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

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

#91

Post by Atlas22 »

Veen wrote: post #9
MrThoughtful wrote: post #4

I have been using Upwork for years to outsource tasks. I'm still not sure what to think of them. On the one hand, I keep coming back because I usually find the better freelancers on Upwork than elsewhere. On the other hand, paying them 10% means a freelancer who works for me for two weeks works one whole day just to pay the Upwork fee. And there are other fees on top of that. Upwork's overall take rate is over 15%. A…

> works one whole day just to pay the Upwork fee If they have any sense they pass the cost of the fee on to you in their hourly rate or project cost or whatever.

Which raises the freelancers bid, which decreases their competitiveness, which decreases the chance of winning the job/contract, which decreases overall pay. That's what one of the other commenters meant when they said they have to pay it one way or another.

The only way the fee "magicly" disappears is if someone in the pipeline doesn't care about the increased cost and eats it. At which point, the freelancer is underbidding for the job anyways.

The real point is having effectively having high % fee discourages/suppresses the volume of transactions. Because freelancers are pretty heavily locked into the platform by design and the companies that hire are not, the freelancers get hit with the burden of the suppressing fees to a much higher degree (they have to compete with bids from other platforms/consultants that don't have large fees)

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

#92

Post by bogwog »

hakube wrote: post #78

How's Upwork nowadays? I tried getting some gigs there for 3+ years and got nothing. I had more success with r/forhire and Craigslist and the good thing is there's no middleman. Heck, I even spent for Freelancer Plus and I just lost my connects to people who didn't even consider to read my proposal and check my profile

I used it many years ago and it was decent, but not good. Tried again recently and it’s way worse than I remember.

Pretty much every client expects you to enter a bidding war starting at $100 (and going down, obv) to build them a multiplatform app with backend and a mountain of features.

What I don’t understand is who accepts these jobs? Scammers? I can’t imagine that Upwork has many happy clients.

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

#93

Post by whatshisface »

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…

One thing I like about this thread is the idea of a sink made of pure zinc as a metaphor for a typical codebase.

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

#94

Post by papertrail-work »

fbrncci wrote: post #41

When I started out as a freelancer / independent contractor, I made the conscious decision to not use any of these platforms, out of fear for my client base or finances being tied up and taken away from me due to a simple ToS violation; the fees never sat with me either. Admittedly, it took so much longer to get a consistent base of clients (1-2 years), but it feels like a fresh of breath air over having to rely on a…

The advertisement of your service seems like the best part of Upwork though. If you already have clients, there's no point in using it.

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

#95

Post by benatkin »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #13
MrThoughtful wrote: post #4

I have been using Upwork for years to outsource tasks. I'm still not sure what to think of them. On the one hand, I keep coming back because I usually find the better freelancers on Upwork than elsewhere. On the other hand, paying them 10% means a freelancer who works for me for two weeks works one whole day just to pay the Upwork fee. And there are other fees on top of that. Upwork's overall take rate is over 15%. A…

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…

What if it goes up to 15%? The Overton Window is shifting.

Just this last week I saw ads for the "CPA Card" from Expensify with 2% cash back.

All those cash back offers from credit cards is from money extracted from businesses of all sizes by monopolists.

I think there should be pushback for any increases in cuts that are taken.

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

#96

Post by benatkin »

MrThoughtful wrote: post #4

I have been using Upwork for years to outsource tasks. I'm still not sure what to think of them. On the one hand, I keep coming back because I usually find the better freelancers on Upwork than elsewhere. On the other hand, paying them 10% means a freelancer who works for me for two weeks works one whole day just to pay the Upwork fee. And there are other fees on top of that. Upwork's overall take rate is over 15%. A…

UpWork by default has your freelancers install their crappy spyware. That's the main reason I've never used it.

Fiverr trademarked the word "gig".

That eliminates two of them. Luckily there are regional freelancing firms that seem promising.

At least UpWork lets people rant about them on their website. Maybe that will change too now that they've given into taking a higher cut. https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Time-Tracker-Is-...

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

#97

Post by gamblor956 »

szundi wrote: post #21
gamblor956 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Upwork fee is reported as a business deduction on your tax return. As an independent contractor you pay income taxes based on your self-employment net income (not your gross income, as employees are) because you are effectively treated as a type of business for income tax purposes.

There are almost no forms of tax that are significant in size and based on gross revenues at the same time.

San Francisco has a gross revenue tax that is significant for tech companies.

Hawaii also has a general excise tax based on gross retail and/or service revenues and is the state's primary tax on businesses (in lieu of income taxes).

Ohio's commercial activity tax is based on gross revenue above a threshold.

Oregon's corporate activity tax is based on gross revenue above a threshold.

Washington's B&O tax is based on gross revenue and is the state's primary tax on businesses (in lieu of income taxes).

France's social contribution tax is based on gross revenues above a threshold.

And those are just the ones I know off the top of my head because I deal with them regularly.

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

#98

Post by benatkin »

desaiguddu wrote: post #7
MrThoughtful wrote: post #4

I have been using Upwork for years to outsource tasks. I'm still not sure what to think of them. On the one hand, I keep coming back because I usually find the better freelancers on Upwork than elsewhere. On the other hand, paying them 10% means a freelancer who works for me for two weeks works one whole day just to pay the Upwork fee. And there are other fees on top of that. Upwork's overall take rate is over 15%. A…

Absolutely. Additionally they have a power to de-platform an individual. This move will potentially hurt lot of indie & freelancers who were working with long-term clients through Upwork. This is like forgoing your 5% net income.

They seem to try harder than most not to kick anyone off. That was demonstrated in that they waited until the last possible moment to stop operating in Russia. Also their press release reads like this:

> Our hearts and support go out to all those affected by this senseless war against Ukraine. We hope that a path to peace is ahead for Ukraine, and that we are able to bring our mission back to Russia and Belarus in the future.

That's quite hopeful considering where things are right now.

I would put them in a small set of bold companies processing lots of difficult payments including Uber, Lyft, AirBnb, and Coinbase.

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

#99

Post by gamblor956 »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #48
szundi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are almost no forms of tax that are significant in size and based on gross revenues at the same time.

I realize this doesn't apply to Upwork, but don't the new U.S. tax laws discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35614313 prevent companies from writing off development costs, meaning they are taxed on the gross revenues (at least for that year)

No, they have to capitalize (or amortize) development expenses over a 5 (domestic R&D) or 15 year (foreign R&D) period instead of getting to deduct them currently (meaning in the year incurred).

Due to the way depreciation works, development is treated as incurred mid-year regardless of when in the taxpayer's tax year they are actually incurred, so the ultimate effect is that only 10% of the development costs can be deducted in the first year, 20% for the next 4 years, and 10% in the final year (6th calendar year after incurring cost, due to the deemed mid-year start in the first year).

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

#100

Post by xeromal »

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've hired people with Upwork a few times and I just hire them for a single job and if I'm happy with it. I move to whatsapp and pay via revolut. Everyone seems happy besides upwork to me. lol
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