I love Upwork! Love it. I was new to freelancing when the pandemic hit, but I had to do something to make ends meet. Not only have I met amazing clients and increased my hourly rate over time, but I have payment protection that other sites don't offer. I know I'll get paid for my work. They even have features you can use to filter for like client's payment is "verified" or their rating from previous freelancers out of 5 stars.

If you're a freelancer, Upwork will connect you with clients that are of high value and professional. There are a few clients who just don't know what they want, and it's our responsibility to break down the descriptions to them, but there are a few of them who end up assigning the job without expert advice which eventually leads to misunderstanding and bad reviews. Upwork is awesome, especially when dealing with clients that know their requirements beforehand.

I have been working on the freelancer platform for more than three years, and UpWork is one of the best platforms that I have a chance to experiment. UpWork did well in attracting the Clients and control the risks for the Client and the freelancers through their policies and algorithms.
The unique thing that I am not totally satisfied with UpWork is that I must take a few time to discover all of their functions.

Title is self-explanatory, Upwork just wasted hours of my time for no reason and disrupted my business by freezing my account a full week before my card expired.

They froze the account literally the day after successfully billing me, even despite the card still being active.

It has now been 36 hours since I updated my card details and the account remains frozen. Support takes over 15 hours per response. Totally unacceptable.

UPDATE: Over 48 hours later, Upwork finally replied and unfroze the account. No apology or explanation offered. My business operations were disrupted for two full business days and Upwork support is completely unapologetic.

Massive waste of time, very frustrated & unhappy with Upwork's service.

I'm a freelancer. Applied for a number of jobs over the past two years. Haven't gotten a single one until recently. The client kept trying to go around the platform but I liked having the backing of Upwork (I thought) in case something went awry. Well, it did as the client's payment method didn't go through when payday hit. So, I worked for two weeks for free. I did online advertising for him and of course his credit card ended up not processing (loser) so I'm stuck with HIS EXPENSES too! Ridiculous. Upwork has been completely worthless helping with this situation. Worthless. Do not waste your time!

Generally, Upwork is great, especially when dealing with clients that know their requirements beforehand. Upwork links you with clients that are of high value and professional. There are a few clients who just don't know what they want and it's our responsibility to break down the descriptions to them but there are a few of them who end up assigning the job without expert advice which eventually leads to misunderstanding and bad reviews.

Upwork has hurt my confidence so much and hindered me from starting as a freelancer. It feels like they're outright rude and not at all sorry to see anyone go. This is not a platform for people who are just starting out, who don't have much on their portfolio. Try Upwork after having a decent portfolio and video ready. I will not be coming back. I haven't had such a bad user experience anywhere else.

I would Like to take this opportunity to thank you Upwork for maintaining a high standards which is what's makes them stand out and the only trustworthy freelancing platform.

However, the availability badge option should be reconsidered as it ask for a minimum of 6 connects per week to keep our profile visible which is not good.

With taht being said i am overall happy with Upwork.

Thank and God bless you.

Best Regards,
Tausif Ahmad Khan.

Upwork has provided reliable and professional source of talent to meet my business needs. For short term and even long term requirements, I have always found amazing talents to work on my processes.

Of course this is no miracle solution. The key is meticulously reviewing and interviewing freelancers to best suit your business principles. It's the same with regular hiring. Upwork just makes it easier and faster.

It is great concept working well but the website is super slow and buggy. Messages are not loading sometimes not possible to close contract. It is just frozen. Fees are another topic. It cuts 20% fee... (top of it you need to pay tax etc half of the money you are earning is just gone) And it is asking to buy premium membership. And buy connects etc. They should really consider to drop fees if they want to attract or not lose good developers.

I'm only a 3rd year college student with basic skills in graphic design with no earnings for myself. On the fourth quarter of this year, Upwork came in to my life and game me opportunities for both learning & earning. I love how Upwork protects both clients & freelancers

The worst ever. I stuck with them for way too many years. There are better options out there people!

I had 200usd from a job that wsn´t done and was refund and I left in my account. Now my money is not in my balance and upwork refuse to transfer my money to me.

According to the support:

"As we have not received any response nor action from our previous communication, the funds have already been sent to the state of Delaware on 02/18/2021."

They can´t give my money and if this is true, they have to pay to me.

I am on upwork for the last 8+ years as freelancer. Doing a job is good to get regular earnings but could not help you to become rich or get full reward of your hard-work. Upwork is good for skilled and experienced professionals around the world especially from under developed countries to sell their services on good rate remotely and get full reward of their work. If you know what you are doing then you should join upwork and earn some extra money.

Being a freelancer i tried several platforms but did'nt got success then finally when i started working on upwork i feel so good that its beyond my expectations, their criteria is so good that you never experience scam on this platform because of their policies, and their dispute option is just awesome means even if you frustrate from any client then they will help freelancers to get the reward if they worked well with client. So I highly recommend to all freelancers to use upwork platform for better earnings.

My experience with Upwork is great so far.
Thee weeks ago I started applying activilly to jobs and found a few.

There is a lot of jobs and Upwork has great filters - by price, client reputation, number of freelancer that applied to that job so even new freelancers that don't have reputation on the platform can found a job
And get selected.

I'm planning to continue to work on upwork :)

Even I recently started my career on Upwork, I feel that this is right place to successfully reach my goals, such learning new things, have good contacts and of course get paid. Support is great, community is large and if you follow the rules you are totally safe. The only drawback can be a difficult start for new members, so I think that support in the sense of a larger number of connects or a smaller commission would be a great thing. Anyway, a recommendation!

If I didn't have such strong principles I would have just let them keep my money the mediation process was not worth the abuse I endured at the hands of the con and the one sided devious UpWork employee mediator. Of course upwork doesn't get paid anything if the freelancer doesn't get paid so naturally they will side with the Freelancer, Even after I eventually won my right to a refund I had to again call email and fight to get it returned to my bank account. And still waiting 60 days later.

It's been an amazing experience for me on Upwork in less than 3 months on the platform have learnt a lot and still learning, the truth is that it takes Consistency, Persist-ency, Hard work and Never Say Die Attitude to get to the top. Thank you Upwork for giving such opportunity to add value through my problem solving skills

I was looking for help, instead I got a con artist and UPWORKS allowed him to withdraw my money from an ESCROW account without performing any work

Accounts & Support Standard
Appalling, lack of acknowledgement of overcharge on 3 transactions to my credit card that did not relate to any work engaged. I've been in dispute for nearly 2 months, and the response is like a bot that has no ability to understand simple reconciliation issues. On top of that, their general account methodology is in a world of it's own. It's so complicated, and appears to be designed in a way for purchases not to recognise the overcharge. There were so many unrelated charges, overcharges etc, that they repeatedly kept blaming my bank for. I've spent collectively probably 4 days of time trying to sort this out, and I receive the same lame response. It's outrageous and it's the reason I will NEVER use Upwork again and can't recommend them to anyone.
Work Quality
I engaged 5 contractors through Upwork, the work quality was varied with two of the 5 star rated failing abysmally. That's not Upwork's fault, as people being people, some just aren't what they make themselves out to be, or maybe their circumstances at the time didn't enable them to deliver. Only 2 of the contractors engaged were worthwhile.

Overall, not worth my time especially in view of their internal accounting issues. If you dare to use them, make sure you check your accounts thoroughly. With the repeated issues, I contacted the CEO direct and she did not have the courtesy to respond. That's tells you something doesn't it?

As a business owner, I considered Upwork as an unreliable and unsecured platform to hire freelancers. Do NOT waste your time using this platform. It is too risky, and I won't recommend it to anyone. A total waste of time especially when you're running a business. Lots of scammers at this platform and this platform do not have a real dispute resolution procedure. I contacted Upwork's staff, but they were very unprofessional and failed to assist with the issues that I've raised to them.

Upwork is one of the best freelancing platform where businesses meet great talent to work without limits. I'm working on Upwork since 1 year and I highly recommend to those who want to work as a freelancer independently and those who are looking for highly talented freelancers from all over the world.