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 another platform to do right by me. Now I am at 0% fees, NET-14 and get paid directly without a hold.
Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
41–50 of 115 posts
Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
#42I have found a number of long-term clients from UpWork. In fact, working with one since last 8-9 years, around the time UpWork was conceived.
Although not so much on UpWork these days, I personally feel that having a single fee is less confusing then the so called "progressive" fee bracket.
Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
#43It is mind-boggling how this business with $600 million in annual revenues is still barely breaking even on a free cash flow basis.
Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
#44Meh, that's a dishonest title. Yes, Upwork are moving everybody on the 10% fee. But they previously had a progressive fee: * 20% fee for the first $500 earned from a client * 10% fee between $500 and $10,000 earned * 5% fee after the first $10,000 earned Those figures are per client. Start a new job with someone else, you start from the lower bracket again. So they were basically living off short term contracts and l…
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 workers shouldn't pay. Breaking the law shouldn't pay.
Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
#45The 5% to 10% bump is a real kick in the pants.
Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
#46Meh, that's a dishonest title. Yes, Upwork are moving everybody on the 10% fee. But they previously had a progressive fee: * 20% fee for the first $500 earned from a client * 10% fee between $500 and $10,000 earned * 5% fee after the first $10,000 earned Those figures are per client. Start a new job with someone else, you start from the lower bracket again. So they were basically living off short term contracts and l…
I could not find a ClickHouse expert for some project, not sure where to look such people
Not sure if you're still looking, or what your budget is, but back in 2018(ish?) I worked at a semiconductor company that was looking to write their own system for analyzing production test data. We tested a bunch of databases and decided to use Clickhouse. We paid for a support contract from a company called "Altinity". They consulted on the the schema, how we were loading the data, the queries and even fixed some bugs in Clickhouse that we hit.
Looking at their site now, it looks like they've grown a lot and aren't a just boutique Clickhouse consultancy, but offer managed clickhouse cloud instances. There's still a reference to their support contract on the site though, so might still be worth a chat with them.
I have no affiliation with them, just an extremely pleased ex-customer. That was a long time ago though, so I take no responsibility if they've gone to shit now :D.
Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
#47Earlier 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…
You don't have to pay them to learn. I'm also a generalist freelancer and those general skills make me as productive as most specialists, even accounting for ramp up time. If it does take me more time to learn a new tool, I don't charge for those hours.
This doesn't apply to everything, but Clickhouse is not so different from other analytics tools it requires a specialist.
Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
#48Earlier 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.
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)
Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
#49Earlier 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…
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.
it's really depends on the country laws and legal entity type, in some cases you must report gross income and all platforms fees can't be considered as expenses.
Re: Upwork removing 5% commission bracket and moving everyone to 10% bracket
#50They must already be making a killing as they don’t do much; I mean their platform is so depressingly badly written, I don’t quite understand how you can get it to that state. They want (it’s in the rules) you to stay in their chat and communication system, but it is basically unusable for anything serious, so no one does. There is the impossible invoicing more people here mentioned; my accountant keeps asking if the…
They are losing money and have always been. They are spending a ridiculous amount of money to bring in clients through ads and other marketing channels, and the whole thing simply doesn't look too sustainable.
Ah, I did not know that. It looks like a goldmine considering the amounts that streams in. But yeah, if they spend a lot on acquisition; that goes very fast.