HN Explorer

Upwork to Charge Clients 5%

25 points by amq ↗ HN
This is an email I got yesterday:

We are committed to creating an exceptional experience for our customers, and this means that at times we need to adjust our pricing structures. Monthly subscription fees will be eliminated, and the most popular features of the current Plus plan will be available to you. Marketplace fees will be 5% and eligible ACH payments will be discounted to 3%. These changes [1] will apply to your existing service contracts and will be reflected in your first billing cycle on or after April 28, 2022.

Last year, one thing became clear: the world of work has changed forever. To help our customers set up for success in this new world, we released dozens of new features including Project Catalog™, Talent Scout™, and Virtual Talent Bench™, along with productivity enhancements through partnerships with Loom and Zoom. As we look to 2022 and beyond we will continue to evolve our platform with the products, partnerships, and community features that support the new world of work.

As always, if you have any questions, our door is open. Please visit our Help Center to review frequently asked questions.

[1] https://www.upwork.com/legal

Note from me: this brings the total upwork fee to:

- 25% for contracts under $500

- 15% for contracts under $10000

- 10% for contracts over $10000

18 comments

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cute_boi
I wonder why people would even use upwork for contracts over $10000.
anovikov
Why not? My average contract is $50K+ and i had $250K ones.
cute_boi
I was thinking from the perspective of fees. If you giving $10k+, you almost trust the person, so why even introduce middleman and give 10% to them? Do they really bring that much value?
anovikov
Because otherwise i wouldn't sign. I put 12 years into my Upwork account and i am not going to lose it because of one unhappy client who first pays me outside of Upwork than reports me to them so both me and him are banned (this is asymmetric as hell because my account is a lot more important to me - it is literally millions of dollars worth - than a client account is for almost every client).
jokethrowaway
If you email companies outside of Upwork or build a real life network, you can likely get similar contracts.

Worst case you'll have to do an interview (nothing too crazy, outside of FAANGs). A couple of hours of your time is cheaper than paying X% of a year long contract.

You're paying a lot for what's essentially a reputation manager. I just have a nice website for my software consultancy: past clients, team page, how we work, a few blog articles, etc.

I don't think people go to my website and think "Oh, this testimonial is not a review approved by Upwork.com, it's probably fake and these guys didn't even work for these companies".

I used to be pretty big on freelancer.com when I was still working solo and I stopped using it when I started having a few business contacts I could leverage repeatedly (including some that started as freelancer.com). Finding a job, as a software consultant has never been particularly hard.

anovikov
Sadly i only ever had 2 clients outside of Upwork, both purely randomly (having a website etc), and Upwork makes me $600K a year with very little effort... Also i have an agency, i don't work myself, plus i am in EU not US, and have a Russian passport with no right to work outside of my own company. So i really can't imagine how it might work. Any client i could potentially meet with in person is already someone who can't pass my client pre-vetting filter.

For me, Upwork === addressable market.

readonthegoapp
i hire work from upwork - usually small jobs - couple hundred bucks here and there - sometimes more.

not sure what any of their fees are. i prob should start paying attention more.

i wonder why they changed the fee structure - if that's what happened.

jesterson
All their "new features" are practically useless. Speaking as a client with many years of using UpWork.

Their fees were quite substantial before, but now it's more ridiculous. Probably gonna use it only for lead acquisition and move away instantly.

omgmajk
It's a shame, I had just recently decided to start doing some work there but I guess I have to look for alternatives.
jesterson
If you are selling your skills it's still fine - just make sure you have decent contractors and do not use platform for payment.
omgmajk
Oh cool, yeah, I will be selling QA services of some sort.
spoonjim
Everyone does that, that’s why the fees are high.
jesterson
I doubt this is the reason. There is no value in the system, that's why people are moving out. As many IT projects they are trying to solve problems that do not exist.
amq
For a bit of context: Upwork (back then known as oDesk) originally had a flat fee of 10% paid by contractors. Around the time they acquired Elance they changed the fee structure to make it 20% for contracts under $500. Now they are adding additional 5% on top paid by clients.

Note that a withdrawal to a non-US bank is an additional flat $30.

To be fair, until now, Upwork was also charging clients 3% for payment processing, and as far as I understood those will be now included in the 5%.

schappim
I predict this will encourage other market places (eg as Fiverr.com) to continue to go up market.
blaser-waffle
You get what you pay for, but at the price Fiverr has always worked well
pvaldes
I received a "remind-us?" mail from they ten days ago. I suppose that they lose a percentage of freelancers because of the Putin genocide and may be trying to round numbers. Russian freelancers probably can't work there anymore (Could be wrong)
Gustomaximus
Jeez, I was about to put some new projects through Upwork as Informally use Freelancer but wanted to have alt account to widen potential options, bugger that now.

Any suggestions/experience on best alternatives?