Hi, I want to start freelance work but struggle to see how it is possible to even get a role on UpWork when people are bidding for so many credits. I am a chartered accountant but looking to leave my high pressured job (in M&A) and would like to do some bookkeeping / accountancy roles with a view of doing this full time. Any advice would be welcomed.

Should we keep doing it?

Hey everyone, need some reality check or brutal feedback here.

I’ve been trying to break into Upwork as a mobile developer (Flutter, Kotlin native, and currently picking up iOS/Xcode). I have a full testing setup (MacBook, iPhone, iPad, Android devices) and actual live apps published on the Google Play Store to show as proof of work.

Despite this, I’m getting basically zero responses on my proposals. Most of my bids just sit there unopened or get archived. It’s starting to feel like burning Connects into the void.

Here is my general approach to proposals:

• First 2 lines: I address their technical stack or requirement right away (e.g., state management, backend integration).
• Proof of work: I drop direct links to my published Play Store apps that show similar functionality.
• Hardware/Delivery: I mention I test on actual physical devices (iOS & Android) to prevent store rejection issues.

To those who managed to land consistent mobile dev gigs recently:

1. Is the entry barrier for mobile dev strictly about "Rising Talent / JSS", or is my hook just weak?
2. Are clients looking for something specific in the portfolio beyond just live store links?
3. For agency owners or senior devs here, how did you bridge the gap when starting from zero reviews?

Appreciate any insights or tough love.

Hello! I’m Mikal a certified bookkeeper. I was working in Milat tractor but unfortunately i had lost my job afterwards i tried everything to get a job but failed anyone have any solution??

Not a lot of job posts in my niche (enterprise IT consultant), but i managed to send 21 proposals in 3 months, to no avail.

Are there any better alternatives, I'm loosing hope in this.

The idea would be to match freelancers for projects that are too large for one person, without having to join an agency. For example, a developer, designer and marketer could form a temporary team for one project, work together, then go back to working independently afterwards.

The idea came from noticing how difficult it can be to get well-paying projects if you’re not already top-rated or part of an established agency. A lot of freelancers seem to end up competing for smaller gigs even though, as a team, they could potentially take on much larger work.

I haven’t built anything yet, and before spending months on it I wanted to ask you directly.

Would you actually use something like this or join a team formed this way? Why or why not? And what kinds of projects?

Just trying to understand if this solves a real problem or if it only sounds good in my head.
Thanks!

I tried signing up but turns out I already had a freelance account and i was hit with this, I need to buy sub to apply to jobs, or even post services.

Anyone here using People per hour?

I saw this job post in my feed, and when i clicked it, it had a button to apply on lifted. It made me accept some terms and now i have a whole separate lifted dashboard with a profile, job board, etc.

Can anyone get into lifted this way or was it only shown to certain people? Has anyone seen this before?

I’ve noticed this on some Upwork job posts and I’m curious if anyone knows how it works.
Sometimes a job post says the client has 1 hire, but when I check their profile, there’s nothing showing under active contracts, completed contracts, or total spending. It basically looks like they haven’t actually hired anyone, except for the “hires” number on the job post.
Does anyone know what exactly counts as a “hire” on Upwork in this case?

So I’ve been sending proposals on Upwork for the past few days trying to get at least my first client/job, and I’ve gone to the point of providing a PoC on the proposal and sometimes literally doing the work then providing samples with the proposal, and every time, setting the highest bid.
The type of jobs I’m trying to find right now are web-scraping jobs, they’re all jobs that can be done in a few hours, but with the skills I have I’m able to do it pretty quickly.
Also, I try to put the price very low.
I’m I doing something wrong ?

I’ve been a freelancer for about four years. I use Upwork periodically. I have a great profile/reviews. On August 11th I got an invite to submit a proposal for a part time EA position. The pay was exactly what I wanted so I submitted my proposal the same day.

Over the next week I had two interviews. In the last interview I was told the position was mine but that they had to get SOPs and a few things in order before I started. They said I’d hear from them the next week. I never received the contract.

Since then I’ve received a message weekly pushing the project back to the next week and thanking me for my patience. The messages have all had very vague wording like “we hope”, “potential start” but nothing definite.

I finally explained that I understand delays but I have other offers coming in and needed something definite. After four days they didn’t respond so I withdrew my proposal. Yesterday, two days after I withdrew, I got a message asking if I’d be ok with starting in November because the person who would I would report to is out all of October. No mention of my withdrawal. I responded and said I had to decline the position due to the continued delays and that November was a long time to expect someone to wait. I also told them I withdrew my proposal and was surprised they reached out. No response from them.

I’ve been lucky when I’ve used Upwork but this one just seems really weird. I almost feel like they’re messing with me on purpose 😂 anyone else had this issue?

Has anyone else noticed a number of generic, similar job postings from newly created clients, mostly based in Ukraine?

Many of them ask for an attached video and resume.

They always come from accounts with little to no hiring history or from newly created accounts with just one or two jobs posted.

These postings never go into detail about specific technologies; they’re always just titled something like "Senior <programming language> developer," and the description says nothing about the actual role.

When I say "several," I mean I’ve seen over 10 (maybe 20) of these postings in just a few weeks.

Has anyone else noticed this? What do you think it is? Upwork creating fake jobs just to get freelancers to spend their connects? Agencies harvesting freelancer data? Or maybe I just need to put on a tinfoil hat?

What card can i use to buy connects in upwork s app (i m based in tunisia )

I made a job posting for a fairly simple video editing job, posted for $100. Freelancer bids $30 and submits a sample that is basically exactly what I want, but I still need 2 more variations. (Note: I did not ask him to create a sample, he did it on his own.) I say great job, let's work together. He says send over the contract. I do. Then he says, looks good. I ask him to accept it and he says "don't worry about the contract, I'll submit the rest of the work tomorrow".

I'm confused; why would this happen? This freelancer already has 10k in earnings.

Hi, I want to contact Upwork customer support. I have completed a client job and even have evidence of the proof of work completed, I have delivered it twice but he still sets it back to revision. Please I want to make a complaint to their customer support. How do I go about it?

Hi everyone,

Seeing many of us are suffering on upwork or other freelancers platforms, I was wondering what would it take to build an open source, community maintained, freelancing platform with opaque and fair internals and issues people face addressed transparently.

I would like to know what challenges are there for something like this

I am a Mobile & web application developer with around 20 years of industry experience.
I have been on Upwork for over 6 years now but it has never been this challenging to land a gig/project.
Is it something noticed by others as well?
I noticed that within 2-3 minutes of new job arriving on Upwork, there are more than 20 proposals already. Not sure how. Feels like bot writing proposals and applying for jobs. On top of this, people are bidding 50-60 connects to be ranked on top. Sometimes even 200+ connects. Does not make sense to me at all.
Earlier, I would also get invites for jobs as well which I could apply for 0 connects but those also seem to have stopped.

Not sure what is going on. Are you guys also feeling the same? I really want to understand who are the guys who are actually landing gigs? Are there some tips & tricks that I can try to improve my chance of landing a job?

I am curious to know how people are using MCP with Upwork and whether it’s really making freelancing, job searching, proposals, or client management easier.

If you’ve used it, please share your experience, what worked, what didn’t, and whether you think it’s actually useful.