UpworkReviews 2,128

This an awful site. Professional get paid very little money. On top of that, may unqualified "professionals" do the job you are qualified to do. Also, clients know that they can get away with paying very little money to real professionals. Translations for 1 cent per word, language classes for 2 dollars, etc. I call that a scam. Also, the people of Upwork, if you don't get clients they "hide" your profile, so, they will punish you if you don't sell your services at the lowest price. Go and work in your local café, probably where you will earn more.

(There's a Suggestion for Upwork at the end)
To Survive at Upwork, you need to be a Salesman, which is a Requirement by Upwork, not by the Client. As Once if you get hired, Client has Nothing to Do with you Selling Skill.

If you are not a Good Salesman, doesn't matter how experienced you are, you will get SUSPENDED! Simply!

I have Seen Hundred's of Suspended Experienced (Field Expert) people from upwork, in fact its an Hot Topic on Google. (just query something like "upwork account suspended")

Client Requires Field Experts, Upwork Delivers them Salesman. This is how Upwork is NOT CONNECTING the Right Candidate!

SUGGESTION FOR UPWORK:
If someone is Not getting Hired, it doesn't mean he/she is not field Expert, it depicts he/she is not Good At Selling!

Upwork can easily Improve its Algorithm by Including the "Test Results" (Conducted by Upwork) to Determine the Experienced Professional. Define a Threshold, below that Threshold may get suspended (if they are not earning enough)!

It took me more than 1h! To find how to contact their customer support on their website! It's really hidden and confusing. It looks like they really don't want anyone to contact them.

When I finally wrote them I got an auto reply.

Few more e-mails and quite generic replies followed... I don't even know if it was a real person who answered.

They didn't accept my profile on their platform never got a clear answer why and what shall be improved. At the end now quite happily working via their competitor's platform.

Poor process in general, demands a lot of unnecessary private information that they don't really look at other than just saying I have a record of you in our system. Don't use ever if you are hoping to keep any kind of privacy. Also 0 support service that responds slow and just overall unsupportive if your salary is on the lower end (I've heard if you are spending/earning more on upworks they will tune in faster, which is understandable yet disturbing).

This site could be good, but the majority of the jobs are junk and the amount of money they charge is way too much for the service they provide. Most jobs that are not, do my homework are people looking for someone in third world countries that will do their job for them. I have had some nice low paying jobs editing and proofing for non-native English speakers. So I proof someone's blog for 10 dollars and receive 8 dollars. Not so great. 100 becomes 80 and so on. Most of my freelance work now comes from word of mouth, Craigslist and other places. Then I get a notice my account will be suspended if I am not more active on their site? Doesn't freelance mean you work when you want? I did not sign any contract with them.

They've really gone downhill since the merger a couple of years ago. I had a great experience with Elance and then saw that Upwork was nothing but a garbage site with $5 jobs, so I didn't transfer my profile.

Then they add insult to injury by upping the fee to freelancers to 20%, on a sliding scale: the more money you make with a single client, the smaller the percentage they take but you have to hit something like $1000 before you get a break. Since most jobs are one-off and under $100, they are killing their freelancers profit margins. Greed like I've never seen.

They also are having problems with hackers. They get into the site easily posing as clients and employers. NO FILTER system to keep them out. UpWork relies on the freelancers to spot the scammers. Disgusting.

If it's any comfort, the site is in real, not imagined, decline, per Alexa's website ranking system. See their graph attached.

I've had a freelancer Upwork for a while now, and I've only recently begun to apply again. I had just gotten my first job and finished it successfully when I got an email notifying me that my account is suspended. Apparently, Upwork thinks that the reason you don't get jobs is because your skills aren't right. This assumption is pretty infuriating by itself, given that there's so much competition and many of the clients end up not picking anyone. Plus, why would you offer so many connects + the option to buy more if you don't want us to use them?
"Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills."
This is one big sad joke. Ignoring the fact that they take more than 20% of the money, why wouldn't they give freelancers a chance to build up a client base? Why did they suspend my account only after I got my first job?
I wrote to them, sent out diplomas and certificates, they wrote back that their decision is final, ignoring my arguments alltogether.
In over 5 years of professional experience I've never had one negative feedback, everybody was always very pleased with my work (including the one Upwork client), and they dare to tell me my skills aren't fit for the clients? Outrageous.
STAY AWAY! Exploitative and unfair system!

I had hired a freelancer through upwork to design retail packaging for my product. I followed all the steps required through upwork, including a well-written contract with all the specifics. I paid the first payment in advance as I was asked by the freelancer. The freelancer failed to communicate after that and extracted the second payment out of escrow. When I lodged a complaint about it, I kept getting poor responses focused on giving me excuses on why and how they cannot get a hold of the freelancer and long cumbersome details on what an 'escrow' means etc. My point was that I essentially paid for a a product that I did not receive and the entire point of going through a company such as Upwork is that in such cases they can be the mediator. After a few weeks of writing long emails, I gave up. I kept being passed from one person to another and eventually was spending more in time dealing with the inefficient customer service at upwork rather than my business. It may be a good portal to find cheap skills but it is a high risk model due to its poor management. I would suggest to try one of the other websites, with better customer service.

Upwork allows freelancers to bill you without delivering work and OBLIGATES you to pay them. It is not fair that there is no protection. I hired an app developer for my startup, and he took my money and delivered nothing. So I have no app and loss of funds. On top of that when fraud occurs all they do is cancel the job and do not offer you a refund for service that was paid with no delivery because they continuously state that their platform ONLY serves as a place for you to hire and process payment.

Once funds are released, they have NO MEANS TO GO AFTER YOUR LOSS. As a client, they will only refund you the 10% in fees that you paid but what about the charges that the platform incurred from the fraudulent freelancer which is 30%. They do not even bother to refund you that 30% fee because by not addressing the Fraud they are monetizing from it.

They advertise payment protection and top quality freelancers by showing their high job success, and the income earned based on the completed work, so you trust that this person is legit and knowledgeable. I would never think that they would take my money due the qualities that they portray on the platform. For a long-term project, I did not suspect anything until I realized that more than 50% of the payment was coming out and the delivery of the work kept delaying. Upwork sent me a message stating that this freelancer was committing fraud and ended our contract. Upwork accidentally cc'd me on another clients email that encountered the same problem as I, and they too were creating an app.

Coincidence? I think not. I started noticing that the trends of the scammed clients were working on big long-term projects. Upwork needs to be investigated!

I am looking for a lawyer that is willing to take on a case like this.

I joined when this was elance- it was awesome and about when it turned into upwork it started to stink... the quality of the freelancers went down and the customer service and interface took a turn for the worse.

I wish there was a better alternative b/c this company has high fees and very bad unfair customer service. They think customer service means blame the customer... Others on here say the same thing about the platform.

They really need to get their customer service together and treat their users like customers.

I have found the CS to be okay and looks to be interesting projects but i the JSS is a mystery wrapped in an enigma and the 20% fee is absurd. With regard to the JSS, I ask clients to please understand that the very best freelancers sometimes have relatively low scores due to a wacky algorithm. Dear Clients: When choosing a freelancer, please look past the JSS and perform substantive interviews, ask the freelancer about the low score, but above, all please don't decide against someone based on a questionable scoring system. As for the fee, I'm no longer willing to hand over hundreds of dollars to the site just because it provides a forum to find projects--and with a good number of the projects never awarded, posted by unverified users or outright scams this benefit is of somewhat dubious value.

This platform is horrible and a waste of time. I have worked there for a year, completed successfully about 10 projects and my clients gave me excellent feedback. However, way too many reports of suspended profiles with no reason and too little money left for you after you pay something like 30% in fees and taxes. What's more, should you have a problem, no one will give a s*** about it. Their support is the worst CS I have ever communicated with. Why do we pay 20% fee? Stopped using it in November.

Upwork rejected my application. I have superior writing capabilities and access to online databases like EBSCO Host. I could have brought excellent writing and content creation skills to the platform yet they rejected my application because they have too many writers. How is that possible? Why not let employers decide? I suspect they rejected me because I have started my own SaaS for business development, not at all in competition to Upwork. I guess I should have lied and showed myself to be less capable of delivering quallity writing and online content.

Oh well, this is the second time I have been suspended as a client from upwork. Back in 2015 I signed up to do some freelancing, and then to hire some freelancer too. They suspended my account, saying that I have falsified some info. Upon asking what info has been falsified, to this date there has been no reply.

So I sign up another account from my business profile. And after completion of 10-15 hires, which I paid out in full, they still suspend me. What irks is not that they feel something is amiss. That's fine. Gather info and rectify. But what irks is the way they pull the plug. Here is an example:

"I have reviewed all aspects of your account, and unfortunately, you are violating Upwork policies. I regret to inform you that based on that review, it has been determined that your account will not be restored. The policy violation(s) in question lead to this final decision. Please be advised that we may not respond to further requests regarding this issue.

Thank you for your understanding."

The most pathetic of Customer Care Service would find this message repugnant and pompous.

-Does not mention which policy was violated
-Without any communication whatsoever, this is a final termination (not to be restored)
-Informs the client that they will not respond to any request on this issue
-And if that wasnt sufficient birdie in the face, it says thank you for understanding.

People at upwork, understand that you make money from the clients as well as the freelancers. You people live off us, and you do not show a shred of respect. The above message is from 2 days back. The correspondence I had 2 years back was similar. The LEAST you can do in such cases is have a proper correspondence to try and resolve the conflict to re-instate the suspension.

Absolutely putrid! But hey, Thank you for understanding!