
Upwork now takes 20% of freelancer earnings - ftrflyr
http://www.forbes.com/sites/elainepofeldt/2016/05/03/freelance-giant-upwork-shakes-up-its-business-model/#55a2d8d9909b
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danielvf
Note that the 20% is only for the first $500 with a client. After that, it's
the old 10% rate.

They have also added a new tier - if you do more than $10,000 with a client,
the the price drops to 5%. I know of companies with several full time remote
contractors through upwork. This will be a nice improvement.

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scandox
I'm a client only there and I'm pretty uncomfortable with it. They are harshly
penalising the people who earn the lowest fees and I'm unconvinced by their
stated reasons.

Yes it is nice for the highest earners. But very tough on the others

I already feel I have to be cautious that I am not exploiting people. This
makes me doubt if that can be done anymore.

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scandox
This article quotes a freelancer who says it will make no difference to his
business. For those who think otherwise:

[https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/How-new-
pricin...](https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/How-new-pricing-
works-for-freelancers-frequently-asked-questions/td-p/188022)

In addition I think it's weird for a company who should be all about scaling
and automation, to say that smaller jobs are costing them significantly more
to service than bigger ones. The differential should be negligible. I'd be
interested to see the detail on that.

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mchmch
I have recently had 2 very negative experiences with Upwork.

In the worst of the two, A freelancer defrauded me and several other clients
through the Upwork platform, taking our money hourly while promising work but
never delivering anything and then stopping all communication. I have had a
"customer care" case open for 33 days so far and after dozens of emails they
are standing by the freelancer even though his account has been suspended and
they acknowledge he did the same thing to other clients.

I emailed the Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel about this,skasriel@upwork.com, but
he did not respond :(

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anfroid555
Any other sites for freelancers

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angry-hacker
guru.com - but not if you look for cheap slave labor. I believe it costs to
post there as a freelancer. So entry barrier.

There is also freelancer.com but the pricing for both parties is VERY shady
and complicated. I have tried to hire from there, but I have very bad
experience.

There is definitely room for another big and trusted player in this market.

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angry-hacker
With these rates UpWork will simply die. They DON'T provide 20% of the
earnings value. To be honest, they provide very little value.

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wojt_eu
I think it could work out well for them.

It'll certainly reduce number of small projects (e.g. install WP plugin) which
Upwork makes less money from.

I might still consider using Upwork for small projects if I think they have a
good chance to turn into long-term relationship with a client.

For medium projects there it'll increase fees from 10% charged to freelancer
to 10%+2,75% – this hurts a bit.

On larger project the fees go down a little from 10% to 5%+2,75%. When you
work for same client for over a year and think of the fees charged every month
there's great tempation to cut out the middle man (prohibited by Upwork's ToS
but hard to enforce). Even small reduction in fees will keep bigger contracts
longer on Upwork – and it's where they make most money from.

Separation of payment processing and commission is a good move and makes the
commission appear smaller. Besides for bigger, US based clients possibility to
pay with alternative methods and reduce total commissions to 5% + 50$ flat fee
is a further incentive to stay with Upwork longer.

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angry-hacker
It makes sense. But it will most certainly scare away the small players.

But how many big big/entreprise clients do they have? If you have any insights
how much of their massive profit comes from those 50 dollars WP plugins?

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wojt_eu
Anecdote: I have logged 3700 hours on oDesk (before they merged with Elance
into Upwork) for about 20 clients. About half of that was for two biggest
clients. I think there's power distribution in play.

While browsing Ruby on Rails jobs I often saw client profiles with more
$50.000 spent. Yes they have some big fish to cater for.

Those clients (and freelancers like me) might consider higher commission for
first 2-3 months of work (to reach $10.000 threshold) as kind of recruitment
cost. Then, 5% commission is acceptable for payment and accounting automation.

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brudgers
Title: Freelance Giant Upwork Shakes Up Its Business Model

