Upwork Information Reviews & Insights

Score7.6 out of 10

72 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Upwork are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Valuable platform for finding verified talent: Many users have found Upwork to be a valuable platform for finding reputable and verified designers, writers, and creative talent. They appreciate the extensive candidate pool on Upwork, stating that it almost guarantees finding individuals who specialize in the specific skills they are looking for. Convenient communication and project management: Users appreciate how easy it is to communicate with customers and keep track of billing, tracking, and conversations in one place on Upwork. They also like the messaging service available on Upwork's desktop app, browser app, and mobile app, which allows them to stay in constant contact with clients regardless of their location. Flexible payment options: Some users find it useful that Upwork offers both fixed bid and hourly options. They mention that these options are helpful for different kinds of projects and provide flexibility when working with freelancers.

Reviews

9 Reviews

Information

Upwork is great at getting employers and freelancers together

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

June 26, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Upwork to find freelance job offerings that I can do in my free time, such as technical writing jobs. The platform is great to find jobs that match exactly my particular skills. And there's plenty of job offerings. Search filter also help a lot to refine complex searches.

Pros

Protect both employers and freelancers interests
Validate user's identity
Guarantee payments

Cons

Upwork could benefit from using AI to spot potential scammers
They should emphasize the risk of accepting a job when the employer is suspicious
They should clarify when paid bonus are not guaranteed

Likelihood to Recommend

Upwork offers plenty of tools to help freelancers create good profiles for themselves.
I think it is a little hard to get your first job when you just start on Upwork.
Upwork offers the freelancer to boost their proposals to increase the possibility of getting noticed by the employer, but it is not a good thing. In my opinion, many times it is a waste of money for the freelancer.

Gustavo Du Mortier

Software Engineer in Information Technology at Mastersoft (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

25 years of experience

View profile

Upwork can be a great resource, but it's the Wild West and there are plenty of ways to waste time and money!

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

July 18, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Upwork when we have short, randomly-occurring tasks that we need completed and it's not worth hiring a permanent staffer. For instance, when we need seasonal customer outreach calls made, or if we need some graphic design work done for some marketing material.

Pros

Huge selection of talent.
Good at presenting the skillsets of the freelancers.
Easy to understand and use user interface.
Mobile app works decently well.

Cons

Biggest issue: In my experience, about 1/3rd of Upwork freelancers are running some sort of hustle where they overbill and under-deliver.
Second biggest issue: In my experience, most of the Upwork freelancer's English is pretty bad.
Third biggest issue: In my experience, a lot of the Upwork freelancers come from cultures who's expectation of quality work do not match those of my country.

Likelihood to Recommend

It's great for easy, very, very well defined tasks. When it comes to more complicated tasks, Upwork can be used, but per prepared to spend a lot of time and energy working to guide the Upwork freelancer.

Joshua Groves

Director in Engineering at MM Acquisitions, LLC (Computer Software, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

12 years of experience

Upwork - A Great Place to be Connected with Projects that are Specific to Your Skills

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

September 16, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Upwork specifically to find freelance projects. I am a sole proprietor and therefore the only one in my organization who uses it.

Pros

Providing me with opportunities specific to my specialty.
Matching me up with clients.
Making me feel secure about being paid.

Cons

I don't always show up in key-word related search for my skills.
The talent managers constantly invite me to apply to jobs that are not appropriate.
Dispute resolution is pathetic. The person who was in charge was barely literate.
Job posters should have to be more specific about what industry/type of business they are in.

Likelihood to Recommend

It is a great way to be matched up with projects that specifically align with my skills. It really helps me find clients in my particular niche, whom I would not necessarily found on my own or vice versa. It's not appropriate for full-time or salaried part-time work.

Meryl Siegman

President in Professional Services at A&D Business Strategies LLC (Writing & Editing, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

View profile

Upwork is great

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

September 14, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We hire contractors from all over the world to do some simple tasks for us. It provides a flexible workforce that without having the burden of starting with a lot of upfront expenditure. Since we are an AI company we use it for data annotation mainly. We can hire as much talent as we want for as much time as we want, and we don't worry if they are going to be able to get paid or not. Upwork always makes them get paid anywhere in the world.

Pros

Easy access to talent
Allows us to bring our own talent if needed
Easy and safe payment system

Cons

Likelihood to Recommend

It's an all-in-one platform: talent market place, talent tracking, and easy payment system.

Johnny Maghzal

Head of Product Development in Corporate at Togal AI (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

I feel as Upwork tried to destroy our business.

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

September 13, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used Upwork as part of our customer acquisition channel.

Pros

Big project database.
Communication with customer is easy.

Cons

In my opinion the worst customer service. It is impossible to contact them via phone, and they are not transparent about their decisions.
I feel they don't have the freelance community's best interest in mind. Their focus is on the companies that pay. Freelancers are disposable.
They charge ridiculous fees to the freelancers that are the ones that need the money the most because they are the ones starting their businesses. It is like if your employer charges you for coming to work.

Likelihood to Recommend

We were a top-rated agency in Upwork, with thousands of hours recorded and millions of dollars billed. Upwork blocked our accounts without providing a reason why other than a violation of their terms of services. We asked for details, and they never provided one. Interacting with their customer service was a nightmare. We presented all the information requested; we received a ton of support from our customers, and they not only didn’t provide a reason, but they froze all the money we had in their escrow account. After weeks of back and forth and still, without providing a reason for the closure of our account, they contacted all our customers and suggested that they would help them to pass our projects to other freelancers in their network. They tried to harm our business regardless of the many engineers whose only support is the work they do for our customers. We decided to move our operations to other marketplaces like Guru, Freelancer.com, etc. In my opinion, Upwork is only after the money they can make through the freelance community and don’t have our best interest in mind.

Eduardo Noriega

CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in Corporate at NTSprint (Computer Software, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

View profile

Upwork offers flexibility, credibility and trust to your outsourced workforce search

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

December 7, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I currently use Upwork to outsource various marketing, sales and development tasks for several side projects. It's a great tool to find, vet and manage an outsourced workforce. Upwork saves a great amount of time that would be wasted searching and vetting potential contractors. It also makes it very easy to hold contractors accountable by automatically logging their hours, creating milestones and brokering payment activities.

Pros

Ratings and reviews of outsourced workers help add credibility to your potential contractor.
Payments via escrow once milestones are agreed upon and executed makes for a seamless transaction.
The ability to filter on several dozen categories allows you to find the contractor with the precise skill set you are looking for.

Cons

Searching for contractors could use some help as keyword search drives many applicants that are not qualified.
Although the current filters are great, more precision could be added to drill down deeper into categories.
When posting a job, the responses you get are canned from about 75% of applicants. It would be nice if Upwork developed a system to flag applicants that respond with the same verbiage to everyone.

Likelihood to Recommend

Upwork is well suited for startups and small companies looking for outsources help. It is probably a bit too all encompassing for the enterprise, as the needs of the enterprise are not fully met because of a lack of privacy tools such as NDA's and onsite visits.

Verified User

Strategist in Research & Development (Information Services company, 5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Expands your network to around the globe

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

December 2, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We've been using Upwork to prospect new clients and offer our services abroad. It helps us expand to another markets in North America and Europe.

Pros

It has a lot of job opportunities (single projects)
Great amount of companies searching for developers and designers
The search tool is awesome, offering tools and filters to display exactly what you are looking for

Cons

They could offer better pricing for small companies
Change the way they handle company accounts (who are offering services), it's somewhat confusing
Since there are so many developers, they could better distinguish job offerings from individuals to companies

Likelihood to Recommend

I think it's perfect for short term projects, since if you work with clients from around the globe, you don't know if they're organised and follow best practices on project management.

Carlos Eduardo de Souza

Co-founder & Manager in Information Technology at Coopers Digital Production (Internet, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile

Quality work for a fair price

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

June 27, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Upwork to find people who are specialized in a certain kind of work that we need help on and do not have time to train our in-house team on. We are using Upwork specifically for the needs of the marketing team. We have hired Upwork contractors to work on things like Google Analytics, design, coding etc.

Pros

Great interface. It is easy to navigate around and find the type of work you need
Able to read reviews of others who have worked with the individual
Safe and fair payment for both sides of the job

Cons

Upwork is in a difficult business where their success depends on the reliability of the people who use the product. I think if they continue to focus on their customer service they will be going in the right direction.
It would help to have the option to communicate more with them prior to hiring.
More payment methods.

Likelihood to Recommend

There are many projects where we do not need someone on our team to be dedicating all their time to it, so Upwork is great for those scenarios. Instead of training someone for days on how to use something, an Upwork specialist can complete it in just hours.

Verified User

Employee in Marketing (Computer Software company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Upwork is the best online jobs marketplace!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

June 4, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I basically use Upwork to find clients and work with them. My clients at times ask me to do recruitment on Upwork on their behalf. Upwork gave me a career-changing opportunity. It allowed me to find the clients I liked to work with and not have to entertain clients that don't align with my principles.

Pros

Upwork allows you to easily filter the job listings and find the job that fits your preferences.
Upwork allows you to feel secure with every transaction with their payment system in place.
Upwork allowed me to do what I love and earn more while I'm at home or traveling.

Cons

Upwork should focus on allowing people to part of the platform based on test results and not just not accept them because there are lots of freelancers already with the same skill.
It should also be strict with some of the job postings like suspending those with just soliciting for free work or proposals.
Upwork should proactively provide free valuable to its top freelancers.
They should improve the metrics they use for the "Job Success Rate."

Likelihood to Recommend

Upwork is suitable for freelancers who are looking for a shift of career from the usual corporate setting to a more flexible online freelancing career. I believe it's best for beginners and pros - there are lot of opportunities for everybody. It's not suitable for people who like to work in a typical office - obviously! Upwork is great for us millennials who love working flexible or even work-leisure integrated lifestyles.

Brent Lionel Mausisa

Co-Founder in Customer Service at 2for1 Virtual Experts (Internet, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

View profile

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I feel as Upwork tried to destroy our business.

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

September 13, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used Upwork as part of our customer acquisition channel.

Pros

Big project database.
Communication with customer is easy.

Cons

In my opinion the worst customer service. It is impossible to contact them via phone, and they are not transparent about their decisions.
I feel they don't have the freelance community's best interest in mind. Their focus is on the companies that pay. Freelancers are disposable.
They charge ridiculous fees to the freelancers that are the ones that need the money the most because they are the ones starting their businesses. It is like if your employer charges you for coming to work.

Likelihood to Recommend

Eduardo Noriega

CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in Corporate at NTSprint (Computer Software, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

View profile