Reviews and expert opinion Upwork

A Vast and Versatile Freelance Marketplace

Finding freelancers online isn’t that difficult nowadays. The challenging part is hiring professionals you can trust, who deliver excellent work as quickly and painlessly as possible. Upwork might be a household name, but how does it hold up in 2023? Can you trust it to connect you with skilled and capable freelancers?

To help clear up the picture, I tested its features, ease of use, support, and more. Upwork’s talent pool is gigantic, and the website’s easy to use. Combine that with its low fees and Payment Protection plan, and you have a recipe for success.

Whether you’re a small business owner looking to hire someone for a quick one-off job or a larger company searching for new talent, Upwork has the tools to help you succeed. Everything from chats to video calls, file sharing, and payment processing can be completed in-house, saving you and your hires valuable time.

But before you invest any time and money, read this in-depth Upwork review to find out if it’s the best choice for you.

Upwork’s Impressive Set of Features Will Get the Job Done

Upwork is a robust and feature-heavy freelance marketplace that offers much more than just a hiring platform. Sure, it’ll help you find skilled freelancers. But if you’re willing to take advantage of all its advanced features, it can do so much more than that, too.

From reporting to payroll, Upwork covers every aspect of the hiring process.

A Gigantic Pool of Talent

As one of the oldest and most well-known online freelance platforms, it’s no surprise that Upwork currently houses millions of professional profiles. Whether you’re looking for an experienced full-stack developer, a versatile writer, or anything in between, Upwork won’t disappoint.

The many available categories are further divided into specialties, making it easy to find the perfect candidate for the task at hand.

Different Ways To Hire

Freelance marketplaces often approach hiring in one of two ways. Some have you post jobs, while others offer long lists of freelancer profiles and relevant gigs. Upwork, on the other hand, does both.

You can begin your journey by posting a job or using the “Discover” feature to find talent based on your project’s requirements. There’s even a project catalog feature that functions a lot like Fiverr’s gigs (in other words, freelancers do the posting).

Since the hiring process can vary significantly from job to job, I appreciate this flexibility.

Upwork Plus users can also take advantage of the platform’s talent sourcing feature to find ideal candidates much more quickly.

Super-Detailed Freelancer Profiles

Although the weight ultimately falls on you to find and hire suitable candidates, Upwork’s intricate profile structure hugely simplifies the interview process.

Each profile works like a résumé, listing crucial information about the freelancer such as employment history, education, work history on the platform, job success score, the amount of money they’ve earned through Upwork, and the total hours they’ve worked.

Freelancers can also list certificates and relevant skills, and some even showcase work completed outside the platform with images uploaded under the portfolio section. If you take the time to go through each candidate’s profile, you’ll have all the information you need to make an informed decision.

Plenty of Work-Related Tools

With a slew of helpful management tools such as chat, file exchange, work diary, advanced reports, and a payroll feature, Upwork helps both you and your freelancers stay focused and organized.

The bad news is that freelancers need to download and install a separate desktop application to use the work diary. The good news is that most – if not all – freelancers on the platform use Upwork’s app to track their time.

The app also comes with chat functionality, which means that freelancers can easily reach you without having to navigate to the website while working.

Upwork can also help you stay on top of your projects by generating all kinds of reports, listing information about freelancer activity, hours billed, fixed-priced payments, and more. I tend to keep a close watch on these reports – just in case something goes wrong.

Secure Payments

Unlike less-known freelance marketplaces, Upwork takes payments very seriously. The Payment Protection plan adds an extra layer of security, ensuring you always get what you pay for.

How does it work? If something doesn’t seem right (for example, a freelancer’s logging more hours than agreed), you can easily file a dispute and get your money back.

Similarly, Upwork won’t release your funds on fixed-priced projects until you approve the submitted work. If you’re not satisfied with the result, you can ask for changes or even request an escrow refund.

Upwork Features at a Glance

Upwork Is Easy To Use – Once You Get the Hang of It

Posting jobs on Upwork is pretty straightforward – although I’d say there’s a slight learning curve if you want to make full use of the advanced management tools.

Getting started on Upwork takes a bit more time than, say, Fiverr. Still, it’s definitely worth the effort in the long run, especially if your goal is to form meaningful and long-standing business relationships with your hires.

Clean Interface and Advanced Search Filters

As a hirer, everything you need is never more than two clicks away. Through Upwork’s main menu, you can quickly view your job posts, active contracts, hire information, detailed financial reports, and messages.

Upwork’s search engine is well laid-out and easy to navigate . Besides categories and specialties, I love how you can use multiple filters (such as location, hourly rate, earned amount, job success, hours billed, or English level) to narrow your search.

Even if you just use the search bar, you won’t have any trouble finding capable freelancers. The algorithm pushes people with immediate availability and high success scores to the top.

Quick Job Postings

Upwork is best known for its traditional yet effective job postings. As long as you have a clear idea of what you’re looking for, Upwork will guide you through the hiring process.

Everything is streamlined and easy to follow: you pick a headline, select some relevant skills, set your scope and budget, add a short description, and that’s it – you’re good to go. It took me less than 5 minutes to post my first job, and within half an hour, people were already applying and asking questions.

To make things even easier, Upwork will show profiles that meet your criteria once you’ve posted something. You can save time by sending invites to some of these recommended candidates while waiting for more applicants.

Easy Monitoring for Hourly Contracts

Online monitoring is a touchy subject, and as a freelancer myself, I don’t love it. Still, I realize that when I’m paying someone by the hour to create a logo for my website, I expect them to only log time when they’re working on my project – and not when they’re watching cat videos on YouTube.

Upwork’s app takes random screenshots every ten minutes or so. It also tracks clicks and keystrokes, calculating an activity score for every ten-minute interval.

These entries are automatically created as long as the freelancer keeps the app running in the background, and you can easily access their work diary through the contracts menu. If something doesn’t add up, you can bring it up with them or file for a dispute if they’re not cooperating.

Great Support Once You Escape the Chatbot

Upwork’s support revolves around a headstrong robot. And to be frank, I’m not a fan of services that streamline the support experience by limiting contact channels and throwing “clever” AI chatbots into the equation.

Before connecting you with a representative, Upwork’s bot will scan and analyze your question, picking out keywords and pointing you toward relevant sources drawn from their (enormous) knowledge base.

If that’s not enough to answer your query, Upwork MIGHT let you chat with an actual human right away or create a new ticket for you – but unfortunately, these options aren’t always there.

Things are considerably smoother if you’re on the Plus plan, which unlocks 24/7 live chat and phone support. I put Upwork’s support to the test by asking a general question about refunds:

Is it easy to get my money back if I’m not satisfied with a freelancer’s work? How long do I have to file a dispute?

Upwork’s chatbot answered my question almost instantly.

I went on to ask about hourly contract refunds and Upwork’s Payment protection, and the bot rose to the occasion time and time again. It turns out you have 30 days to file a dispute for fixed-price projects and one week to review hours logged through work diaries.

I also wanted to learn more about Upwork’s talent specialists, who allegedly help Plus users find the right professionals a lot quicker. That was when I finally beat Upwork’s bot – it gave up and referred me to a human representative.

No more than 30 seconds later, Jan got back to me, explaining everything I needed to know about the program. They also outlined some other benefits of the Plus plan and even offered me a free 30-day trial to test these features myself!

If you like freebies as much as I do, don’t be afraid to show interest by asking questions about the Plus plan. Rumor has it that representatives are allowed to hand out free trials to customers who have completed their profiles and set up a payment method.

Upwork’s representatives are eager to help, but chatbots are NOT fun – especially when they’re always in the way of real human interaction. I didn’t encounter any serious problems myself, but if I had, I would’ve appreciated it if I could skip the bot and talk to a human right away.

Upwork is completely free to use, only charging a flat – and very reasonable – 3% fee for payments. PeoplePerHour, for example, charges a flat 10%, while Fiverr and 99designs both charge 5%. Accepted payment methods include credit/debit cards, PayPal, and US bank accounts.

Keep in mind that all payments on Upwork are made in USD, which means that conversion rates are determined by your/your freelancer’s bank.

Now, if you want to take full advantage of Upwork’s advanced tools and support, you might consider switching to the Plus plan, which starts at $$0/month. This plan is only billed monthly (no annual discounts), and there are no refunds either.

While it’s definitely possible to get things done as a free user, Upwork’s Plus plan is loaded with many helpful perks and features. Imagine how much time you could save with a dedicated account manager and a trained talent specialist on your side.

You’ll also unlock access to Upwork’s 24/7 chat support and 24/5 phone support, which means you won’t have to deal with the annoying chatbot.

The extra management and reporting tools are great to have as well. You’ll be able to allocate hires to different teams and add unique payment methods while also tracking progress and spending through aggregated company reports.

Plus clients can invite more freelancers to view their posts, and they can upgrade one of their jobs to “Featured” status once a month. You’re much more likely to attract talent with your shiny blue Plus client badge, which will be displayed on all your postings.

Upwork provides customizable Enterprise plans for larger companies seeking to align the platform with their specific requirements. However, if you do not intend to hire entire teams through Upwork, this is not a concern you need to worry about.