By: Dr. Adam Ozimek
Recently Upwork unveiled a beta of new availability badges that show clients when a freelancer is ready to work. These badges currently have a price of two Connects per week, but it will fluctuate based on demand. As the Chief Economist of Upwork, I want to explain the motivation behind this feature and show some of the data we are seeing so far.
Why a new badge?
One question about this badge is, why do we need a new signal of availability when we can currently indicate how available we are in our profiles? The problem with this profile signal is freelancers have little incentive to say they are unavailable. It costs nothing to say they are available, and more invites is usually a good thing, even if they are very busy. There is some data to support this.
Less than 0.3% of freelancers who were active in the last year currently indicate they are “not available” on their profile, and only 5% say they are available less than 30 hours a week. Using this indicator, almost everyone is highly available. In addition, only 5% of freelancers have changed their availability settings since the beginning of 2021.
In short, almost everyone says they are highly available and almost nobody’s availability changes. This suggests availability in the profile is not an accurate indicator of true availability. Which isn’t surprising, given that freelancers have an incentive to say they are available even if they really are very busy already.
A more accurate representation of availability is why we created the badge. We believe that if freelancers have to spend Connects to indicate availability, this gives them more of an incentive to do so only when they are truly available.
Accurate representation of availability matters for freelancers and clients and overall marketplace function because it makes invites more likely to go to people who are actually likely to accept them. If we can make invites more likely to go to actually available freelancers, then they are more likely to be accepted. And when clients get their job posts filled, they are more likely to come back and post again. Our goal is a pleasant, streamlined experience and productive outcome for both clients and freelancers overall.
How the badge is working so far
Early evidence suggests that the badge is going to freelancers who are more available. The acceptance rate for freelancers turning the badge on is almost double than that of freelancers who aren't investing Connects in the badge.
One concern with this feature is that only freelancers who are relatively inexperienced will use the badge, but this is not what we are seeing so far. Those who adopt the badge are 15% more likely to have a complete profile and have 9% higher private feedback scores. Overall, the data suggests if clients rely on this badge, it won’t steer them away from high performing freelancers.
Why that price?
I want to close with a few points about pricing. The current price is 2 Connects per week, but it will vary based on demand. This is important because it addresses concerns that if everyone buys the badge, it won’t work. We are still researching the right number, but we believe that there is an optimal share of freelancers that should have the badge on in order to maximize the effect it has on creating good matches. So to set the price, we will be targeting that percentage. If too many start turning the badge on, the price will go up. If too few do, the price will go down. While paying for things is never fun, it’s important to remember freelancers already get 10 free Connects a month, and 10 Connects for interviewing. Think of this as another way to use the Connects that we give them, which helps the marketplace function better and get more work done.
Going forward
This is a beta feature and we have a lot to learn and a lot of research to do. We need more research to figure out what the optimal level of badging is, along with other research questions about how the badge works differently for different kinds of work, different experience levels of freelancers, and much else. We are excited so far about how things are looking and we will keep the Upwork community in the loop.
Our goal is to get more work done on the platform, so we hope freelancers and clients alike will find value in changes to the platform that make that happen.
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