UpRoar at UpWork

What's the point? Of course Upwork is going to delete rants on its forum....they don't have to tolerate it and they won't. They aren't the only large company that does that.

Upwork is going to make a profit - that's why they are in business.

It makes sense to raise fees on lower producing freelancers and let them EARN their way to more fees. It also makes sense to reward your highest producing freelancers with reduced fees.

Fiverr charges 20% and adds a transfer fee, too. Upwork is now charging the same fees for lower producing freelancers. However, at Upwork you have the ability to decrease the fees based on your own effort.

Though I haven't worked for them, I believe Freelancer has lower fees....

The thing is, when you freelance, it's usually a short-term job. There are very few that will be more than $500, let alone $10,000. There's tonnes of jobs on UW under $100.

The structure is for one client. So I could have one client paying me $250 and another $300. I'd pay 20% off of each ($50 and $60). It's not an aggregate on the total value of all jobs you get, it's the aggregate on each individual job. So unless a client extends the contract and pays over $500, you are paying 20%. Even then, it's 20% on the first $500. So a $600 job, it's $110 total, still 18.3% of the total value.

Not only that, I just found out that the buyer will now have to pay 2.75% of the value. So in effect, UW is getting 22.75% of the value of all jobs. under $500. Talk about greediness. And the service is terrible. Freelancer may have lower fees but the buyer quality is poor, poorer I believe than UW.

I haven't sourced anything there in awhile and after hearing that: I'm done sourcing to UW.

I realize this works out better for some people, but I never understood why people would continue to pay the service endlessly after a relationship was established and the parties trusted each other.

There's also plenty of alternatives.

It was already almost impossible to find quality people who wanted to do sub $500 jobs.

Bye UW.

Do you really believe that? Think about that in a more macroscopic sense... So charge the people who earn less more so the higher earners can earn more... So more friction for low earners to become high earners, man that doesn't seem like an improvement. If it was just a reduction for the higher earners without an increase for the low earners, well that would make sense. I'm sure this is utilitarian decision making at it's finest.

Remember: I'm on the demand side here, not the supply side, and it doesn't make sense to me. So for a Gig that pays $30 an hour and is completed in 8 hours, UW gets an extra $30 compared to before, that's an entire hours worth of work you don't get paid for that goes to UW. Did they improve something in their service that would warrant a rate hike on those types of gigs? On the demand side it's the same amount of money to me either way, but I find it hard to believe their increased fees help me, and I'm not going to pay more to go through UW when FL was always cheaper to begin with. Most of the work I need, I can find many of the same FLers on both sites anyways. It seems like an extremely bad move to me.

If it costs the same amount of money to me, why would I want them to earn less?

I'm not going to argue with people misinterpreting what I say in posts.

Problem is - people begin to argue that low end providers are being hurt by high end providers ...and when they do that they play right into the hands of those pulling the strings.

I had quite a few jobs on elance that were over $500....I earned five figures annually on elance and my buyers often paid the fees for me... but even so I think 20% is too high.

All over this forum are Fiverr links by people who apparently don't think 20% is too high. Upwork is following a precedent and I don't think posting complaints on their forum will help.

There are a lot of alternatives and the only way to make your point with a business like Upwork is to go elsewhere. Most who are complaining won't do that.

ROFL @ 2.75% every time you process a payment... I'm reading some of the posts over there. Seems like I'm not the only one bailing.

Yeah basically. I have a lot of respect for the people who do work for me and I don't see myself paying the difference. It's either extra expenses for me, or less pay for them, and it wasn't that great to begin with. Or I need to email them real quick about something, pay out 1 job on the platform to them and then move off (so it doesn't look insanely suspicious.)

Some people are saying they disabled the close your account feature! LOL

BWAHAHA

Yeah rape 18% or less, but only if that's the maximum allowed by law is. Great company here. Never again will I use UW.

I realize nobody reads these but you should https://www.upwork.com/legal/

Have you ever read the SEO test on Upwork/Odesk? They talk about alexa.com as If it has something to do with SEO.

The day I read their SEO test was the day I bailed because I knew they didn't have a clue what they were doing & like most other freelance sites their ultimate goal was targeting 3rd world shit.

No thanks.

I had a LOT of trouble even getting my account transferred from elance to upwork and in the end, after countless emails back and forth, I simply said "bugger it" and haven't bothered to even look for work there.
I have excellent writing and editing skills so I don't want to donate a big part of every job to a greedy company such as Upwork.

As an upwork employer, I got an email from the "CEO" (with a BS return address no less), saying that I would also be charged a 2.75% processing fee to "off set high servicing costs". WTF?

What a load of patent BS. They are basically gambling that having merged / bought elance (not freelance), with their newly created monopoly position in this niche, that nobody can find a viable alternative channel for offshore labor for small contracts.

This is a gamble that will NOT end well for them. SOMEONE will build that channel. Running an e-commerce website is not that hard, and certainly not that expensive. It's not like UpWork has it's freelancers bound with exclusive contracts or anything even remotely like that.

Already, almost every freelancer I use almost immediately asks for paypal or direct payment after the first deliverable.

UpWork would probably make a lot MORE money charging LESS. At 5% the freelancers wouldn't bother to cheat on 90% of their billings (since the paypal alternative costs them 3%).

But like every voracious scalper *cough*taxes*cough*, they are delusional about how far they can push people before they ALL find alternatives to paying.

Myself personally, I will never use a freelancer through UpWork again.

That's where the leverage is. If providers (workers) complain, no big deal...if buyers stop posting their jobs on Upwork....that will get attention.

It may take time but top freelancers aren't going to pay those fees - and as they disappear the buyers who hire good people will go elsewhere. Then what will be left? Oh, yes, ...another Fiverrrrrrrr.

Or it could go the other way where highly skilled freelancers raise their prices and buyers are willing to pay it...but I think that's a stretch.

They acquired eLance late last year, not freelancer, unless I missed something and agc knows something I don't. FL has had it's share of problems and I don't like that site.

Yes, on top of gauging the freelancers, they are now going to charge a 2.75% fee to the buyers. As a buyer, I don't find that extravagant but it is surprising to be charged for something that is free to buyers on all other such sites that I know.

If you are a buyer, just be aware that the freelancer is being charged. If you feel for them and don't use UpWork because of it, I applaud you.

reddit.com can be a wonderful thing.

From the Freelance sub-reddit.

Upwork changing fee structure, giving even more reason to dislike them...



Joe Mobley