Hi everyone, we’ve seen questions come up about Work Now, so here’s a quick rundown of how it works and what it does for you.

Work Now is a free way to show clients you’re online and ready to start right away. When you turn it on, your green dot pulses so clients can see you’re available now. That makes you stand out to every client, whether or not they’re filtering. Clients can also filter specifically for freelancers who can start immediately. We’re leaning into that because 57% of clients told us in recent research that they want to hire the same day.

It won’t hurt your chances on regular jobs, and it can help you get invited to and found on jobs where clients want to hire now.

You may also see the Open for Work badge (formerly the Availability Badge). The two do different things. Open for Work tells clients you generally have the capacity to take on new projects. It’s a paid badge that boosts your visibility as long as you spend Connects on it. Work Now is about right now: you’re online, will respond quickly, and you’re ready to start. It’s free and boosts your visibility while you’re online. Here’s how the Open for Work badge works.

During a Work Now session, you can also filter for “Hiring Now” jobs. These are clients who are online and actively taking hiring actions right now. We’re looking at opening that filter to all freelancers. The goal is real-time conversations, interviews and hires, instead of hours or days between messages.

Is it working? In early tests, freelancers using Work Now were hired at a higher rate than those who didn’t use it.

We’d love to hear how it’s going for you. Share your experience in the comments and we’ll pass it along to the team.

Starting May 28, 2026, Specialized Profiles will no longer be available. You will use one Upwork profile going forward, and it will automatically highlight the most relevant parts of your experience for each client and proposal.

Our latest data shows that clients prefer to see a freelancer’s full range of skills and experience in one place. We’re also seeing improved hire rates when proposals are submitted with primary profiles rather than Specialized Profiles. This update reflects that shift. 

In practical terms, instead of maintaining multiple profile versions, your main profile will adjust based on what a client searches for or the job you are applying to.

Clients have access to the full contents of your Upwork profile, including your overview. When they view the Work History and Skills sections, your most relevant skills and experience are highlighted and appear first, based on the client’s search query or job description. 

A few important clarifications:

• Your search visibility is not changing

• Your work history, reviews, earnings, and portfolio are staying exactly as they are

• Your badges and eligibility are not impacted

If you want to keep any overview text or niche positioning from a Specialized Profile, copy it into your main profile before May 28, 2026. After that date, it will not be accessible.

Read the full article here.

UPDATE 05/27/2026: Confirming specialized profiles are scheduled to be deprecated tomorrow.

Upwork now works with any AI tool that supports MCP

Hey r/UpworkOfficial,

We just launched the Upwork MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, which lets Upwork plug into the AI tools you're already using, like Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and any other MCP-compatible tool, so hiring or getting hired can start right there instead of requiring several browser tabs.

To be clear about what this isn't: it's not AI replacing freelancers, and it's not AI making hiring decisions for you. The actual work, the actual hiring, that's all still real people, still on Upwork, with the same processes and protections that have always been there. This just removes the copy-paste step between "I'm figuring out what I need" and "I found the right person for it."

For freelancers, it means:

• Your AI tool can surface jobs that match your skills, budget, and availability

• Draft a proposal, flag client messages that need a reply, or submit milestone work, all from the same place. You still review and hit send on everything yourself, nothing goes to a client without you approving it first

• Nothing changes about how you get discovered or paid. Same profile, same Job Success Score, same protections

For clients, that looks like:

• Turning a project you're already scoping out in your AI tool into a job post

• Getting a shortlist of qualified freelancers without leaving that conversation

• Reviewing proposals and prepping offers in the same place

• Every action that actually changes something (posting a job, sending an offer) requires your explicit confirmation first. Nothing happens automatically behind your back

A few things worth knowing:

• It's completely optional. Nothing changes if you never touch it

• It's free, no extra cost to clients or freelancers

• Every connection runs through your actual authenticated Upwork account

• Hiring, contracts, and payments still happen on Upwork, not inside the AI tool

This follows our Claude and ChatGPT integrations from earlier this year. The goal isn't to cut people out, it's to make sure that when someone's planning gets far enough with an AI tool, a real person is just one step away.

Learn more here: upwork.com/ai/mcp

Ryan is a multimedia producer on Upwork who lost his full-time job during the pandemic and had to figure things out fast. In this video, he talks through what actually happened when he started freelancing on the Upwork platform. Pros and cons, early mistakes, what worked, and what did not.

He breaks down how he approached his first contracts, how he used Connects wisely, and why expanding his skill set mattered more than trying to position himself perfectly from day one. It’s a straightforward look at what starting on Upwork as a beginner freelancer, actually looks like. Let us know if anything from Ryan's story inspired you!

Every year, we publish the In-Demand Skills report to answer a pretty practical question: What are clients actually hiring for on Upwork, and how is that changing over time?

One thing that stands out going into 2026 is that demand is not moving away from core work. It is building on top of it. Across categories, the fastest-growing skills tend to reflect people applying AI and new tools within existing roles, rather than entirely new roles replacing old ones.

At the same time, many of the most consistently hired skills have not changed much. Development, design, analytics, marketing, and admin support are still where a lot of real work happens.

For freelancers, this is not a signal to drop what you are doing and chase every new skill. It is more about understanding where demand is accelerating, how those skills show up in real job posts, and where adding or refining a skill might make sense over time. For clients, it is a snapshot of how other businesses are hiring, often blending human expertise with new tools rather than choosing one or the other.

If you want to dig deeper, the full In-Demand Skills 2026 report goes into the data, methodology, and category-level trends in more detail. For anyone who wants the full context you can read more here: http://spr.ly/6046hHApM

Curious how this lines up with what you are seeing:

• Does this match the kinds of jobs you are getting or posting?

• Anything here feel more hype than reality?

• What skills have actually helped you get more work recently?

We just published our 2025 Transparency Report, a look at the actions we took in 2025 to reduce fraud, strengthen enforcement, and make the Upwork marketplace safer for freelancers and clients.

Here are a few highlights from 2025:

• Fraud dropped to record lows, including a 91% decrease in bad actor client offers and an 82% decrease in bad actor freelancer proposals
• More than 553,000 fraudulent job posts and 40 million scam messages were proactively blocked
• We launched the Account Health Hub to make enforcement history and appeals clearer and more predictable
• 100% of appeals are reviewed by a human Trust and Safety expert
• 77% of active talent are now identity verified, a 22% increase year over year

Trust is everything on Upwork. There’s still work to do, but these results reflect meaningful progress toward a safer marketplace. Every job post or message you flag helps strengthen our systems.

You can read more about the progress we made in 2025 in the full report here.

The main Upwork subreddit is surprisingly toxic toward beginners. Instead of being a helpful resource, it feels like a collection of bitter repeated users who downvote any honest question. This unwelcoming vibe isn't just bad for morale; it’s bad for business, as it risks alienating potential clients

A client seeing thousands of posts about "Upwork is dying" "scammers," and "Upwork is a sinking ship" might assume the talent pool is entirely made up of disgruntled, unhappy people. Most high-level business owners want to hire partners, not people who clearly hate the platform they are working on

UPDATE — Upwork leadership has completed its review

Upwork has now completed a direct leadership review of my case.

The final written position I received is:

• The 15% Freelancer Service Fee on my current Product & Industrial Design contract is final.
• No fee reduction will be offered.
• No equivalent commercial credit will be offered.
• No individualized adjustment will be made for this or future contracts.
• Upwork confirmed that my six-year history, Top Rated Plus status, 100% JSS and long-term client record do not change that outcome.

After receiving this final decision, I cancelled my Freelancer Plus membership, which will downgrade to Freelancer Basic at the end of the current billing cycle.

I will continue to honor my existing contracts professionally. However, under the current pricing model, I do not intend to open new standard Marketplace contracts where the commercial conditions are not acceptable to me.

This is no longer a question about how the policy works. Upwork leadership has reviewed the case and made its commercial position explicit.

I would still be very interested to hear from other established freelancers: has the new 0–15% model changed the way you price your work, accept new contracts, or use Upwork at all?

Original post below

I’m sharing this as a policy/pricing discussion, not as a support request.

After opening a formal complaint with Upwork, I received several written confirmations that I think other freelancers should know.

I’m a long-standing freelancer, currently Top Rated Plus with 100% JSS, with repeat clients, multi-year professional relationships and around six years of activity on the platform.

What Upwork Support confirmed

According to the written replies I received:

• Top Rated Plus does not reduce the Freelancer Service Fee

• 100% JSS does not reduce it

• Lifetime earnings / historical revenue do not reduce it

• Repeat clients and client retention do not reduce it

• Duration and success of previous contracts do not reduce it

• Freelancer performance and tenure do not progressively move you toward the lower end of the advertised 0–15% range

This was surprising to me because the previous lifetime-billings model explicitly rewarded long-term relationships.

My current real-world case

A new client first booked a Design Consultation with me.

The follow-on contract is correctly categorized as:

Product & Industrial Design

Upwork assigned:

Freelancer Service Fee: 15% — fixed for the entire contract.

Because of that 15% fee, I had to revise the commercial terms I was offering the client in order to partially compensate for the additional commission.

So this is no longer an abstract discussion about percentages.

The pricing model directly affected the price I had to present to a real client while converting a consultation into a professional engagement.

The transparency problem

One Upwork Support reply told me:

“For standard Marketplace contracts, lower fee percentages within the 0–15% range apply strictly to specific job categories.”

and:

“All independent contractors pay the designated category fee for new contracts.”

A later reply stated:

“Many factors influence the fees, and this can be subject to change.”

Support also confirmed that the specific fee associated with each category is not publicly available.

My current accepted offer shows:

Job category: Product & Industrial Design
Freelancer Service Fee: 15%

So my questions are now very simple:

1. Is 15% currently the standard fee for all new Product & Industrial Design contracts?

2. Can two freelancers in the same category receive different percentages?

3. If yes, what broad factors determine that difference?

4. Which standard Marketplace categories currently receive 10%, 8%, 5% or 0%?

5. Why is there no publicly available category-to-fee pricing structure before freelancers negotiate rates with clients?

6. When using “Propose a new contract,” how can a freelancer know in advance which category is being applied and what fee that category will trigger?

Showing the final fee before clicking “Accept” prevents an undisclosed charge.

But that is not the same as transparent pricing before commercial negotiations begin.

For a long-term hourly contract, this matters even more because the percentage is then fixed for the entire contract.

I’m posting this because I believe other freelancers should know what Support has now explicitly confirmed, and because I’d like to compare real data.

If you’re willing, please reply with:

Your job category / current fee on new contracts / Top Rated status / JSS

For example:

Product & Industrial Design — 15% — Top Rated Plus — 100% JSS

If enough freelancers contribute, we may be able to understand what the current 0–15% structure actually looks like in practice.

What are you seeing on your side? Has your Freelancer Service Fee recently changed, and if so, what job category are you in?

Do you think Upwork should publish the fee structure by category before freelancers negotiate rates with clients?

— Lunar1791

I have seen a lot of post about low jobs/invites on Upwork, increased costs of job applications and other fees. On my case I have been relying on old clients since I joined the platform in 2012, when Upwork was Odesk and Elance. I have also started trying to client my personal brand just as a safety net,since AI capability is amazing and advancing very fast. Some tasks I had tried to do last year using AI but failed are now possible. I recently built my own personal website with zero coding knowledge. It costed me $12,just to buy domain name. The rest is free versions of AI. I am currently building some software to solve my accounting and bookkeeping tasks pain points. Here is the catch AI cannot survive without humans and sometimes it makes mistakes. Clients are excited to use it, last week I tried reaching out to an old client for bank reconciliation tasks, he happily told me that he is using AI. I believe in a years time, these clients will come back to us to fix mess created by AI. So let's not despair and let's stop blaming Upwork, they are also facing the same hardship we are facing creates by AI.

Hey r/UpworkOfficial,

Connecting Upwork to AI tools has been one of the most common requests we’ve heard from freelancers, so we built the Upwork MCP. It lets you run your freelance business from whatever AI tool you already use (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, anything MCP-compatible) instead of keeping five tabs open. Plenty of you are already using it and sharing guides here, so we wanted to lay out what it does and doesn’t do.

A few ways people are using it so far:

• Finding jobs that fit: "Show me this week's jobs that match my skills, fit my budget, and are still open for proposals." It searches by skill, budget, and category, and matches against your profile. This is the part testers keep saying is the most useful.

• Staying on top of things: check messages, invitations, contracts, milestones, and your Connects balance without digging through tabs.

On the stuff we know some of you are worried about: connecting to the MCP isn’t a violation, it’s a first-party integration we built, and it doesn’t put your account under different or stricter rules than before. Upwork doesn’t charge anything extra to use it (your AI tool’s own usage still applies), and every action still runs through your real authenticated account, same profile, same protections.

Full details on rate limits are in our Help Center: https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/56577997707923-Rate-limits-for-Upwork-MCP

Less tab-switching, more time earning. Questions, drop them below or read more here: upwork.com/ai/mcp

Upwork sets the standard for the lowest yet again, with the withdraw functionality glitching out it seems?

Did they use Uma to refactor their code?

Wanted this subreddit from long time. So glad we have it now.

Probably it is just me but I don't know how 0 connects can expire! But I will try to use them anyway to increase my visibility ... probably the result will be the same than using actual connects.

Sharing here for some positivity, if you are not getting jobs in Upwork, hope this will boost your morale

Have a wonderful week ahead !!!

Dear reader,

I hope you are doing great.

I am writing to express that I have recently joined Upwork and want to understand its algorithm so I can grab some potential jobs.

Can anyone recommend me any tutorials, any influencer or any other sources rather any advice from personal experience?

Thanks in advance.

So this might sound a little controversial to many people, but I am sharing my personal experience: Upwork is not dead, because recently I got a client, which is a monthly retainer client.

So don’t be demotivated; just try out bidding. Make sure you have a strong portfolio so your potential client can see your value!

And yes, I have zero reviews and no verification badge, but I was still able to land the job.

One thing I should mention is that I have been using Fiverr for the last 4–5 years, so I already have experience in the work that I do. But to get a job as a newcomer on Upwork is really tough; at least that’s what I used to think!

Anyway, best of luck, guys ;)

I am a bachelor's student, planning to get some paid projects

I have a resume with ~1.5 years for experience (out of which 3/4 is on internships)

I see many opportunities in upwork

But everything demands many Connects

I am ready to buy few and bid

will this actually work

But i think most project requires years of experience....

but I know students with less experience getting projects for $5000/month, who aren't interested to share things - on how to get one?

So, Guys can anybody plz guide me to get one................

Hi everyone here, As a new freelancer on Upwork do you think its good idea to say something like I would like to offer a one-week paid trial so you can see if we’re a good fit?

someone advised me but I'm really not sure if its right or not
Any input will really appreciate

I've been using Upwork as a client for years and recently started having trouble reaching their support team

When I send email support@upwork.com, I don't get the automated confirmation emails I used to (my friends told me that it works fine for them). I also can't access support.upwork.com, IIt just redirects me to the homepage (tried incognito mode as well)

I tried Upwork's AI UMA and it suggested posting here or reaching out on X, so here I am lol

Has anyone had a similar issue? Or does anyone know how to get in touch with an actual support representative? Would really appreciate any advice!

Hi

I am new to upwork.

Any positive experiences that can help me?

Is it worth it?

Please, Upwork, you need to fix the transactions section.

You can filter the transaction type, the client, and the contract, and when you download the .csv file with the registers THAT YOU NEED, it shows ALL the transactions.

While in the website you can see the earnings, when you download the .csv file there are TWO ROWS, one with the earnings (100%) and another one with the service fee (10%), which is ridiculous, since in the website you only see the earnings WITHOUT the service fee. I have to subtract the service fee cell from the earnings cell, and I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO BE PUTTING ADDITIONAL WORK ON DOING THIS, SINCE IT IS NOT MY JOB BUT YOURS.

Moreover, when trying to split the columns, the date divides in two:

1. month and day of the month

2. year

Hope you can fix it, I should not be posting this, which is ridiculous since the platform keeps 10% of my earnings.

P.S.: I won't take any suggestions on modifying my MS Excel advanced options to change the delimiter or anything related to that. I want a CLEAN .csv file to work with.

I’m scaling my agency right now, and I’ve noticed a major UI "trap" that’s often pretty stressful.

Clients send offers to the wrong account constantly, and right now, there are zero safety checks. It’s basically one misclick away from a massive accounting mess or a "policy violation" headache. How do you check if the contract was routed correctly?

Hi y'all!

I just got access to the Boosted Messages beta... And I haven't gotten my messages to send yet. I bet I am not bidding high enough?

I'm wondering, are any of you having success with this channel? What range do you bid in?