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Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

support.upwork.com

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Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

#51

Post by fatfingerd »

safety1st wrote: post #44
desaiguddu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, most of the Upwork jobs are upwards of $1000 if it's a serious client. A large number of freelancers & agencies have built a stable clients on Upwork from years together. It will be a little revenue shock for them. Or eventually clients will pay more to cover the costs. Let's assume you are a freelancer with a client relationship of 40k * 20% fee for the first $500 earned from a client - $100 * 10% fee between…

Yeah, a lifetime 10% just for making the introduction is pure exploitation. On the buyer side we have been defrauded by Upwork providers and the company did absolutely nothing. Clear cut case of illegal activity and ToS violation, Upwork did nothing other than take our money. The FTC needs to beat this gang of criminals into the ground. They are a racket from top to bottom. Fraud shouldn't pay. Exploitation of worker…

I don't know, it seems like an impossible market for an honest middle man to me. 10% of short term contracting being a total bust where a worker should none-the-less be paid seems like a cost companies had that dealt with the lowest of job agencies. If those job agencies could afford to reimburse its because they were taking 50%.

Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

#53

Post by barry-cotter »

aerhardt wrote: post #16
benjaminwootton wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, if you work through a recruitment agent then they will be taking 10-20% of your rate as a margin. If you work through a consultancy that could be as high 30-50%. If you do your own business development then that is hard work, risky and also expensive. It would take much more than 10% of your time. Though freelancing can be a tough gig, I don’t think Upworks rates are unreasonable considering they have a ma…

> In the UK, if you work through a recruitment agent then they will be taking 10-20% of your rate as a margin. I would still expect a pure software marketplace to be significantly cheaper than a recruitment agency, given economies of scale and other efficiency gains.

Why would that mean it was cheaper instead of making the middleman’s margin fatter? Upwork isn’t a charity, the owners want to make money.

Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

#54

Post by msadowski »

8organicbits wrote: post #27
msadowski wrote: post #6

Wow, I thought they would honor the 5% charge till the end of the contracts but it seems they will go to 10% by the end of the year. Since Upwork theoretically locks you in for 2 years with a client, I’m expecting there will be a small exodus of people with long-term projects . I’d much rather sort out invoicing myself and get paid through Stripe than lose out on extra 5%.

> locks you in for 2 years with a client Can you explain?

I didn’t check the ToC in a while but last time I did if you got a client through Upwork you cannot work with them outside of their platform for two years otherwise you and the client risk a fine.

Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

#55

Post by msadowski »

Rufbdbskrufb473 wrote: post #23
benjaminwootton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main value add of Upwork for freelancers is helping them to find work in the marketplace. If you can find and bill directly, of course that may be preferable, but finding clients is hard and the business development also has a cost.

What I don't understand is how they keep most freelancers on the platform after finding a client. I've only used it once, but after having a call with the client, I felt comfortable accepting payment directly in crypto and not paying their fees.

This is against the terms and conditions I believe and in theory Upwork can charge you or the client some extra fee if you take the project outside of the platform.

Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

#56

Post by msadowski »

csunbird wrote: post #26
msadowski wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 12 pdfs are equally annoying to freelancers. I think what hurts here are how the fees are structured. If I charge client $100, the invoice will show this number. This will also be the income I’ll be reporting to tax authorities, so I have to pay income tax on $100, and an Upwork fee will be automatically deducted. I don’t know if they would have a legal way to do this but I would much rather my invoice showed $90…

Not a tax advisor, but you probably need to show that you paid Upwork 10$ as commission and get a business expense deduction.

In some countries not necessarily. I’m based in Czech Republic and as a sole proprietor the most preferential way to do taxes (up to certain threshold) is to report the gross income and use a tax rule that assumes that it cost you 60% of gross revenue to get your income. In this case the lower income shown the better.

Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

#57

Post by jabradoodle »

barry-cotter wrote: post #53
aerhardt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the UK, if you work through a recruitment agent then they will be taking 10-20% of your rate as a margin. I would still expect a pure software marketplace to be significantly cheaper than a recruitment agency, given economies of scale and other efficiency gains.

Why would that mean it was cheaper instead of making the middleman’s margin fatter? Upwork isn’t a charity, the owners want to make money.

In a word, competition.

Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

#58

Post by mulvya »

safety1st wrote: post #44
desaiguddu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, most of the Upwork jobs are upwards of $1000 if it's a serious client. A large number of freelancers & agencies have built a stable clients on Upwork from years together. It will be a little revenue shock for them. Or eventually clients will pay more to cover the costs. Let's assume you are a freelancer with a client relationship of 40k * 20% fee for the first $500 earned from a client - $100 * 10% fee between…

Yeah, a lifetime 10% just for making the introduction is pure exploitation. On the buyer side we have been defrauded by Upwork providers and the company did absolutely nothing. Clear cut case of illegal activity and ToS violation, Upwork did nothing other than take our money. The FTC needs to beat this gang of criminals into the ground. They are a racket from top to bottom. Fraud shouldn't pay. Exploitation of worker…

Lifetime, in theory. In practice, you can move the relationship off Upwork after 2 years.

See https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043210654-Mo...

Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

#59

Post by Retric »

sleepychu wrote: post #32
sph wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a direct answer but: don't look just for ClickHouse experts. When you hire a plumber, do you only hire experts of that exact brand? 90% of the job I apply for, on Upwork or otherwise, are always looking for an expert in a particular niche technology, and hire only based off that small nugget of information. I have been doing Elixir full time since 2016, and got a contract with someone that was looking for a Phoen…

When I'm hiring an employee, I'm looking for you! A generalist who will apply their wealth of database experience to my problems and learn what they need for my specifics along the way. I expect to pay some on ramp time where I don't get much in return. When I'm hiring a contractor, I'm not really interested in paying them to learn, I'm interested in getting my need fulfilled as efficiently as possible. If the proble…

If you need a contractor for 4 hours then sure finding an expert and paying a premium for that match is useful. However, there’s also a huge opportunity cost in looking for someone that‘s an exact match for what you want.

At around 2-3 weeks of work paying a someone that’s very close but not quite what you’re looking for saves your time and means at the end of it you have someone that you can go back to with the exact skill you’re looking for.

It really doesn’t take long before the contractor’s overall competence dwarfs how much specific time they have with some niche thing.

Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket

#60

Post by [deleted] »

mulvya wrote: post #58
safety1st wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a lifetime 10% just for making the introduction is pure exploitation. On the buyer side we have been defrauded by Upwork providers and the company did absolutely nothing. Clear cut case of illegal activity and ToS violation, Upwork did nothing other than take our money. The FTC needs to beat this gang of criminals into the ground. They are a racket from top to bottom. Fraud shouldn't pay. Exploitation of worker…

Lifetime, in theory. In practice, you can move the relationship off Upwork after 2 years. See https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043210654-Mo...

[deleted]
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