UpworkReviews 2,128

I worked as client for upwork since it was called oDesk, I have had many open contracts for designers, programmers and developers. I tried to work as a freelancer and I managed to win many contracts, but suddenly my account was suspended and all my contracts were suspended too, as result I couldn't force the freelancers that I hired to continue working and I lost a year of working. I called the support team, an old rude American woman who has no authority to do any thing but telling you to hold and ask you then to talk to the support using ticket system.
By the way, upwork claims that your earning is protected if you choose to be paid hourly, false, they will suspend your account instead.

I recently used Upwork for my design work and hired a freelancer.
Everything went well, I hired them using my Upwork's website, conversed with the freelancer through the website and used Paypal and paid using their system. Everything went smooth. However few weeks later, I wanted to post another job ad and found that my account has been suspended. They requested for information such as, How did I find the freelancer?, How did I interact with the freelancer?, How did I pay?.
The most stupid part is that they have full access to my profile. They can go into my account and clearly see how I did all those things. However as I needed to have my account in working order, I provided all my evidence - snapshots of our conversation, and my job add status stating "PAID". They however came back and said simply - Your account has been suspended and will not be reviewed again. What kind of BS is that?
So I tried speaking to the 4 of their customer service, whom are clueless and cannot help in any way whatsoever and a manager. They all had the same reply - They dont have any information. They also wouldnt give me their complaints department's details, continuously closed my requests, and one of them even hung up on me. And all I was asking for was a VALID reason as to why they would close a paying customer's account? There are so many of these sites out there and better ones too. So with the increased competition in the market, it doesnt seem sensible to be going around closing paying customer's account. If there was an option to for a 0 star, that is what I would give them. 1 star seems TOO high.

I was a freelancer using Elance before the merge with Odesk and Upwork was created. I had no issues with Elance and felt their rates were high, but I dealt with it. They had a lot of opportunities for gigs and I made good money on the site for about a year.

Then the merge took place and the policies and procedures made no sense. Upwork has no clue of what life as a freelancer is like. It takes one to two weeks to get paid for a job, even if the client put money in escrow when the job was started. The setup of the site is much more confusing than Elance and not user friendly at all. I will search for work and only a handful of the 3,000 jobs listed will show up for that category. Now they implemented new rates for freelancers, as you pay 20% for the first $500 made with a client, which is up from 10%! Then they charge the client an extra 2.75% now, so they are making an additional 12.75% on each job accepted on the site! However, if you make over $500 with one client, the rate goes down to 10% and if you make over $10,000 with one client than it goes down to 5%. Most clients on the site are looking to pay the least amount possible, so getting to $500 with one client would be hard with the new setup.

It was clear to me once the merge happened that Upwork was looking to make as much money as possible with keeping the money on hold for almost two weeks. This new increase in the percentages confirms that and I will not be using Upwork ever again.

I will absolutely not be using UpWork again after the terrible experience I had. The client who had clearly scammed me and refused to pay for the work I had finished well before the deadline was credited back his money (he had only deposited $0.01 into escrow because he clearly knew he would be scamming the freelancer) after I filed a dispute with UpWork. They claimed the dispute was closed because each of us was credited the amount in escrow and I don't think my review of him is showing up now to warn others that he is a scammer! UpWork has no problem with allowing others to be cheated out of their labor after knowing full well what he did to me (and probably others). This is unconscionable, I am absolutely disgusted with this site. Please don't fall for their shady practices!

I was forced to use UpWork do to its acquisition of Elance. I loved how Elance worked. It needed improvements like any platform, but they made changes and had a clean user interface. They were fair to their buyers and from a freelancer standpoint, the fees were ok. I've heard a bit high at times.

However, upwork is awful. It's hard to work efficiently in their system. Finding qualified freelancers is hard. Management of a project is difficult because of their workflow.

They do not respond to feedback or support requests. I have had unacknowledged support requests that have gone on for months.

Now they are charging "buyers" a fee to use their service, and they raised the prices on freelancers.

I have a few jobs left on there because of the loop in from Elance to upwork, but I will not be keeping my hiring freelancer services on their platform. Especially, with the addition of fees.

If you wanna begin a freelancing career, Upwork is the BEST place to start. I'm not writing this review for any personal gains, so this is a review coming through experience.

Upwork has so many plus points compared to other freelancing platforms I've dealt with. Their customer service is top-notch: they reply to your mails with all the relevant information they can dig up for you and in a timely manner.

Their fees and charges too, are very reasonable and they charge you as you EARN, not as you BREATHE.

A job well done Upwork! Keep it up :)

You're probably gonna think I work at upwork or something, but I'm not. I hired a few people on here, some did a great job and got paid. Others didn't meet expectations, so I cancelled the work contract and got a refund. Fair and square.

Are you kidding me? You have a project on Elance, it is ongoing, it is complex, you are using the platform as it presented itself - as a way to document, contract, schedule, approve, pay the freelancer - and Upwork is NOT going to migrate that information, they want you to conclude it as "finished" and start a new project. Really? Legally and in all sort of dimensions this is POOR business. And Upworks customer service is incompetent, their offices - no one seems to exist or answer phones. Elance was pretty good to great-now it is like the inmates are running the asylum.

The site is down a good portion of the time. They have consistently removed features that help freelancers make professional and intelligent choices about what clients to work with. They have consistently removed features that allow freelancers and clients to work together on projects in a timely and professional manner. What features do remain, don't work correctly a good portion of the time. When jobs are delivered by freelancers in a quick and timely manner, they are made to wait for days, sometimes weeks, to get paid. When clients don't pay, there is little to no support from Upwork in resolving the problems. There are tons of scam artists posting scam jobs. There are tons of clients posting ridiculously low budgets for jobs.

Don't use upwork... let it die and bring back Elance.

Elance was a good place to work for both clients and freelancers. UpWork, on the other hand, is absolutely terrible. Not only is it the WORST freelancing platform, but it seems like generally worst place to work online.

Scams, bugs, bugs, more scams, upselling, lead generation, scam, bugs, and more bugs.

Support is the worst I've seen. They promise you the world and literally don't do anything.

Incompetent, completely lacking logic, and feels like it was developed as a high school project - I've done better in my first year of programming.

DO NOT SIGN UP to UpWork - promote better platforms out there, and let UpWork die the slow death that it deserves.

Hi,

Upwork is a good site but their are some fake clients present like Reid Barkley. He didn't pay the freelancer for the work.

Upwork has been on a MASSIVE downhill slide since oDesk. They no longer handling their own dispute system (they are outsourcing it to some inattentive company called modira). Fraud charges on my paypal account are up from the new lower class of workers and when you dispute the charge with paypal, upwork tells them they are handling it. Instead, your dispute gets lost in a slow support system called MODIRA which is outsourced as well

It's BAD. 90% of of the jobs go wrong and support handles maybe 5% of the disputes! This isn't just an issue of crap work. They don't care about either the freelancer or the job poster.