Upwork

Honestly, Upwork is no longer worth it. You pay just to apply for jobs, compete with dozens (sometimes hundreds) of freelancers, and most proposals never even get viewed. The platform heavily favors volume over quality, and it feels like a pay-to-play system with very little return. I wouldn’t recommend wasting your time or money here.

Upwork needs to verify credentials of ALL Freelancers. Constant Deceptive or Misleading IT Developers and Agencies impact me financially and my business resulting in time delays, and poor delivery and financial loss. They also need to put acceptance criteria on every contract whether once off OR weekly ongoing.

This is a fake company.. They required me to send in a narrative audio recording and then asked for more without paying me. Obviously I declined after the first 20 mins I put in, but thats 20 mins lost.. Total scam. Don't waste a second of your time! And please publish this on google - because we all have bills to pay and not waste our time.

I tried the platform signed up - all good! Next day they perma banned my account without reason and wont unblock it. I assume they have bots that are on steroids. Waste of time platform - avoid.

Not a suitable platform for professionals. They consistently prioritize the lowest bids, which undermines fair compensation. I was shocked by the unrealistic deadlines and budgets—completely out of touch with industry standards. The platform feels untrustworthy: they charge fees, take a percentage, and require paid “connects” just to apply for jobs. It’s excessive and exploitative. In my experience, it borders on a scam. ST

Be cautious — even when clients fail to deliver or follow through, Upwork’s dispute rules can sometimes work against freelancers. Do not rely on promises of credits or refunds; always structure work through escrow milestones and keep communication documented within the platform.

Upwork deletes any negative feedback or incomplete jobs against freelancers. So when looking at freelancers they will say 100% job success when they have not! I had a terrible experience with a freelancer, I gave a bad review and said the job was never completed. But if I look at his profile it still says 100% job success and it does not show my review at all. Such a dishonest system.

I'm posting this to educate new business owners - stuff I wish I knew years ago. I lost a lot of money with the Covid lockdowns and I'm back stuck hiring off sites like this. They have such a good brand in the space, but it's always been horrible for me. I don't know why I keep going back. My last 4 hires off that site were a disaster!! 2 were… Read more

absolute scammers; one from Nigeria, one from India. I've had mostly good luck on online jobs PH. And hope you can't get people to fill in a Google form.

Also, they take 20% of the first job in 10% of the second job from the contractor, so no decent person is gonna hang out on there for long periods of time getting work getting completely screwed by them. Wish I knew that one years ago.

Anyway, so often you look at contractor reviews, it often looks like they're good people. But most of them have no idea they're basically just taking advantage of inexperienced business owners who don't know what they're doing and trust Upwork.

One of the scammers basically tried to bribe me not to do a Review and then when I tried, I couldn't do it for some reason because she knew the system is better than me. She was being coached by someone on the phone after I complained.

I've been to Africa and don't like to be racist but this was a full on Nigerian scam and Upwork didn't do anything other than give me a couple of hours of the 20 odd hours she scammed off me back. Last I checked, she still had all five star reviews every single person giving her feedback.

I was completely ripped off. Not to be trusted. My job was not completed. I was asked to release the money at time of booking. No work was completed. Couldn't get a refund. The very worst experience ever. Don't trust them at all. I also had no contact after the money was paid.

Upwork feels less like a freelance platform and more like a digital cage. It pretends to empower freelancers but buries them under endless fees, arbitrary account suspensions, and algorithmic favoritism that rewards luck over skill. The support? Robotic at best, nonexistent at worst. You can be top-rated one day and ghosted the next, with no… Read more

explanation and no recourse.

It’s a system that squeezes every cent it can from freelancers while offering little stability, transparency, or respect in return. If you’re not spending money on connects or playing the popularity game, you’re invisible. And if you dare to question their system? Good luck getting a human response.

Upwork had potential—but now it’s just a polished marketplace built on exploitation.

You have a better chance getting business by doing paid Google Ads, at least you wouldn't be wasting, time, effort and money and would get qualified leads. The unrealistic expectations of the so called "clients" wanting so much work for practically nothing is beyond a joke, and embarrassing for them to come across so stingy and tight, (you get… Read more

what you pay for, which ain't much) not to mention the lack of support and the cost to pay for the opportunity to get the work that has in the time I've been a member proven to be a big fat nothing. Tried and failed, at least I know where to go to NOT get work and waste time.

Horrible platform. They make you pay for connects to bid for jobs, (thats right YOU pay to find work) and then nothing ever comes from it. I offered my services for FREE just to get reviews and build my account up and still my bids that I paid money for weren't even considered. That should tell you how much of a scam this is.

They told me I was going to get a complete refund because the "talent" agreed to the refund after I proved he was trying clearly to cheat me. Instead, they gave the refund to the "talent". And they stopped responding to any of my emails. and even though they said my negative review would be posted, it never was. The guy has really great reviews, and was a crook.

I had a really disappointing experience trying to use Upwork. I was ready to hire a freelancer for a simple website job but none of my payment methods worked. I tried three different cards, all of which work perfectly elsewhere, and kept getting vague messages saying the charges failed. There was no clear way to fix the issue and the support… Read more

options were completely unhelpful. I spent hours trying to troubleshoot something that should have been simple. For a small business trying to move quickly, this platform became a roadblock instead of a solution. The support team is just AI and gets you nowhere.

Would not recommend if you value your time or need reliable service.

Scam, pretends to be a job marketplace but then you have buy 'connects' to access anything. Typical internet grifters. No doubt they will sell the data you input before you discover the scam.

Hired contractor through secure shopify partners, and ended up hiring a UPWORK contractor, then was redirected to Nigeria with another companies profile logo- works not carried out and billing was put on automatic and not a one off, which it was shown billed as. Corrupt or hacked- not a secure or transparent company- still trying to get a refund

Not a good platform for work if you're starting out. There's no opportunity to start earning without having to pay fees upfront- with no guarantee you'll even get work. It's not worth it.

Their ID verification process is unworkable. They block your account and 'invite' you to an ID verifcation that includes taking a selfie. But this selfie never gets accepted. So you are stuck and your account remains blocked,.

Paid $20 (for "connects") that got me nowhere for a scamy platform and a repetitive chatbot that never connects to a real human behind it - never. Every job advertised in Upwork pays absolute peanuts which indicates it allows for employees to prey on the desperate. Some jobs in technology in this platform were paying as low as $8 per hour which isn't even legal. Very very trashy platform. I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT TO ANYONE WHO KNOWS THEIR VALUE.

I hired upwork through wix as suggested to me to fix some google index, create a second website and fix my website accessabilty issues. All he did was ask for more money every week and now one month later nothing has been done. Do not hire Lawson wix partner they just rip you off.

Just no – Majority of the jobs are paying software engineers $5 an hour because everyone wants something for free. You also have to buy credits to even be able to get jobs.............

Untrustworthy and unprofessional – I used Upwork for 5+ years both as a client and a freelancer, and while some aspects of the business seemed off to me, such as the high commissions that they charge, and that you mostly have to pay to bid on jobs, most of which turn out to be fake or off somehow, but the platform had its usefulness. After moving to a new place, I attempted to… Read more

change my address on the platform. Only to be approached by their reps multiple times asking me to provide all kinds of verifications, for which I fully complied, providing multiple types of IDs, a credit card statement, health insurance statement, you name it. I finally received an email saying my account was verified. Well, in about another hour or so I got another email telling me my account was deactivated permanently without providing any proper explanations. They also stated that they can provide no further assistance. I contacted their customer service to no avail. Basically, it seems all the work I had, and all the unused credits I purchased are gone and they didn't even care to explain exactly why, implying dishonesty, unprofessionalism, and untrustworthiness.

Stay as far as possible – I hired a freelancer on the platform for the creation of an article. Paid more than $4k for the work. Eventually the freelancer started to be a bit too relaxed with the billing and I had to close the contract (apparently, this has been my terrible mistake, to terminate instead of pausing the contract). Due to revenge the freelancer kicked me out… Read more

from the content they created, so I paid, and got not document under my control.

Texted the customer support (case 50456710) and obviously they told me there was nothing they could have done to help me.

Moral of the story, I got scammed of the money.

Stay away from using this platform. Just look for a good freelancer on your own but at least, don't give any commission to these individuals who clearly have no interest in helping or protecting customers.

Totally idiotism – The platform is very weak. I had a lot of work, everyone was happy to collaborate with me, and I always completed my tasks diligently, well, and on time. Then came the day I encountered a very bad client. This client wanted me to fix his website, but every attempt I made to fix it was unjustly criticized by him, and so on. Anyway, after 2 hours of… Read more

my work, the client gave me a one-star review, and from that day on, no one wanted to work with me. I sent proposals, many people visited my profile, but no one reached out. I tried to report this, but the platform doesn’t remove reviews, even if they’re left by an unreasonable client.

So essentially, I could start working with someone for $1, then leave them a bad review, and their family would starve, just because I decided to leave a negative review for fun. Bravo for such an approach. I earned about $60,000 there – a massive commission for Upwork – and yet they don’t care about you.

NO GOOD! – Customer support - 5 stars... How is this company operating??? I've tried to verify my account 5 x times over 3 months. Support email doesn't work and online chat is just a bot and doesn't work... seriously [Content Removed]

UpWork, a flawed but useful platform – Where I agree with a lot of the frustrations people are describing here, I feel UpWork is a platform you need to learn to work for you. When I got made redundant and there were no suitable full time roles I began using UpWork to find work, after using the platform about 7yrs ago I noticed a lot of differences for sure. Firstly Connects, where it… Read more

might feel frustrating to pay to apply for roles, it really does remove a lot of the competition also. The roles I'm applying for never go over 50 applicants... sometimes below 20. Check out the Freelancer platform in comparison which has 100+ to each one. So far I've used about 500 connects since I've been on there and made over $3000 so far, where regular clients are giving me work now, not a bad return. Their fee used to be 20% and then this reduced once you worked with someone long term, which was high. Making money through connects moves this down to 10%, which is obviously a better business model for them and overall less for people doing continuous work on the platform.

Second issue (which is def an issue) is fake listing's. Are these created by UpWork to make extra on Connects? Maybe, it's hard to tell, but you just need to do a bit of background before you apply. I'm based in Australia, so a few things I look at to get better responses. I check open jobs and hire rate percentage. If you see about 10 open jobs with 0 to 25% hire rate it's not worth your Connects to apply. I check average hrly paid, if its below $20 then its usually someone who wants cheap freelancers. Also I've realised it's better to stick to your country. I haven't won a job outside, so the odds are against you.

Overall the platform has its flaws (I don't like screenshots of my laptop when I work by the hour) but without it I wouldn't of been able to get started on a freelance career where I'm now winning work on other channels to supplement it.

Scam platform – It's flooded with scammers sending infected files. I'm getting job proposals from scammers almost on a daily basis. As mentioned in other reviews, they charge for everything on that platform

Disappointed Long-Term User – Upwork’s Short-Sighted Management is Alienating Clients – As a long-standing client of Upwork, it deeply saddens me to say that the platform has significantly declined in quality and client satisfaction over the years. I’ve previously spoken highly of Upwork, having found great freelancers through the site, but now I feel compelled to speak out about its shortcomings. Upwork’s management appears… Read more

short-sighted in their decision-making, focusing more on immediate profit than fostering long-term relationships with their users. This has led to increased fees, poor customer support, and restrictive policies that make it difficult for both freelancers and clients to thrive. It’s clear that their priority is no longer about creating a mutually beneficial environment but maximizing revenue at the expense of user experience.

Additionally, I’ve noticed a sharp decline in the quality of available talent, with many experienced freelancers choosing other platforms due to these very reasons. This has left clients like myself facing higher costs for lower-quality work, which is frustrating and unacceptable.

After years of loyalty, I am extremely disappointed and will now be exploring alternative freelance platforms. There are far better options out there that offer more transparency, better service, and truly care about fostering long-term relationships between clients and freelancers.

Upwork had great potential, but its current path is not sustainable. I can no longer recommend it, and I intend to speak just as strongly against it as I once did in favor of it.