I’m genuinely impressed and encouraged. He chose to be kind

I’ve posted here a few times. I started Upwork full time at the beginning of 2025 and it’s gone well.

Until November 2025, when the 7-10 inbound invites or client messages per week suddenly dropped to around 1-2 if I’m lucky.

I figured it was just due to the holidays. Holidays came and went, and it didn’t recover. If anything it’s steadily gotten worse.

I’m now at a point where I might get 1-2 incoming messages or invites per MONTH.

I reached out to customer support to figure out if there was any insight they could give me. They confirmed that it was Uma and that all I could do was try to rank better in her algorithm. The only really actionable thing was making sure I don’t have a ton of open contracts - I had ~12 or so, only 4 were still active recently, so I closed the other ~8.

That hasn’t helped at all though. Still zero incoming activity.

I’ve revised my bio a handful of times. Everyone writes everything on Upwork using AI now. Mine is handwritten and still hasn’t helped.

Bumped my boosted profile credits per click to 65, still nada. I’m allegedly getting clicks but no invites.

Majority of my income comes from a couple of big long term clients. If I lost them I’d be fucked.

I admittedly have not yet resorted to submitting proposals for jobs. I got spoiled by not having to do that over the majority of the last year. Hopefully that will start moving the needle back in the right direction, but my god is it grim on the client side too. I posted a couple jobs recently and you just get flooded by 50 ChatGPT written applications within an hour.

Does anyone here have any tips on ranking better for Uma to include them in her “Recommended Freelancers” / “auto-invite” or whatever list?

Just tried to submit a proposal and my samples were rejected because they contain contact information for the client they were written for since, you know, the client published them to draw in business.

May Alam ba kyo app legit get paid work from home?

I've been trying to build my Upwork profile seriously over the past few months, but I'm clearly doing something wrong.

So far I've sent around 105 proposals and haven't landed a single project.

I'm not using AI-generated templates. I read the job description, try to understand the client's pain points, explain how I'd solve the problem, and customize every proposal.

My profile is complete, I have portfolio samples, relevant certifications, and experience in ecommerce customer support.

I'm genuinely trying to figure out what's holding me back.

A few questions for experienced freelancers:

• Is this normal for a new profile?

• Are clients filtering out freelancers with no reviews?

• Should I focus only on jobs with fewer proposals?

• Are fixed-price jobs with a $5–$10 budget usually placeholders, or should I avoid them?

• If you were starting from zero today, what would you do differently?

I'd really appreciate honest feedback because I'd rather improve my strategy than keep sending proposals blindly.

Hi, I am new to this community, I received this last night and I have no experience and all in upwork... Is this even legit or a scam?

Just got this congratulations message from Upwork. I know it's auto-generated, but it still feels nice to receive.

I'm still relatively new to freelancing, and if everything goes well, my goal is to cross $100K by the end of the year.

If anyone has questions or needs a few pointers, feel free to ask. Happy to help where I can.

P.S. I'd prefer not to share personal details or my specific niche/domain.

For those just getting started, my advice would be to first build a strong foundation through a professional degree or relevant work experience rather than jumping straight into freelancing. You're competing against people with years of experience in the same domain. Unless you have a significant technical edge, a unique specialization, or you're willing to compete primarily on price (which I generally don't recommend), it can be very difficult to land your first clients.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you're all doing well. I would sincerely appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to read my post and share your advice based on your experience.

Background

I've had my Upwork account for around 2–3 years. During this time, I haven't been able to build a strong profile due to limited projects, modest earnings, and not receiving badges such as Rising Talent. Maintaining consistency has been difficult while balancing my regular job.

A few days ago, I had to end a client contract because of an unexpected family emergency. Although I refunded the client the full payment, they left a 1-star rating and negative feedback. The contract no longer appears on my public profile, but my Job Success Score dropped from 100% to 67%, which has been very discouraging.

My Question

I'm trying to decide on the best path forward.

Should I continue working on my current profile and focus on improving my Job Success Score over time, or is there another approach that experienced freelancers would recommend?

I'm looking for advice that is fully compliant with Upwork's policies and gives me the best chance of rebuilding my profile and growing my freelance career.

I truly value the knowledge and experience of this community, and I'd be grateful for any suggestions or guidance you can share.

Thank you in advance for your time and support.

Best regards,

I've been noticing a significant decline in job postings in my category, and it's making me question whether Upwork is still a reliable platform for long-term client acquisition.

Curious if anyone else is experiencing the same and more importantly, how you've adapted. Are you doubling down on Upwork, shifting to other platforms, or finding clients through different channels entirely? Any specific approaches that have worked for you would be genuinely helpful to hear.

Today I Just left upwork forever

my experience : its just a useless website , not actual job hunting , u just spend for proposal which would never convert to any proper offer , its just full of scammer and new client from philipine mostly with 0 previous record keep sending u scam files and projects , 99% of the code i received from almost 20 people were scam and found malicious , i just preferred to quite entirely after all these scams , and upwork does not do anything for this , they can simply restrict more of these behaviors but they don care even when i report they response with nothing found but im clearly explaining the issue and were the danger comes from those codes

This client posted a job offer for an hourly job. I applied, we started discussing, and we figured a fixed fee project would be more suitable. We both agreed on terms.

I have no way to send a "contract proposal" to the client. Am I missing something or is this another genius Upwork move?

Hi guys, I've been on Upwork for a few years now, but I want to get serious about it.

Could you tell me how you evaluate who to apply to?

e.g.:

• Job post seen by client in the last...
• Max number of applicants
• Number of invite sent (you're not there)
• Etc.

Thank you in advance.

A client threatened "nasty" feedback and a chargeback if I didn't refund her for work I completed under an hourly contract (no payment protection). I reported her to Upwork Trust and Safety for her threat. Upwork replied, "We take all customer reports very seriously. We reviewed the situation and took appropriate action in line with our Terms of Service. While we may not be able to share the outcome of our review for privacy reasons, we appreciate your help in keeping Upwork safe."

In practical terms what does this mean? Would the client account be suspended? Given a warning, or was nothing done?

I'm trying to figure out how / if I should respond to the above client message. If she's suspended, then of course, I won't bother. Any insight into what might have happened?

I’ve had the most success with clients from UAE, Europe and Korea. My experiences with clients from some other regions haven’t been as good, so I’ve become more selective.

Hi everyone,

I'm a new freelancer on Upwork, and I'm completely stuck.

Whenever I try to add a payment method to buy Connects, I get this error:

Before this, I was getting:

After a few attempts, it changed to the "maximum number of attempts" error.

• I Waited more than 12 hours before trying again and noting changed.

The problem is that I can't even contact Upwork Support because I'm a new freelancer with no contracts yet, so I don't have access to live chat or support tickets.

Has anyone experienced this exact issue?

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to share a few quick insights from my time freelancing on Upwork. Like many here, I went through a rough patch where proposal view rates were low and connects were just burning away. After tweaking my strategy, things started turning around, and I thought listing these might help someone going through the same grind:

1. The First 2 Lines Are Everything: Clients only see the snippet before clicking. I stopped starting with "Hi, my name is..." or "I am an expert in..." instead, I immediately address their specific pain point from the job description.
2. Keep Proposals Short & Direct: Busy clients don't read essays. A concise 3-4 paragraph structure with 1-2 relevant work samples links beats long cover letters every time.
3. Quality Over Quantity: Applying to 3 highly relevant jobs with tailored proposals yields a much better response rate than spamming 20 generic ones.
4. Selective Profile Optimization: Highlighting specialized skills (like niche SEO or specific Web3 growth strategies) worked way better than calling myself a "General Digital Marketer."

Would love to hear from other freelancers here—what was the single biggest change in your process that improved your reply rate on Upwork?

Cheers!

should i buy connects or take the plus membership for the first time on upwork , i have completed 2 jobs

Anyone had experience being invited to work for Student Loan Exchange? What was your experience?

I've become increasingly frustrated with one aspect of Upwork: unresponsive clients.

Many clients post a job and then disappear. Their profile shows "Last viewed by client: weeks ago." No one has been invited. No interviews have been scheduled. The job just sits there.

Meanwhile, freelancers spend connects applying, hoping for an opportunity that may never be reviewed. Over time, I've lost hundreds of connects on jobs where the client never came back.

I understand that plans change and projects get delayed, but when a job is abandoned without any activity, it feels like freelancers are paying the price.

How do you handle this? Do you have a strategy for spotting inactive clients before applying, or do you simply accept it as part of using Upwork?

I am a Marketing and Outreach Specialist, and I'm curious about the best ways to find and reach out to potential clients outside of Upwork. I am particularly drawn to working with wellness and fitness brands, nonprofits, and other mission-driven organizations.

I have consistent work for now and have found all of my current and past clients through Upwork, but I definitely want to branch out because I haven't seen as many Upwork postings in my areas of expertise.

If you've branched out, how do you identify and reach out to potential clients? What strategies have worked best for you?

Thank you in advance for any advice you can provide!

Hi guys, I am currently facing a situation where the client is asking for my email to give access to their platform. But the contract has not been placed yet. Is there any possibility of sharing the email before the contract is placed, or does the client have to place a contract before the email is shared?

Hi Im new to Upwork. I'd like to know some tips for a starter, what should I do to start off. And are there any pros and cons I should watch out for. thanks!

A client on Upwork asked me to complete a pre-screening form before moving forward. The form asks for my Upwork profile URL, links to published articles, and a few questions about my writing experience and approach. It doesn’t ask for any off-platform contact details.

Is this allowed under Upwork’s Terms of Service before a contract starts, or should all pre-screening stay within Upwork? I just want to make sure I’m not violating any rules. Thanks.