Sounds like Upwork forget about scaling.
Instead of increasing fees, it should have aggressively sought to cut fees. By cutting fees, more people use the platform. Instead of increasing fees for freelancers and clients, have the clients pay flat monthly fees, with tiers for how many freelancers they hire. The more they hire, the cheaper the unit cost for hiring an additional freelancer. Then charge freelancers a flat rate for any work they do, for however long they do it.
By listing on the stock exchange they got access to more money, but also pressure to generate more money for investors. I think they could have had a hard time finding private investors, but now they are hemorrhaging money by pursing a revenue growth at all costs strategy.
Charging Connects to bid on jobs on top of service fees for earnings and withdrawal fees doesn’t sound like a good outcome for freelancers.
Then the variable sliding fee from 0 % to 15% set by an opaque algorithm.
When Upwork was the only freelance platform it could afford to charge high fees. By charging high and not so transparent fees and making huge profits, it created opportunities for competitors to enter the market, either with lower fees or for specific industries.
With the arrival of AI to do entry-level work which is the main earner for Upwork, organisations can use AI themselves instead of hiring freelancers.
By making it cheaper for clients to hire freelancers, rewarding freelancers who perform high quality work, listening more to both clients and freelancers, taking a longer term approach to growth, I think Upwork could have done things better.
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Upwork is trying to have their cake and eat it too. They’re trying to take advantage of workers rather than just making life easier for workers, who can then make life easier for clients.
You have to chose one side of your two-sided market to earn your money from. Greedy platforms (like Amazon) try to get it from both, and the platform suffers for it.
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Upwork is bad. No client even reply. Upwork just want to earn money I think
In short, they plunged their biggest assets into oblivion because they had too many backers to please.
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Upwork is only filled with scammers anyway. I’ve never used them but people I know who have only get scams.
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Good work of uploading the upWork program.
I’d like to offer a slightly different take.
I have tried to use Upwork in the past and found it really annoying and impossible to get started. I think they kind of suffered from being the only game in town and that more players will bring healthy competition which will improve that industry.
They were not profitable in 2021-2022 so they had to do something. They managed to become profitable and although net margin decreased 2024-2025 they still hang onto a 14% margin with revenue growing steadily from 2021-2025. Financially it seems like a good success story.
The stock did have a covid bubble pop
But earnings are actually projected to grow annually and they have been beating earnings estimates quarterly
Q126 has a 16% net margin, $31 mil net income.
Are they getting what they deserve then?
I think it’s just the growing pains of being the only game in town, finding a profitable model and now increased competition which is overall healthy. Hopefully that competition works out to a better deal for everyone.
They are trading at a Price to Earnings ratio of 10 which is historically pretty normal for them. Maybe it’s at fair value currently.
Healthy debt coverage
I don’t really see the company being in a dire situation. Financially, as a business, they seem to have navigated this period pretty well.
Hello,
in my experience it depends on the skills you are offering and your competition.
People in crowded and oversaturated markets ( like graphic desing or basic web development) have a hard time there, are in a constant race to the bottom with their rates and are a prime target for scammers.
With spezialized technical skills, in my case things like scalable Kubernetes architectures and German verbatim transcriptions for AI,
you can find serious clients, even reach the enterprise client side of Upwork which isn’t public.
In summary and based on my time there
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If you have in demand skills in your field, Upwork is worth a try.
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Gain an edge, know how to write proposals: Address the client’s pain points and offer a solution.
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AI can assist you in the proposal draft, but you have to write the final text to not get rejected out fo the gate!
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You will stll need money for their currency, called Connects, to propose for enough projects that turn into contracts.
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Don’t make Upwork your sole source of income, treat it as part of your business plan.
Best regards
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