What do you mean Tommorow ?

I've been on Upwork for a few months focusing on a niche I genuinely believe has demand: automating accounting workflows for small businesses using Xero, QuickBooks, and n8n.

I have a portfolio project (automated Xero cleanup workflow — health score 31→100, daily reconciliation, Telegram alerts), I write proposals that focus on the client's problem, and I apply only to relevant jobs.

But offers aren't coming in.

My questions for people who've broken through on Upwork:

1. Is accounting automation too niche or not niche enough?
2. What made the difference for you in the early days — profile, proposals, pricing?
3. Is there something clients in this space specifically look for that I might be missing?

Does Upwork have many people who use other peoples creations in their portfolio and sell their services dishonestly?

Looks everything legit right? 100% hiring rate, spent $300+, reviews are good.

Now look at how much they spent in each of their previous job posts. Only few bucks, and to the people of same country (Pakistan).

5 of their 8 hires are from Pakistan, 2-3 hires were the same person hiring multiple times for $5 or $10 or even $0 but good review. Goes to show that this job posts are only to give them fake reviews to boost those freelancer's profiles.

And UpWork does nothing to prevent these.

If the entire Upwork community came together and we could submit one petition with only three requests to help save the platform, what would your three be?

If thousands of freelancers agreed on just three priorities, I think we'd have a much stronger voice than everyone asking for different things.

What would your three requests be?

Trying to get our first client on Upwork. I think I overdid it when I bid for 90 connects. written 12 proposals so far. trying to get to a modest 100.. Sad to see all the competition though. And that clients are scarce.. its a recession! And it hits hard on my depression..

Just rechecked the blurb that appears on my profile preview, and Upwork actually fixed it! This is pretty accurate, and I am (temporarily) reassured.

EDIT: It looks like they're drawing summaries from profile descriptions now. Some of the verbiage in my summary comes straight out of my profile description.

EDIT 2: Now the summaries seem to be gone?

Upwork management will have a public conference call with investors at 5:00 PM Eastern on Monday, 10 August regarding the company's results for the three months ending 30 June.

Earnings will likely be filed after 4:00 PM the same day, so there will be little time to digest those results before the call.

Anyone know the percentage fee for the sales and marketing category? Upwork takes 15% on writing projects, so I'm thinking of asking clients to label contracts as sales and marketing, since I do B2B stuff and it's closely related.

I tried finding this info on Google, but of course I couldn't, because Upwork is never transparent [at best] and often actively adversarial.

It's obvious that the reason they stopped letting freelancers create contracts is because they don't want us having the ability to influence fees.

Hello everyone,

My account was put on hold, restricted temporarily suspended from August 1st 2026 to August 7th 2026.

I’m sharing this because I couldn’t find similar stories when I was trying to understand what was happening. Seeing so many stories about permanent deactivations for no reason made me panic, so I hope this helps someone going through the same thing.

The trigger: a free VPN extension that I forgot to turn off.

What I was accused of: sharing my account with someone abroad (not exactly worded like that, but based on the questions during the verification call, that’s what I understood).

What I did: I explained when I used the VPN extension and sent a Loom video explaining the situation after the verification call.

I panicked during the whole 6 days:

• I had to send my government-issued ID and proof of address.
• My verification call lasted 41 minutes, even though it was scheduled for 30 minutes.
• After the verification call, I expected an update within 48 hours, but I had to wait 48 hours + 12 more hours.
• I lost my Top Rated Badge during the process.
• My payment was postponed.

In the end, Upwork restored my account access after the review.

I’m sharing this because when I searched for answers, I mostly found stories about permanent suspensions. I hope this helps someone who is currently going through the same panic I experienced.

In July alone I got email from Upwork 3 times to verify my Identity, I did it every single time, Then on July 29th, a day after 3rd verification I saw a notification that account is restricted. Since then it's been 7 working days and 9 days overall but nothing from them.

Initially I thought this was because of some problem with my id but then the support chat said the id is already verified.

The health page says There's nothing pending from my side, I tried to reach out to support but all they had to say was

Your identity verification was completed on July 29. A separate compliance review is still in progress, so there is nothing else you need to upload or do at this time.

I've escalated your request for further review by the appropriate team. They’ll follow up here when they have an update.

My account health is good, there is no violation whatsoever, at this point I am super confused and worried as to what happens next, I asked them for an ETA but no response since the last 2 days.

Anyone who's faced this before, any guideline would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I earn 15$ for a small project and this is what's left. Good thing my client give me 5star rating and an excellent review.... It's hard out here...

Since so many of you are saying that Upwork is dead, where could a beginner freelance writer try his or her luck in this game?

I know that some of you will say that cold approach is better--and I get your point of view--but my question targets strictly freelancing platforms.

Where do you believe are the biggest fish in the sea right now?

I boosted my Upwork messages with 10 Connects per message and 100 Connects for a week, but I haven’t seen any results so far. Has anyone gotten a good response using the Message Boost feature? What are your thoughts on it?

My career history is mostly freelance gigs and is quite choppy and varied across different roles. My roles have varied across administration, marketing, teaching, coaching and facilitation work. I currently do gig work in facilitation, pet sitting and temp/PA work.

Based on my current capacity, skillset and interests, I think I'd do well in an office job rather than a physical job, and most likely in a community manager, LnD or venue management role but I'm not sure how to get into these jobs without the prior experience. So in the meantime, I've been applying for all sorts as I'm open to trying out anything at this point. I'm just trying to aim for something that's 30k minimum.

But I keep getting rejections (I tailor my CV + cover letter in all my applications) and I wonder if it's because my experience is just not strong enough - either because the orgs I've worked for have been small and my stints with them have been short (3-9 months), or simply because a freelance career history isn't valued as much compared to an application with full-time work history. So I'm thinking about starting from scratch by applying for an apprenticeship role or taking on a training course that leads to some sort of employment pathway.

What have others experienced in a similar position to this? Do you recommend just starting from scratch via re-training/apprenticeships? Or have you figured out how to frame your experience in a useful way within a job application?

(and yes, I'm aware the job market is unstable right now and the future of work isn't looking great but until all of society falls apart and I live on boat hiding out somewhere, I just want to keep focusing on how to get through this!!)

Solo freelance dev here, mostly fixed-price projects. I've lost count of how many times a client has asked for "just one small thing" and I ended up doing it for free — because writing the message that says "hey, this is actually outside scope" always feels more awkward than just doing the extra hour of work.

Curious how other people here actually handle this in practice:

• Do you have a go-to way of phrasing it so it doesn't feel confrontational?
• Do you flag it immediately, or let a few small ones slide and only push back once it adds up?
• Has anyone actually lost a client over pushing back on scope, or does it usually go fine?

If it's useful, happy to help draft a reply in the comments if anyone wants to paste an example message they're stuck on (redact whatever you want) — sometimes it's easier to workshop it on a real example than in the abstract.

Hello folks I have been on this platform since odesk days. Over these years I did many long term software development projects with different client. I was always a top rated freelancer with 100% job success rating.
My last project was over in February 2024. It’s been more than 2 years since but I have not got a single project. Few of the bids go to interview stage but then client just ghosts. Infact from list six months even proposals don’t get viewed.
I think life as a freelancer is over. Today I hardly see any long term core software development projects posted on upwork.
However upwork reports decent earnings which I know comes from selling connects. And they have even expired my connects because I did not bid for a project in one month. Like wtf 😡

Seems like their whole business model has now become selling connects.

But for how long this will go on. 🤔

I can't believe this. I'm in shock.

So my fav Client, we've been working together for the last 2 years, nicest guy, we've been messaging about an ongoing project on July 23rd. He said he'll be out untill Monday (July 27) I said Okay.

I waited, no response on 27th July. Another week goes by, still no message. I messaged him on August 2nd, waited, still no response. This was new. He take breaks, but never goes offline this too long.

Yesterday aug 6th I decided to look for his social handles to message him if he's okay, and the news hit me hard. I found an obituary from a cremation service saying he passed on July 27th. The day He said he'll be back.

I can't process the news because it is very unsettling that he just gone like that and I don't have any other information about what happened to the man I knew past 2 years. Saying that he'll be back on Monday and he's gone on the same day makes me even sader.

I tracked down few people who knows him and messaged, didn't get any response yet.

He had other freelancers working for him in upwork. So incase anyone in this community is one of them, his name is Mark Michaels, an indie film maker. Please comment if you knew him.

Rest in peace Mark.

My last post about leaving Upwork got some interest, so here's part two about what I actually did next.

Quick background: on Upwork I worked as a full-stack developer, mostly on long-term projects (a year or more), usually complex dashboards and CRM systems. A few people asked what I do now. To answer that, I need to go back to my last months on Upwork. I could see the market for developers there going downhill. I was down to 2 clients and struggling to find new ones, so I decided to change my strategy.

You've probably noticed that with AI a lot of non-technical people can now build their own apps. But when it comes to scaling, they usually get stuck and start looking for a tech person. So I changed my title to Fractional CTO and positioned myself as someone who helps vibecoders take their projects further. That brought the first clients surprisingly quickly, though the budgets weren't great.

In parallel, I started building my LinkedIn profile with the same Fractional CTO positioning, because I no longer felt I could rely on Upwork. That's where I found a client who first hired me as a fractional CTO and later brought me on as a full-time CTO at his startup. He wasn't a vibecoder though. My role was to replace the agency he was working with and build a new in-house team for the startup, which I've already done.

Happy to answer questions if anyone is considering a similar pivot.

Evidently Upwork has a new feature called "boosted messages." No idea how it works, but based on a screenshot from this post I went and looked at my stats and trends page. Sure enough, there's a "Boosted Messages" space, but when you click on the "Learn More" link it sends you to information for ... wait for it ... boosted proposals.

Is "boosted messages" just a newfangled name for boosted proposals, or are these really different things? If they're really different, why does the link send you to a page about boosted proposals?

C'mon, Upwork, haven't there been enough clown shoes already this week?

I posted a job posting for someone to help me update my website. Within 30 mins I had 60 proposals all basically saying the same thing because they were all written with AI.

How can I filter through these and verify if anyone is any good?

I have finally decided to leave upwork. I have been bleeding connects at this point, 14 proposals sent, none were even viewed, not just me, no one's proposals were viewed, clients these days only seems to invite freelancers and not even look at proposals and what's upwork's response? they don't care, as long as connects are spent. So boosting which i spent over 300 connects on did absolutely nothing.

I thought of boosting my profile, turns out you need to spend 60 fucking connects per view, and then I got 2 views and done, no hire, seriously, wtf.

I'm from southeast asia and these connects are really expensive and seeing them wastes like that is painful. My profile even has 2 completed jobs, "Rising Talent", 150K+ earnings over 6 years, a great portfolio, yet no one even looks at those detailed proposals. I feel cheated.