How To Create Milestones on Upwork

Milestones break fixed-price projects on Upwork into manageable stages, making it easier to review progress, give feedback, and manage your budget.

Upwork defines two types of projects: hourly, where you’re invoiced weekly for hours worked, and fixed price, which has a set budget. Milestones are available only for fixed-price projects, a structure that’s ideal when the scope can be broken into distinct phases.

Let’s walk through how you can use these checkpoints to keep expectations clear while your project keeps moving forward.

Adding milestones to your project

As a client, you’ll include milestones when making an offer for a fixed-price project, after you’ve selected the freelancer or agency you want to work with. You can also add a new milestone from the overview page for your project, which you can access through your all contracts list.

Start with a fixed-price project

Milestones are part of fixed-price projects. When you post a job or create an offer, set a project budget to unlock milestone options. You don’t need to finalize everything up front — think of this as setting the direction first. Freelancers may suggest milestones in their proposals, which you can review and adjust before you make an offer.

Break the work into phases

Step back and think about how your project might naturally break down. Look for points where it makes sense to pause, review progress, and decide what comes next. These checkpoints will become your milestones or gates for agreement to continue or adjust the project.

Aim to set three to five project milestones that each includes:

• A meaningful progress point. Each milestone should represent a real step forward in the project, not a minor task or internal activity. Milestones are sequential; each one needs to be completed before the next one begins.
• A reviewable outcome. Choose an outcome you can review — whether that’s a tangible deliverable, a set of recommendations, or an agreed next step that moves the project forward.
• A reasonable timeframe. Allow enough time for focused work without letting progress stall or drift.

An appropriate payment amount. Match the payment for each milestone to the scope and effort of work being delivered at that stage.

Review and confirm milestones together

Once you’ve outlined your milestones, review them with the freelancer or agency to make sure your expectations are shared. When you’re aligned, confirm the milestones so work can begin.

You can add or edit milestones later, as long as they aren’t active and haven’t been funded yet. A freelancer or agency can request edits, which you can then accept or reject.

Fund the active milestone and get started

Before work toward a milestone starts, you’ll deposit the agreed amount to project funds. You can fund milestones one at a time as the project progresses. Funds are held until you review and approve the deliverables for that milestone.

Prefunded milestones reassure freelancers that payment is available, while giving both sides a moment to confirm progress before moving ahead. If a milestone is canceled or the contract ends before approval, any unused project funds are returned to you.

Editing milestones after a project has started

Projects often change as they progress. Timelines shift, scope gets clearer, and priorities change. Milestones are designed to adapt — you can add, edit, delete, or reorder your milestones, with a few important guardrails.

Check which milestone is active

Once a project is underway, there are three types of milestones:

• Active: work that’s currently in progress
• Future: upcoming milestones that haven’t been started or funded yet
• Completed: portions of work that are already completed and paid

Active milestones can’t be edited directly. If a change is needed, one side can request it and the other can approve or decline. Nothing changes unless both sides agree.

Align on changes before editing

Before making any edits, we suggest using Upwork Messages to discuss them with the independent professional or agency you’re working with. Adjusting milestones is best when it reflects an agreement you’ve already reached, so there are no surprises when the contract is updated.

Edit future milestones as needed

You can update upcoming milestones as long as they aren’t active and haven’t been funded yet. Edits may include:

• Adjusting descriptions or outcomes
• Updating dates
• Changing payment amounts
• Adding or removing future milestones

These edits help the contract stay in sync with how the project is actually unfolding.

Keep the active phase moving

When possible, treat an active milestone as fixed. If a change will impact the entire project, try to finish or resolve the active work toward that milestone first. Then you can adjust future milestones to accommodate the changes so the project can continue without interruption.

Best practices for setting effective milestones

How you set milestones will vary by project, but a few universal tips can help you create effective breaks for your project.

• Consider the pace and cadence of milestones. Don’t rush your project timeline, but don’t let the stages of work drag it out, either. Build in enough time at the start for the freelancer to get up-to-speed, so the first milestone sets the project up for success.
• Create enough milestones, but not too many. Most projects can be naturally broken into phases or to-dos, but be careful not to break it down too much. Don’t make check-ins so frequent or granular that progress is slowed. Three to five milestones works well for most projects — and it’s easy to add more if the work calls for it.
• Use milestones as incentives. Breaking the total project cost into segments means talent gets paid incrementally as things progress. For example, you might use a 25/50/25 structure for a three-milestone project with a short outline, a first draft, then a final round of revisions.

Give your fixed-price project momentum

Learn more about the ins and outs of creating, reviewing, approving, and releasing milestones in Upwork’s Help Center. These resources will give you step-by-step information to help you set milestones for your next project.