Did you know more than $2.52 billion is spent on Upwork every year? How about the fact that you could be enjoying a portion of that $2.52 billion if you know how to make money on Upwork? For many, Upwork is the place where freelancers face cutthroat competition, low prices, and intense 20% cuts from Upwork, but for the professionals, Upwork is just the perfect earning platform. Would you want to join these elite Upwork earners? And carve for yourself a career of freedom and convenience.
Upwork, just like Fiverr, is a great freelancing platform for beginners and can become a full-time business. But only if you do it right. You can be on the platform for years and not get a single dollar, and you can create your account and start generating revenue within a few days. So, what is Upwork and how can you make money working as a side hustle on the platform?
What is Upwork?
Upwork is a freelance platform that serves as a marketplace for the interaction of independent freelancers and businesses and agencies. Anyone anywhere can use the Upwork platform making it a very diverse platform.
How Does Upwork Work?
Upwork is a freelance marketplace and works by connecting buyers or clients of services to sellers. The platform works using a bidding process that starts with the client. Clients write their project details, requirements, and the kind of person they are looking to fill the role. Once the freelance job is posted, freelancers who have the same or related skills are prompted via notifications as well as through their feed to apply for the roles. As a freelancer on Upwork, your role starts here.
Once you read a project that you are interested in, you can send your proposal for the project along with many others on the platform. It is typically for a project posted only minutes ago to get more than 20 proposals. So the competition is stiff. But that doesn’t mean you cannot make it as a newbie freelancer on Upwork. Through tried and tested strategies, you can become an Upwork pro within a few weeks to months. Now, for you to qualify to apply for a project, you need what is called a “connect”. These are sort of tokens on the platform that allow you to bid.
Each project comes with a specific number of “connects” freelancers can use to send their proposal along with other features such as whether you want your proposal to be hidden from other freelancers. Note that any freelancer can see your proposal and simply copy your work. Therefore, some Upwork freelancers prefer to hide their proposals. There are also bids for spots that you can pay for.
Once your proposal makes it to the potential client’s attention, and they want to work with you, they will reach out to you. This is the beginning of making money online with Upwork: when you start getting freelance jobs.
Initially, you may not get long-term contracts and projects that pay the big bucks, but such marketplaces all work similarly. You have to start from the ground up, building your portfolio. Eventually, when you get a good reputation, you can charge higher fees and get higher-paying Upwork jobs.
Getting Started With Upwork as a Freelancer
1. Sign Up
Upwork is a community as much as it is a marketplace. It, therefore, requires registration into the community to benefit from all it has to offer. Sign up for Upwork by visiting the website upwork.com, at the top right corner (could change), locate and click on the big green “Sign Up” button. To register, you have three options, use your google account, apple ID or simply go with your email. The rest is pretty much standard sign-up procedure. If you choose to use your google or apple ID, you can avoid entering some information.
2. Spend Time Building Your Portfolio
Building your portfolio or your Upwork account profile is the next thing in line. It involves entering various information about you, what you do and can offer to clients, and your experience as well as what you are best at. On Upwork, you will find that providing as much information about you and what you can offer will bring you lots of contracts. Think about your;
- Skills
- Educational qualification
- Work experience
- Hourly rate
- Profile Photo
- Contact Details
3. Choose A Membership
Upwork, unlike Fiverr, has a premium as well as a basic free service for Upwork freelancers.
Upwork Free Membership
The basic (free) requires payment to send proposals to bid for Upwork jobs and projects at $0.15 for each “connect”. A single proposal may require more than one “connect”. If you choose to go with the free membership, know that your connects will eventually run out as you apply for various Upwork jobs. What you can do when you run out is to buy. Connects are sold by the platform in bundles. You can buy them in bundles of 10, 20, 40, 60, and 80 at $0.15 for each 10. But if you are an agency, you don’t have this option. What you have instead is to buy bundles of 150 or 300. As an Upwork freelancer on the basic membership, you get 10 connects every month.
However, you do not need connects when
- A client invites you to bid on an offer.
- A client sends you an offer directly.
- A client purchases from your Project Catalog project.
- You send a proposal within an Enterprise Talent Cloud.
Upwork Plus Membership
The Upwork Plus (Paid) membership packages come with some perks at a fee of $14.99 per month. This package includes:
- 70 Connects Per Month:
- Access Competitor Bids
- Customized Profile URL
- Always Active Profile Even in Absence
As a beginner to the freelance marketplace looking to make some extra money, there is o shame in going for the basic membership. As a newbie, it is just perfect to test the waters and use the features of the platform as you learn to become an Upwork pro.
4. Use Connects to Send Proposals
Your Upwork profile is now complete. But you haven’t yet started making good money, right? Right. Let’s get onto that then. To make money on Fiverr, you need to accept offers and deliver work and you automatically get paid based on your payment structure; either an hourly rate or fixed rate. To get offers, you need a stunning profile. You also need to master the art of sales by crafting a great cover letter so that potential clients can be convinced you are the right freelancer for the job.
5. Start Making Money
To understand how to make money on Upwork, there are two terms you need to know when it comes to payment.
You get paid in two ways in Upwork:
Fixed-Rate – The fixed rate is straightforward and is done based on milestones. If a project has 5 milestones, you get paid five times throughout the project. This payment system means you can get part payments up until the project is complete. The catch here is that the client has to approve the completion of the milestone. It is only after they have confirmed completion will you be paid.
Hourly Rate – The hourly rate system is paid based on a weekly billing cycle. Whenever you are working on a project, you can choose to bill the client per hour. This means the amount of time you put into the work plays the main role in your payment. If you charge $30 per hour on a 2-hour freelance content writing job, then you get twice of $30 which is $60. This seems straightforward. But it isn’t. You will get protection for your payment in such a system only when you allow Upwork to track your progress by recording your keystrokes, monitoring your mouse, and occasionally taking your screen some shots. To prevent getting into client disputes, a fixed rate communicates more value as people vary in the amount of time they use to do the same amount of work. Time is not an accurate measure of value provided in any freelance job.
No matter which system you work with, providing quality work and showing excellent customer service will help you create a rapport: also a good way to get long-term projects and repeat clients.
Your fees charged are just part of the equation of how much you earn. Upwork takes a cut on the value charged for services charged. The system used by Upwork is called the sliding fee system. Here’s how it works.
Your first bill for each client of below $500 attracts a 20% cut. The next bills from above $500 to $10,000 will attract only 10% as a fee. Any charge for that same client above $10,000 will attract only 5%.
Upwork sliding fee system charges:
- Bill <$500 – 20%
- $500.01 – $10,000 10%
- $10,000+ – 5%
The system motivates working with clients in a long term. To achieve this, you may have to provide your absolute best to get to the $10,000 + mark.
Tips for Running a Successful Upwork Business
One of the most common mistakes new Upwork freelancers make is to create their accounts, add a few details about themselves and sit back, expecting offers to start pouring in. The truth is, you cannot get far with such a strategy. Consider this: succeeding on Upwork is much like climbing a steep hill which is steeper at the bottom. You are much more likely to fall at the bottom and it requires a lot of effort to get to the part that has advantages enough to allow you to relax.
As a beginner, you will have to put in a lot of work, send offers and write many cover letters for potential clients to review. But as you build your portfolio, generate some reputation, and get bigger deals, Upwork jobs start to come to you. You may be able to secure long-term projects that pay enough that you work with very few clients and still meet your goals. To eventually get there, here are a few tips you help you.
1. Sell a Few Specialized Skills
Upwork has a broad set of categories totaling 12. These categories include various skills and services any freelancer can offer ranging from freelance writing such as content writing and creative writing, graphic design such as illustration, web design such as WordPress website development, and more.
The paradox of more is that humans get analysis paralysis and want it all but cant choose. Another problem with more is that it saturates your work and makes your portfolio not specialized enough to gain the trust of high-paying clients. To succeed in any freelance marketplace, you need specialized experience to be able to get a job success score that attracts customers and clients.
As a beginner, stick with a micro-service and do it well enough to get a good reputation. With your newfound reputation, you can offer up new services and get ready clients to work with. You can’t do that when no one trusts your work yet.
2. Focus on Building a Good Portfolio Initially
You may be a writer specializing in writing stunning blog posts. Blog content is highly demanded by businesses. But you may not always get the big bucks for your work as a new freelancer on Upwork. Remember you are climbing a hill with a steep bottom. Focusing on building an excellent 5-star portfolio with a successful core that is glowing. This is leverage for charging higher fees, and getting bigger and long-term projects and contracts. But without focusing on getting a good portfolio, but rather on making quick and good money, you may be stifling your ability to earn more on Upwork.
3. Build a Killer Profile
One basic factor in Upwork success is setting up a professional, convincing profile that tells your story and exhibits your value to your ideal client. A good feature of Upwork is that you can create specialized profiles for certain skills. This is great. If you have more than one service, you can create a special profile for each service to increase your chances of converting potential clients into paying clients.
4. Do Not Copy and Paste Cover Letters
If you are applying for more than 10 jobs a day, it won’t take long before you start copying previous cover letters and pasting on new bids. But that would be a mistake. Clients on Upwork are mostly pretty specific with what they want. Some even have several requirements in terms of years of experience, country, the types of jobs the freelancer has done, and more. The responses to these requirements in most cases cannot be generic. And if you send in generic ones, you may never hear from them. Don’t wonder why. You probably didn’t capture their attention enough. You may have a template and employ a few key strategies in writing a killer cover letter.
5. Apply, Apply, Apply
You have the right profile, a convincing portfolio, and a stunning cover letter template. The next thing is to apply for all relevant jobs you qualify for. At this stage, you do not want to take jobs that you cannot deliver; destroying your reputation. Your client will eventually review your work, and if it isn’t good, others won’t buy from you. Apply for as many jobs as you have time to apply. Do not worry about whether you will have time to work on them (especially when you have nothing on your plate now).
6. Always Be Active and Stay on The Platform
Being in the marketplace is a huge advantage that you may overlook easily. But that would be a mistake. Download the mobile app and try to stay on for a few minutes each day. The mobile app is another easy way to apply for jobs while you are on it.
Conclusion
Being a successful freelancer on Upwork, making good money, and delivering value takes time. You may already be a successful freelancer outside of the platform, which will give you some head start. But that cannot beat having to climb the Upwork freelancer hill one step at a time. The strategies shared right in this article will help you begin to create the success you need to believe in the huge opportunity in this marketplace. But if you hate writing proposals, you might want to check Fiverr, the third-largest freelance marketplace in the world.