Upwork 

Terrible platform. They make you pay for "connects" in order to bid for jobs, the issue is they never work. Unless you already have an account that has dozens of reviews and tons of traction you will NOT get hired.

I even offered my services for free just to get more reviews and the bids I spent money on didnt even get looked at.

This platform is a complete scam, don't waste your money.

My 9 years old Upwork account was recently suspended during the verification of my company with an accusation of submitting "falsified information." This is completely false — all documents I submitted, including the company incorporation certificate, were official and verifiable via the Indian Government's MCA portal.

Despite raising multiple support tickets (51843242, 51861640, 51861323) and providing valid proof, Upwork continues to mark my requests as "resolved" without any meaningful explanation or action. I’ve received no opportunity to clarify or defend myself, and there has been no proper review of the documents I submitted.

Upwork has been a key platform in my freelance career, and this unjustified suspension is both unprofessional and damaging. The lack of transparency, accountability, and fair support is extremely disappointing.

I urge the Upwork team to take ownership, conduct a proper review, and treat freelancers with the respect and fairness they deserve.

You pay money for credits then pay in credits to apply for jobs. Rule #1 don’t pay for an opportunity for work. 9/10 you don’t hear back about the jobs you apply for. If you forget about your subscription they auto renew you. $19.99 for a service you aren’t going to use. Now the first sign of a struggling Servuce is when they deny giving a refund for services unused. Stream labs gives a refund if you don’t use them. Myfundedfutures.com gives a refund. Captions.com. And Chatgpt, also give refunds. There are plenty of businesses that give refunds the only reason you don’t is because they have a struggling income stream. And a high dissatisfaction turnover month to month. Let’s say if more than half the people who sign up are dissatisfied and want to cancel their memberships That would mean every month they would have to give back more than half the money they made and it would probably make it hard to hold reserves. Now canceling my membership is my responsibility I get that. But writing code to auto renew without the option to just be month to month isn’t a choice I get to make except to do it or not. It’s still a choice that is started on the companies part. But let’s focus on the real issue. Why are there so many dissatisfied members that this policy is put I place? Because they aren’t getting the results the website is promoting. Every offer for work only accepts 10% or less of the amount of people who apply. You pay money yo get credits. You spend credits to apply for jobs. Not only that. They jobs want you to work to submit an application. Like producing said work to submit with your application. This takes time and money for each job you apply for only to not even hear back. It’s not setup in your favor. It’s a 90% or greater fail rate. Along with the time spent and money spent it’s a double negative to your time and money. You are literally working against yourself in the aspect of making money. It takes time to make money. It cost money to apply for jobs. You are spending twice for an opportunity that you might not even get an update about. You are also constantly searching for jobs this is more time. You also pay a membership for the credits that auto renew. Nothing about this setup is set up in your favor. Sure if you get the job and have been getting jobs and have a good rating. But not if you are new. Sure some people get paid but not 90%. It sounds like I’m running in circles but I’m just covering it in-depth to make sure you follow the thought process. If you need money and time is of the essence and you don’t have money sitting in the bank don’t come here. Go find a real job this is t the answer. This system isn’t setup to help you it setup to take your money and hold you captive until you realize it’s not made for you. And hope that you will forget about your membership or auto renew. As that’s the only reason a company would make sure every member only had the option for an auto renewal. To steal your money and not give you an option to get it back due to lack of remembering. Sure that’s your fault. But it’s also the companies fault for not being an honest business where they customer is always right. At the end of the day if you ran an honest business and your customers were satisfied you wouldn’t have to autorenew and deny refunds.

Absolutely terrible, cant even complete my sign up due to the hassle, you feel like you are a thief that is trying to steal from them. dont recommend using it.

We are a registered French company and long-time Upwork client (8 years on the platform) who hired a freelancer, Andreas Karl Morh, for a financial modeling project. Unfortunately, the experience exposed deep flaws in Upwork’s client protection systems.

Despite the freelancer:

- Submitting no deliverables after billing us for $470
- Refusing to provide any alignment or proof of work when we requested it
- Triggering a contract pause and dispute filing on our end
- Logging off-scope and irrelevant work
- Making inappropriate and discriminatory remarks during recorded Zoom calls (which we shared with Upwork)
- And requesting confidential company data (IRS documents, incorporation status) with no contractual justification

Upwork refused to issue a proper refund. Instead, they refunded only $10, citing technicalities in the Work Diary system while ignoring multiple violations of their Terms of Service and Professional Conduct Guidelines.

We requested arbitration, hoping for a fair third-party review. Instead, Sara from the Upwork Mediation Team informed us that no arbitration is available for hourly contracts, leaving us with no recourse despite extensive evidence.

We submitted a full case file, including:

- Screenshots from Upwork’s own systems

- Recorded call transcripts

- Documented policy violations

- A legal brief prepared by counsel

The freelancer submitted no deliverables, no scope-aligned work, and no justification. Yet the mediation team simply pushed for “compromise” instead of enforcing Upwork’s rules.

We have now filed a data protection complaint with French authorities, as the freelancer’s conduct may also constitute a breach of EU GDPR.

Upwork claims to be a platform for professionals. But if clients can be charged for work never delivered, and if clear misconduct is overlooked, it is not a safe place to do business.

We urge Upwork’s Trust & Safety and Legal teams to address this case properly. Until then, we cannot recommend Upwork to any company that values professionalism, privacy, or fair treatment.

If others have faced similar issues, please share your experience.

I have been using Upwork as a freelancer for about a year. I only landed 3 very short two-hour missions, which went well, but overall the experience has been disappointing.
The system of having to pay to apply and boost our application is frustrating, especially since it never worked for me. It’s extremely competitive, and my applications never get seen. It feels like a waste of both money and time.
I have also never seen expert-level roles offered at such low rates. Some of these high-level projects would be paid much more fairly on other platforms.
On top of that, Upwork recently increased their commission fee by 50% without providing any real added value or improved service. That’s a deal breaker for me.

Please read carefully. I’m writing to share my experience with Arpa Chatterjee and Digital Web Infotech. I was disappointed to find out he’s incompetent and demanding money. He’s not friendly and I don’t recommend hiring him. I’ve heard he’s a scammer who will try to steal your money.

I have had frustrations with logging-in with Upwork in the past, but I'm pretty happy with this platform now. I have an illustrator that is inexpensive but good. I have used him for a few years now for the occasional times I need illustrations. The Upwork fee seems fair to me, but I'm not sure what my illustrator is charged.

Upwork is the best platform for freelancers

Since today, the fees for freelancers went from 10 to 15 % even though there are already poorly paid, it is a shame Upwork!

Absolute ridiculous platform.
"talent" is subpar most of the time, their prices are often unjustifiably high, and when you ask a potential candidate how they'd like to be paid (as it's your first time using the platform) they block your account even though you decided to pay via upwork... absolutely insane way to run a business. Will never recommend or use them again. Save your sanity and find quality candidates via onlinejobs.ph or fiver

They make you buy connects to bid on "jobs" on their website. Only half of the jobs posted are fake, so you are paying to bid on jobs that go to no one. On rare occasions, someone might actually look at your proposal, but not worth the risk. No support what-so-ever. I finally wised up and realized the whole thing is a scam.

Many problems with this website.
First they suspended my account because they couldn't verify my account because I'm from another country (I provided passeport and permanent resident card).
Second I believe that some "clients" are scam. They will use you for simple task to give them visibility and then never answer at the end when they need to approved for payment.
There is not customer service, only a stupid AI chat, never able to talk to a real person. To talk to someone you need to talk to the AI first and then you can maybe write a ticket, they will make you wait few days to maybe contact you about your issue.

Half of the job offers I saw in my research, was client offering 5-10$ to do tasks for them. Ridiculous.

DON'T SPEND YOUR MONEY ON A SUBSCRIPTION ON THIS WEBSITE

$140 fee cost €147.50 today. 20% margin charged on the exchange rate. Extortionate

We’ve had one of the most frustrating and unfair experiences imaginable on Upwork, and I feel compelled to warn other legitimate clients before they invest time and trust into this platform.

After YEAARS of using Upwork without issue, our account was suddenly suspended — without warning, without context, and most importantly, without any wrongdoing on our end. The reason? According to Upwork, we allegedly solicited personal contact information from freelancers in violation of their terms of service.

Here’s the truth: we never asked for any personal information. Instead, a few freelancers voluntarily sent their contact details in their first messages — entirely unsolicited. This is something that’s completely out of our control as clients. But instead of holding those freelancers accountable, Upwork penalized us. They automatically assumed that we had asked for this information, even though the messages clearly show the opposite.

We reached out to Upwork support expecting a reasonable review. What we got was an incredibly opaque, robotic response. No one truly looked into our case. No one listened to our side of the story. It was clear that our account had been flagged and suspended by an automated system, and no human being took the time to actually investigate what had happened.

We lost access to our projects, our communications, and our payment methods — instantly. We had active contracts, scheduled deliveries, and important client work in progress. All of it was suddenly inaccessible because of a misjudgment based on freelancers breaking the rules — not us.

This experience has shaken our trust in the platform entirely. If you're a legitimate business trying to build a remote team or work with talent across borders, be aware that your account can be shut down in a heartbeat for something completely beyond your control. No due process. No transparency. No accountability from Upwork itself.

We’ve since moved to other platforms that actually value their clients and apply fair, logical review processes. Upwork has lost a long-term, high-spending client due to their careless, automated enforcement system and their complete lack of customer care.

Our advice: use Upwork at your own risk — and don’t be surprised when the system turns against you, even when you’ve done nothing wrong.

I had an incredibly disappointing and financially damaging experience as a first-time user of Upwork, and I want to warn others—especially new business owners—about what happened.

I hired a freelancer (Yacco Vjin) for a $1,000 project to redesign and rebuild my company website in WordPress. What I received was a Google Doc mockup, largely AI-generated text (which I verified through ChatGPT), and none of the promised design or functional web deliverables. No Figma, no wireframes, no templates—nothing a developer could actually use to build a site.

The freelancer showed me a previous client's project as an example of what he would do for me—then delivered a generic document and told me we’d “get to the rest” in a later milestone. He then tried to charge me more then double for the next step and revoked my access to the document I had paid $650 for. When I asked for it back, he ignored me, blocked me on Upwork, and later sent me outdated drafts that didn’t include my feedback.

Even worse: the sample work he showed me at the beginning? It turns out he had reused a previous client’s private materials—violating their confidentiality and clearly breaking Upwork's rules.

I reported everything to Upwork, and although they intervened to ask him for the work, I was never given the final version I paid for. The document was deleted, and the freelancer falsely claimed the outdated drafts were “final.”

To be clear:

I never received the actual deliverables I paid for.

The freelancer revoked access and blocked me out of spite.

He shared client materials that were not his to share.

The content he produced was AI-generated filler, not professional work.

I attempted to resolve everything through Upwork before escalating.

Upwork needs to do more to protect clients, especially first-time users. They’ve allowed a freelancer to misrepresent services, share confidential materials, and destroy paid work—without consequences. If this kind of behavior goes unpunished, it makes the entire platform unsafe for honest clients.

I’m still hoping Upwork will do the right thing by issuing a full refund and removing this freelancer from the platform but because they follow a mediation process where both the freelancer and client have to agree it's unlikely. Until then, I urge potential clients to be extremely cautious—and consider other platforms with better accountability. Yacco had high ratings and had earned 500k on the platform and I still ended up being scammed. There is no vetting process for freelancers on upwork all you have to do is signup.

I tried to start my career as a Freelancer on Upwork, did everything correct until a bad actor tricked me into writing a fake review in Google reviews. I realized it in seconds and deleted my review and reported the gig. So what did Upwork do, suspend my account and refuse to refund my unused connects. I am of course reporting them everywhere possible (FTC, BBB, Small Courts in Santa Clara California etc) but want to give people a heads up. Move on, there are better and fairer platforms out there

bugged piece of crap, cannot write words normally, it always get cut in the middle!! wake up

Do not spent your time and money for this platform, The platform only wants to make money for themselves, even you work or not.

Most interactions on the site will cost tokens that you must purchase. It feels very sleezy and the support is a useless chatbot that doesn't give out a support email.