” That would make the feed much cleaner and more relevant depending on timezone, payment preferences, language, or market focus.

These kinds of filters would save freelancers a lot of time and improve the overall quality of job searching on the platform.

What other feed improvements do you think Upwork should add?

The main Upwork subreddit is surprisingly toxic toward beginners. Instead of being a helpful resource, it feels like a collection of bitter repeated users who downvote any honest question. This unwelcoming vibe isn't just bad for morale; it’s bad for business, as it risks alienating potential clients

A client seeing thousands of posts about "Upwork is dying" "scammers," and "Upwork is a sinking ship" might assume the talent pool is entirely made up of disgruntled, unhappy people. Most high-level business owners want to hire partners, not people who clearly hate the platform they are working on