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Earlier I received an email from Upwork about new pricing. Since my inbox is cluttered I didn’t put much attention or realize how this change affects me.
Now I got an email from a freelancer, asking me to take part in a survey concerning recent change, I decided to check what’s new with the Upwork pricing model.
Seriously, I experienced slight shock. I thought the change only applied to agencies.
I always thought that 10% is already ridiculously outrageous effing fee that they get from freelancers by providing their job listing site.
And yes, it’s a site only – because with recent changes (recency is 2 years :p) it turned to a simple job posting site with the only worthy function – processing client payments.
It used to be the good old oDesk with hourly projects. I was paying 10% but I knew what I was paying for – the time tracking and hourly payment guarantee. This now all has absolutely no value and started to loose value through years since fixed price projects have been introduced.
I’m saying this as freelancer who made thousands of dollars to Upwork’s profit in fees. I hate their fees. I hate them (hope this doesn’t break Upwork rules for me saying that? lol).
I have been a Top rated (still am) and high quality (still I believe I am) freelancer for years, I had my picture on the Upwork’s homepage freelancer map as only provider from Russia :p and now striving to find work through Upwork! All I get is greedy clients and fixed price projects that hardly pay my meds! And their fees have always been ridiculous – they provide nearly zero human service.
What are we, freelancers, paying for?
Is it hardware that runs the site? – Come on, there have been so many outages that people lost count of that.
Technicians who run the site? – Come on, there have been so many outages that they should find another work elsewhere!
Support? – Come on, I had a recent dispute with one client who accepted the dispute amount but we both could not do anything in weeks until support person decided to work instead of having her/his cup of coffee and watching Netflix (or whatever they do in the Upwork “at work”) – that’s how it seemed for me!
What are they saying in their blog about the change?
We help you build your business by acquiring clients, helping you connect with the right opportunities, and providing services like payment protection.
You are not helping me recently. You are giving me stress and I am paying 10%, or wait now 20% for it? That is crazy.
I messaged in forums a couple times that for top rated providers they should lower their fees because 10% is just crazy and now it’s 20% instead?
On small projects, the costs we incur outweigh the fees charged; because they aren’t profitable, we haven’t been investing in growing the number of these projects.
What kind of costs are incurred from running a few more SQL queries on the site? Explain to us!
If this is the way to make me work with clients long term, that’s not going to work. Hello? I lost my long term clients on Upwork already! They all ran away from the outages and onto the low quality fixed price work where people are abused for free work and free stress.
