Pros and Cons of Upwork 2024 (2024)

Their site looks good

In my experience, they allow scamming on their site, freelancers ripping clients off

In my opinion, their Customer Support don't take disputes seriously

In my experience, Upwork removes written reviews

Huge selection of talent.

Good at presenting the skillsets of the freelancers.

Easy to understand and use user interface.

Mobile app works decently well.

Biggest issue: In my experience, about 1/3rd of Upwork freelancers are running some sort of hustle where they overbill and under-deliver.

Second biggest issue: In my experience, most of the Upwork freelancer's English is pretty bad.

Third biggest issue: In my experience, a lot of the Upwork freelancers come from cultures who's expectation of quality work do not match those of my country.

Short term staff replacement.

Helpful with projects.

Business Growth.

Workplace efficiency.

Billing notices.

Providing me with opportunities specific to my specialty.

Matching me up with clients.

Making me feel secure about being paid.

I don't always show up in key-word related search for my skills.

The talent managers constantly invite me to apply to jobs that are not appropriate.

Dispute resolution is pathetic. The person who was in charge was barely literate.

Job posters should have to be more specific about what industry/type of business they are in.

Easy access to talent

Allows us to bring our own talent if needed

Easy and safe payment system

NA

Big project database.

Communication with customer is easy.

In my opinion the worst customer service. It is impossible to contact them via phone, and they are not transparent about their decisions.

I feel they don't have the freelance community's best interest in mind. Their focus is on the companies that pay. Freelancers are disposable.

They charge ridiculous fees to the freelancers that are the ones that need the money the most because they are the ones starting their businesses. It is like if your employer charges you for coming to work.

Easy to find reputable and verified designers, writers and creative talent

Keeps billing, tracking and conversations in one easy to manage place

Makes sharing a job listing quick and easy and pulls in new potential contractors at lightning speed

Once you find a professional you have to make sure to turn off applications to make sure that you don't continue to receive email notifications about inquiries.

Provides means of easier communication and contract setup

Matches our skillset with people in need

Makes it easy to bill and invoice clients all in one location

They are really particular about not taking people off the platform, which can make things difficult during the initial meeting process if they want to know more about us or if they have trouble using the call features. It is understandable though, so Upwork doesn't lose the business off the platform.

Their calendar sync feature can be a little tricky and make it hard to schedule calls or meetings. I was able to figure it out, but it took me a bit.

I don't really like how you have to pay for connects when applying for jobs, but I understand why Upwork does it.

Periodic screenshots - Upwork takes screenshots every 10 minutes which the client can view and feel confident in progress that is being made.

Upwork messaging - The desktop app, browser app, and mobile app all feature a messaging feature that lets you stay in contact with the client at all times.

Time Zone sync - Clients are across multiple time zones and it gets confusing adding manual time if you forget to track time.

Finding clients

Screening clients

Collecting payment

Tracking time

Application occasionally has bugs.

Better messaging integration to the application.

Outsourcing

Services Platform

Contract

It is a bit hard to distinguish good, high-quality service providers from the mass, huge amount of population. Due to high competition, even high-quality services are forced to lower prices and this can be realized only once the service is completed. So UpWork has room for improvement to distinguish quality from the mediocrity.

Even though it is supposed to increase the overall quality, the entry barrier is a mechanism to prevent quality service to enter into the free market, too. So, rather than simply disallowing new memberships, there must be a better way to filter good service providers.

It's a global platform.

I feel secure using it.

It's an easy to use program.

It could do a better job at filtering people.

It could do a better job at telling us the rules of use for Upwork.

The user interface could look better.

It provides access to talent across the globe -- location is no longer an issue.

The feedback/rating system helps with choosing the right candidate.

The escrow system is great for us to feel safer. It can be scammed still, but only to an extent.

The error messages are quite prevalent. The system isn't fail-safe.

I signed up to receive notices about partial disruptions, etc, and I get a handful of notifications weekly.

The mediation services that help with the return of escrow are not always just.

Ratings and reviews of outsourced workers help add credibility to your potential contractor.

Payments via escrow once milestones are agreed upon and executed makes for a seamless transaction.

The ability to filter on several dozen categories allows you to find the contractor with the precise skill set you are looking for.

Searching for contractors could use some help as keyword search drives many applicants that are not qualified.

Although the current filters are great, more precision could be added to drill down deeper into categories.

When posting a job, the responses you get are canned from about 75% of applicants. It would be nice if Upwork developed a system to flag applicants that respond with the same verbiage to everyone.

It has a lot of job opportunities (single projects)

Great amount of companies searching for developers and designers

The search tool is awesome, offering tools and filters to display exactly what you are looking for

They could offer better pricing for small companies

Change the way they handle company accounts (who are offering services), it's somewhat confusing

Since there are so many developers, they could better distinguish job offerings from individuals to companies

Allows us to filter freelancers by location. This is especially important when working across time zones.

Upwork is one of the only freelancing websites that actually provides a filter for US based contractors; and they rigorously verify this.

Huge candidate pool. You're almost guaranteed to find a few individuals who specialize in whatever you're looking for.

Allows both fixed bid and hourly. Each one is useful for different kinds of projects.

Costs and fees. Upwork is not cheap. As a client you pay a fee to Upwork on top of what you're paying to your freelancer. As a freelancer, you ALSO pay a fee (20% of the first $500 earned from a client and 10% until you hit $10K, where it then goes to 5%).

The process for using Upwork can be lengthy when you're trying to find a new freelancer for something you have not hired for previously. Per Upwork, it takes an average of 3 days for a client to hire a freelancer.

Job success scores are not exactly accurate. If a freelancer ends a contract that has been sitting open too long, clients are not required to leave feedback. No feedback counts as a negative toward job success score.

Great interface. It is easy to navigate around and find the type of work you need

Able to read reviews of others who have worked with the individual

Safe and fair payment for both sides of the job

Upwork is in a difficult business where their success depends on the reliability of the people who use the product. I think if they continue to focus on their customer service they will be going in the right direction.

It would help to have the option to communicate more with them prior to hiring.

More payment methods.

Upwork allows you to easily filter the job listings and find the job that fits your preferences.

Upwork allows you to feel secure with every transaction with their payment system in place.

Upwork allowed me to do what I love and earn more while I'm at home or traveling.

Upwork should focus on allowing people to part of the platform based on test results and not just not accept them because there are lots of freelancers already with the same skill.

It should also be strict with some of the job postings like suspending those with just soliciting for free work or proposals.

Upwork should proactively provide free valuable to its top freelancers.

They should improve the metrics they use for the "Job Success Rate."

Messaging service is available in a browser, Windows, and Android, so I can communicate with clients wherever I go.

Project searching is very powerful, which makes it easy for me to find projects to bid on.

Scaled project fees make great sense for long-term commitments.

Ratings and feedback system make it easier to spot good clients.

Tech support is active and always responsive.

Scaled project fees make it hard to get started with some clients.

Kinda wish we could chat with clients before making a bid, but it seems to make sense the way it is right now.

High volume of leads with little effort on your part

Decent rates and a wide variety of work

You have a profile so you can brand yourself there and it is easy to get started.

Job Success score has nothing to do with "job success." It is a arbitrary number that punishes freelancers like me that aren't doing services where a company would use me again and again. Also, they punish you for leaving jobs open even though most clients want to leave the job open in case they have followup questions.

Not enough follow up to try to get clients to leave reviews. You are punished if they don't leave feedback.

The platform is price sensitive, this may be a smart move but it also turns a lot of top freelancers away.

Upwork's payment platform is really secure since it counts with direct bank account linking Upwork counts with hacking prevention and a high level of encryption. Also, it is always really responsible for its payments, if you do the work listed in the time provided, then expect to be paid.

Other sites have a minimum rate, in Upwork this is free, so the competition with other freelancers gets interesting. And there is a progression once you get more work, which allows you not to be stuck with the same work rate.

When trying to hire a freelancer, it's really easy to set the money you will expect, since the freelancers provide a fixed or hourly rate. You can specify a preference in your job posting depending on your needs.

Upwork is pricey, they take 10% of every transaction of the freelancer, and if you have a premium membership the cost gets higher.

Doing your first freelancer job can be difficult since there are so many freelancers on that website, so be prepared to set a really low rate at first.

The website can be a bit laggy. I have lost some jobs just because I'm not able to load the information before the clock finishes just because of some lag issues.

Reaching out to talent for short-term projects: It is a quick an easy way to have extra manpower for your project, all you have to do is create an account on Upwork and post your project online.

Easy to manage your freelancer's performance: once you have found the right freelancer, you would need to direct them to finish your project as you require. Using Upwork, you will be able to monitor your freelancer's work online. Working hours are recorded and screenshots can be requested through Upwork's software (need to install Upwork on your computer).

Easy to make a payment to your freelancer: You can make payment to a freelancer half way around the world through Upwork which makes it extremely convenient for both freelancers and project owners.

More payment methods: at the moment, an online transfer is available as the only payment method to freelancer. It would be nice if both project owners/freelancers could choose other payment methods (such as gift card or discount of a particular product/service).

It would be great if Upwork can have a quick test for project owners to use to test the potential freelancer (for example, quick language test to make sure the freelancer is capable of translating a particular document).

Giving points to freelancer: some freelancer that do particularly well on a task could be rewarded by project owners and those points could be converted into some prizes to encourage a freelancer (currently only reviews are available).

Breadth of talent (thousands of freelancers, rated by users).

Ease of communication (instant chat, file sharing).

Instant access to talent (post a job and get replies within a few minutes).

I'd like the ability to share folders in addition to individual files.

On some occasions, I'd like to post a job without revealing my budget. Would be nice for freelancers to propose a price.