Upwork Review 2019 Update
I want that you get the BEST what you are looking for.
And nowadays I think that Upwork is NOT the best. If you want to scale your online business, make more money and help more people, there is a better option available.
On Upwork you'll need to pay high 20% fees for them and the freelancers/employees are more expensive than on the other sites.
My #1 recommendation for you to scale your online business is the site called OnlineJobs.ph. Read my full OnlineJobs.ph review here and learn how it can take your online business to the next level.
Also, watch the comparison video below to understand why it's superior compared to Upwork.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me and I'll be more than happy to help you out.
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Did you find this huge marketplace called Upwork? Are you wondering is Upwork legit or a scam? Are you thinking how much could you earn there? Or would you like to outsource some of your work? You will find an answer to all those questions in the next 3 minutes by reading our 100% honest review. Let’s start!
Upwork Review
Name: Upwork, formerly Elance-oDesk
Website: www.Upwork.com
Field: Freelancer Services
Founded: 2015
Overall Rank: 90 out of 100
What Is Upwork?
Upwork is the world’s largest freelancer marketplace with +12 million registered freelancers and +5 million registered clients. There are more than 3 million jobs posted annually with a worth more than 1 billion dollars. So Upwork is a huge thing! The company has won many awards and they are constantly hiring new people to their group.
Their website is very professional, user-friendly and easy-to-use.
This video on Upwork’s Youtube-channel explains in 60 seconds the greatest benefit of Upwork as a client. It has been watched already almost 3 million times (29.1.2017)
Who is Upwork For?
You can buy some service on Upwork, earn money as a freelancer or do both. If you are looking for ways to make a living online, Upwork can be a very reasonable choice. But don’t think that it would be easy. There are more than 12 million other freelancers too so you need to stand up from the crowd. But it’s definitely possible to make a living on Upwork.
On the other hand, you can also find a full variety of professionals that can do work for you online. You can outsource jobs that you don’t want to yourself. You also have a freedom to choose how cheap or expensive “employee” you want to hire.
How Much Does Upwork Cost?
It’s totally free to join and post jobs on Upwork. Then you must pay 2,75% service fee each time a payment is made for a freelancer.
There are two kinds of works on Upwork. Hourly projects and Fixed-price projects. Hourly projects are automatically paid on a weekly basis depending on the hours what the freelancer has worked for you. Fixed-price jobs are paid when a project milestone is approved. In Fixed-price jobs, you need to agree beforehand with a freelancer what is a project goal and a price. After a goal is achieved, you will be charged.
You can decide what kind of freelancer you want to hire. The cheapest ones cost only something like $2-3/hour while the most expensive ones can cost even $500/hour. You can also search for users that have certain kind of success rate on their previous jobs on Upwork. There are also several other filters that you can choose to find something that you like more easily.
In Upwork you can pay with a credit card, debit card or by using PayPal.
How Much Can I Earn on Upwork?
You can basically earn as much as you want if somebody is willing to pay for your service. Some freelancers have earned tens of thousands of dollars on Upwork (see an example below).
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I would say that first, you need to work in a bit lower hourly rate to get more credibility and your first projects. When clients see that you are a reliable freelancer, they are willing to pay you more for a high-quality work.
Freelancers will be charged a fee depending on how much they have earned on Upwork.
- 20% for the first $500 you bill a client across all contracts with them
- 10% for total billings with a client between $500.01 and $10,000
- 5% for total billings with a client that exceed $10,000
Let’s say that you have earned, for example, $600 on Upwork. You will be billed 20% for the first $500 and 10% for the next $100. Your earnings will then be $490. This is, by the way, more than an average income in Indonesia, so you could start working on Upwork and live like a king in Asia. 😉
What Kind of Work Can I Buy/Sell on Upwork?
Literally anything. Here is a list of some work that you can buy/sell on Upwork.
- Content writing, proofreading, academic writing
- Translation
- Customer service and technical support
- Sales and marketing services
- Accounting, consulting and human resources
- Website, mobile and product development
- Engineering and architecture
- And much more!
If I would write a full list of different freelance categories on Upwork, it would be long as a year of hunger. I just say that you can certainly find any kind of service on Upwork.
Does Upwork Have an Affiliate Program?
They don’t have an affiliate program yet. I asked if I could join their affiliate program and they said that they may create if there are enough requests. But at the moment they don’t have it. If you would like to earn money by promoting Upwork, you can contact their support and probably they will open an affiliate program at some point. Or maybe you can have an individual deal with them.
To be honest, I am really surprised that they don’t have any affiliate program. It would bring them more clients and freelancers because people are more willing to promote their service when they get paid for that. They wouldn’t need to pay much because, for example, in Fiverr they pay only $5 for each referral and already thousands of people are promoting it.
Upwork Support
Upwork has a large support and help center. There are full of answers to frequently asked questions. There are also lots of support to help you to promote your service on Upwork or to find a suitable freelancer for you.
You can also send questions to their email support, call them 24/7 or ask help from the live chat. Upwork also has a forum where you can ask questions and there are people helping you out.
I tried Upwork live chat because I wanted to ask a few questions regarding their service and it seemed to be very convenient. The support worker was very friendly and answered all the questions that I wanted to know.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- The world’s largest freelancer marketplace
- It’s a huge and very experienced company
- Reliable 24/7/365 support
- In Upwork you can make a living online
- You can find freelancers for literally anything
Cons:
- It’s not so easy to find cheap writers quickly like in Fiverr or in HireWriters
- It may be challenging to stand out from the crowd to get the first orders
Conclusion – Is Upwork Legit?
Upwork is definitely a legit company with full of opportunities. It’s a great competitor of Fiverr and other similar services. At the moment it’s a leading company in the industry.
The Internet has opened a huge door for opportunities for different kind of jobs which is wonderful. It opens more flexibility if you want to move around the world and work on your laptop.
However, there is one big downside as a freelance worker. Your earnings depend on your hours. If you work long hours, you earn more but what if you would like to earn passive income. Freelancers can’t earn while they are sleeping or lying on the beach, unlike affiliate marketers.
If you would like to learn how to generate passive income online I recommend to take a loot at my #1 recommendation to make money online. It doesn’t require technical skills or some IT background. Anyone can learn to make a living with after going through their step-by-step training. But remember that it doesn’t happen overnight.
Upwork at a Glance…
Name: Upwork, formerly Elance-oDesk
Website: www.Upwork.com
Field: Freelancer Services
Founded: 2015
Overall Rank: 90 out of 100
Do you have experience of Upwork as a freelancer or as a client? I would love to hear from you!
I’ve heard many stories of people who are making a living by working at Upwork. If you can provide great value consistently, then expect to make big bucks. You will never run out of jobs at Upwork because the opportunities are endless.
That’s completely true. Upwork is a great platform for freelancers to make a living. Personally, I prefer building my own online business because in the long run it’s more profitable and can also earn money while sleeping instead of with freelance jobs.
Yes absolutely! That is one of the biggest advantages of having your own business. Even when you’re not working you’re still earning money, which means more freedom. You get to travel the world, meet new people and spend more time with family.
Upwork should be avoided like the plague! There are countless problems freelancers and employers have had with the site. As an employer I have lost money with nothing to show. As a potential freelancer, I was rejected for a vague and generic reason. They are not at all interested in quality. Do not use Upwork. I will provide my email account and you can contact me for more information if you like. Don’t waste your time like I did.
Thank you for sharing your experiences Christopher. I’m surprised that you had such experiences. I know many people who have used Upwork for outsourcing their work and they’ve found it extremely helpful. I haven’t really used it like other similar sites but I am planning to use it more in the future.
I looked everywhere in the blog but I haven’t found any guides to win a bid on upwork. I hope you will have one. That will be very helpful. I tried freelancer but I didn’t won a single bid even I always placed high in the bid rankings.
Hi,
I haven’t written a guide on winning a bid on Upwork but you can have a look at this tutorial. There are also many other tutorials on the Internet about this subject.
After all, you would be earning much more with Wealthy Affiliate in the long run rather than with freelancing. That’s why I don’t promote freelancing so much. I think it more as a temporary solution if you need some money fast.
Hi there Roopie,
Great article, Upwork is something that I use a lot to hire writers. I do have a tendency to hire from Asia, India, Phillipines and Indonesia due to knowing my fee helps out those that may need it more.
Perhaps this is because I live in asia,I can certainly confirm that on $600 or $700 monthly you can live very well in some Asian countries, particularly those in the South East of Asia (except Singapore and Brunei).
Everyone has skills – why not put them to use on Upwork!
Hi Derek,
It’s always very interesting to hear your experiences!
Hiring writers from Asia is a wise option because then you don’t need to pay so much and the writers can still live a comfortable live with the salary.
My good friend is living in Indonesia and she said that even $350/month is enough for living for her. If you are living a frugal lifestyle, then even less than $200-300/month is enough.
-Roope
I have used Upwork to hire freelancers and I have mostly had good success. You do have to be careful though – I commissioned a batch of 10 articles and I gave the job to a freelancer whose first language was not English. I should have carefully read over the articles before paying because in the end the content was unusable. I did learn to be more careful with my job specifications and who I award my jobs to.
Hi Nancy,
I totally agree with you. I had a similar experience once in HireWriters when I was outsourcing one review. Usually all texts that I have received from their writers have been very good so I just took a quick look to this article. It looked very good and I gave the writer full 5 stars.
But then before publishing the reivew I started reading it more carefully and I realized that it’s not so good than I thought. I should have rejected it and ask for a revision.
Once I also had to reject one article on Fiverr because I saw that the writer had copied most of her text from another website.
So, it’s very important to be careful before accepting texts. But once you find a good writer, then it’s much easier because you can trust him/her and you know what kind of articles he/she writes.
-Roope
There is so much information out there – you just don’t know what to believe. Within 2 minutes of reading your information & reviews – I feel it is coming from a genuine caring source. Straight to the point, easy to understand – pointing out the best ones to look at. Thank you for your advice.
Hi Julia,
I am very happy that you like my reviews and information. I always want to provide totally honest information for our readers because I believe that it has the blessing. I know some Internet marketers who are recommending almost any kind of products because they just want to earn commissions from those products. But if I can’t honestly recommend something, I will not recommend it.
-Roope