Know the factors that contributed to the change of pricing of Upwork

Why Upwork changed its pricing? Upwork is one of the most famous freelancing platforms in the world today. Upwork was formed last year by merging the pioneer of freelancing Elance.com and Odesk.com, which was also doing well at the time of the merger. A lot has changed in the new platform Upwork. Some of the features of Elance and Odesk can still be found in Upwork. At the time of the merger of Elance and Odesk, Upwork pledged that they will try their best to enhance the user experience.

How the New Pricing Works?

In order to enhance the user experience, they implemented a lot of new rules on their platform. Previously, they set the website fee at 10%, but they have recently changed their pricing policy. The pricing is no longer fixed and it varies from user to user. Their new pricing policy aims at rewarding the returning customers. The more a user pays on Upwork, the less will be charged to him or her the next time. As per Upwork’s official blog:

”Starting in June, freelancers will pay a sliding service fee that’s designed to reward large, repeat relationships and more fairly cover the costs of small projects, which are more expensive for Upwork to support. Clients will pay a payment processing fee, either per transaction or a flat monthly fee.”
Currently, freelancers are used to paying 10% of their earning to Upwork. From today, different freelancers will pay different fees. As per the new policy of Upwork,

“The more business you do with your clients on Upwork, the more money you keep. You’ll pay:

• 20% for the first $500 you bill your client across all contracts
• 10% for total billings with your client between $500.01 and $10,000
• 5% for total billings with your client that exceed $10,000”

What are the Implications of the New Pricing?

These changes to fees have some advantages and some disadvantages. Firstly, these changes do not favor and encourage new freelancers to join Upwork. Charging 20% to new freelancers who already earn less is not a good decision. Secondly, these changes in fees favor clients and old freelancers. The freelancers who have already earned huge profits will just pay 5% fees, which is 4 times less than that of the fee charges to new freelancers.

There is no denying the fact that Upwork has become the most favorite freelancing platforms in the world but this recent fee changes may cost them. There is a significant number of new freelancers on Upwork who can switch to other freelancing platforms. Other freelancing platforms are charging less than that of Upwork. Why Upwork changed its pricing? This is why Upwork changed its pricing.