Shout out to DevIppo for asking me about my experience with Upwork and inspiring this blog post. See his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBbNjF9hvNk9Rq2QrerZp8A
I started Upwork a year ago. It’s much more competitive now and they have raised the fees on everything.
It’s hard to get started and you will have to spend money on their Connects system to actually land your first gig.
Most people I’ve talked to said they started with some small gig, like $20. For the first few projects you might not be getting much money per hour of work. It’s mostly just to build up some work history on there and build up some positive feedback so potential clients will take you seriously and trust you to work on their projects.
I actually hated that in the beginning. I felt like it wasn’t worth my time to apply to every little $20-$50 gig and go through almost the same interview process as trying to find a full-time job. Heck, even for $100 gigs it felt like a waste of my time.
But now I’m getting a steady flow of clients contacting me. I don’t send out very many proposals unless it’s the exact type of job I want to do. And when I do send out those proposals I rarely get picked for the job anyway. So, I guess the proposal system is broken. There’s not much Upwork can do to fix it though. There are so many people from low income countries spamming proposals. They already made it more expensive to send. So, what else can they do? Making it much more expensive than it already is to get started will make it too difficult for new freelancers.
For us freelancers who are in Japan, the USD from Upwork feels so good right now. I feel like I’m getting a lot of money for the small amount of work I do on there. There’s also the ability to increase your pay. It’s totally up to you. Whenever you feel like you’re getting too much work you can just give yourself a promotion of a few dollars an hour, or whatever you feel like. Or just start charging more for your fixed-price projects. Your income is completely under your control. I can wake up tomorrow and say “You know what…I feel like making $5 more an hour. I’ll just increase my rate. That would be $200 more a month if you’re working full-time. For anyone with experience working in Japan you’ll know how incredibly hard it would be to get any kind of extra money like that from your employer. Or have I not yet mentally recovered from the beatdown the English teaching industry of Japan gave me?
Some of my friends are getting all their income from Upwork so it’s making me see the possibility there, especially if your cost of living is low. One of them is getting $60/hr with Shopify development on Upwork while living in Indonesia. His lifestyle seems amazing. Another is getting like $50/hr in New York. I think he’s doing alright. Remember, you always have your fixed-price projects. If you’re good at what you do you could be making double your normal hourly rate when you’re doing them, if you have the pricing right.
Actually, I could already quit my full-time job now if I wanted to take the risk. I’ve never put in more than 15 hours a week into freelancing and some weeks that matches the pay I get from working 40 hours a week at my entry level dev job at a Japanese company. If I put in a solid 20 hours a week into it I know I’d be okay financially without my full-time job. But it’s scary to let go. And also I like the work I’m doing at my full-time job and everyone at the company is really cool. I’d like to stay there as long as possible.
To summarize, I hated Upwork in the beginning and their fees are quite high. You’ll probably spend more money than you make on your first couple of jobs. But if you stick with it, it has the potential to give you financial freedom, location freedom, and a little bit more time freedom compared to a full-time job at a company.
