Is Upwork Good For Beginners?

Upwork is a good choice for beginners who are just starting out on their freelancing journey. The platform is a trusted, legitimate way to find work and make money on your own terms as a freelancing newbie. 

In this guide, I’ll explain what makes Upwork a particularly good choice for beginners and walk you through specific Upwork features that will help you make the most of your first time freelancing. 

What it’s like using Upwork as a beginner 

I’ve been in your shoes as a beginner on Upwork. In 2019, when I decided to start freelancing full time, the idea of finding clients online felt daunting. 

When I heard about Upwork, I thought it sounded like it’d make the process easy — and it did! I didn’t have to scan dozens of websites and join loads of networking groups just to find a lead. 

As a beginner, your path to success starts with making sure that you have your Upwork account and freelancer profile set up correctly.

When you first sign up for Upwork, you’ll need to:

• Provide some information about your business structure (you don’t need an LLC or corporation to use Upwork)
• Configure your payment preferences 
• Create a profile with information about your skillsets, services, professional experience, and work samples 

You can’t apply for your first job on Upwork until your profile is at least 50% complete, so I recommend prioritizing that. You’ll have to spend some time on it, but it’s a task that you can reasonably complete in a few hours. 

Reddit user u/KayakerWithDog says that “you don’t need previous freelancing experience, just marketable skills and some kind of portfolio that shows what you can do.”

Another Redditor, u/nazakat786, agrees that it’s entirely possible for beginners to have success on Upwork. They say that they “started on Upwork without prior freelancing experience; I just used my existing skills and focused on a strong profile and proposals. It takes some patience in the beginning, but it’s definitely worth a try.”

Once your profile is complete, you can search for jobs by typing in your ideal job title and filtering the results by budget, experience level, and more. 

Potential clients can also find you through search, too, so be sure to keep an eye on your Upwork Messages inbox and respond to any requests for interviews or consultations.

9 reasons Upwork is great for new freelancers

Upwork offers more than just a centralized way to find freelance jobs. It also gives freelancers everything they need to safely communicate with clients, submit work, and collect their earnings. 

Whether you’re seeking your very first freelance job ever, are moving from another work marketplace, or are taking your side hustle online, you can benefit from these nine features and benefits.

1. Clients on Upwork are seeking help 

The best thing about Upwork is the fact that if a client has posted a job on the platform, you know they’re actively seeking help.

Granted, this doesn’t mean that every single job post results in a hire. Sometimes clients realize they don’t need the help they thought they did, or they wind up meeting a freelancer through their network off of Upwork.

But by and large, clients on Upwork are ready to hire freelancers for specific projects. You don’t have to convince someone why they need your services — they already know! Instead, you can spend your time (and your proposal) addressing their problem and explaining how you can help. 

“Upwork … allowed me to meet clients and people that changed my life personally and professionally,” said Stanislav “Stan” Slavev, a video production and editing freelancer who works on Upwork. “And just the idea of having the ability at any time to open my computer and find a new financial opportunity — that’s honestly amazing.”

Plus, you can see other freelancers’ reviews of clients and what clients said about past freelancers. This helps you ascertain whether or not a client might be the right fit to work with you.

2. Portfolios that showcase your work

Sure, completing your profile is a requirement to get started on Upwork — but it’s also an easy way to create your first freelance portfolio.

It’s OK if you don’t have years of experience as a freelancer. Your Upwork freelancing profile includes a spot to detail your prior professional experience, including work at traditional jobs. You can even include examples of work you did as a volunteer or student or even through personal projects and experiments. And as you start doing work on Upwork, you’ll get reviews and more project examples that you can add to your portfolio with client permission.

You can also create more than one specialization that shows up on your Upwork profile. Each of these specializations can have different jobs, reviews, and portfolio pieces associated with it.

3. The ability to set your own rates

Some freelancing platforms offer a preset schedule of rates based on the type of work you do or your experience level. On Upwork, you get to set your own freelance rate.

Several Redditors have great tips for setting your rate on Upwork, like:

• “Take a look at your local competitors on Upwork. Try to find profiles close to your skills and experience and then (figure out the) average.” — u/CuriousEchoes23
• “It’s definitely a delicate balance. Experiment over a few months and see what seems right. Research your competition by looking at other freelancers’ profile rates and past work.” — u/TabascoWolverine
• “You may have (luck) increasing in increments, even if the time between increases is small.” — u/GigMistress
• “You don’t need to, and shouldn’t, go after every project, and clients don’t get to decide what you charge, you do. If (a client’s) budget is completely unrealistic, ignore and move on. And if your bid is at the high end of someone’s budget, make sure to write an excellent proposal so they know you’ll be worth it.” — u/Own_Constant_2331

Know that while you’ll need to set an hourly rate on your profile, you can choose to work on an hourly or fixed-rate basis. I may have a mix of hourly and fixed-rate contracts with different clients at the same time — it all comes down to how you like to work and what your client is comfortable with.

4. Automatic rate increases

If you decide to submit proposals for hourly contracts, you can take advantage of Upwork’s automatic rate increases. 

These rate increases are optional, but you can state up front when and by how much your rate will increase. This eliminates the need for potential awkward conversations about rate changes in the future.

5. Built-in communication and contract tools

Over the years, I’ve met freelancers who feel overwhelmed by juggling all the different communication and project management apps their clients use. 

Upwork eliminates a lot of this stress by providing everything you need to manage projects and chat with clients all in one spot. Each contract gets its own dedicated workroom where you can share files, plan tasks, and send messages. 

It’s important to know that you can move your communication onto a platform like Slack or Microsoft Teams but only after a contract is in place. If you’re still discussing a potential job with someone on Upwork, you have to keep your conversation on the platform. This is an important part of Upwork’s Terms of Service and it provides protection to both clients and freelancers. 

6. Payment protection for your work

Regardless of how you and your contracted client want to communicate, payment must always take place on the Upwork platform. This is a requirement as it protects everyone involved in the transaction. 

As a longtime freelancer who’s billed clients through lots of different methods, I can confirm that centralizing billing on Upwork is the easiest, most stress-free way to handle payment.

When you start a fixed-rate contract, you and your client can agree upon an amount and optional milestones that will create payment tiers for different stages of the project. Your client will put payment into the contract’s project funds before work begins. You’ll receive these funds after you complete and deliver work to the client. 

If you have an hourly contract, you can log your time in the contract’s work diary. This work diary will be automatically submitted to the client for approval and payment. You don’t need to remember a specific invoicing schedule, as it happens automatically. 

7. A purpose-built AI

Upwork also recognizes that artificial intelligence (AI) is a growing part of the way creatives and business professionals work. Whether you’re interested in exploring how AI fits into your freelancing workflow, or your client is interested in using AI, you can leverage the technology without leaving Upwork. 

Uma, Upwork’s Mindful AI, is a chat-style AI tool that’s built with context from Upwork. This means that Uma’s capabilities and responses are much more tailored to the needs of freelancers than an off-the-shelf product like ChatGPT. 

Everyone can use Uma. If you run up against the free usage limit, you can upgrade to Freelancer Plus for unlimited Uma access.

8. Resources help you navigate freelancing

There are benefits beyond tools, too. Upwork also gives new freelancers resources to help them achieve success. The Learning Hub contains microlearning courses that walk you through everything from profile setup and customization to upskilling for success.

Plus, we regularly publish articles by freelancers here in the Resource Center, have a weekly podcast, and create helpful videos for YouTube and TikTok. 

9. An account that grows with you

Upwork supports many different ways to work, so the way you use the platform can evolve as you do. You can, of course, switch between hourly and fixed-rate projects. But you can also:

• Offer one-time consultations
• Form an agency and delegate work to other freelancers
• Create a client account and hire freelancers to help you grow your own brand and business

For example, I started out as a freelancer on Upwork. But eventually I created a client account and started hiring folks to help me in my work, including an illustrator, a presentation designer, and a virtual assistant. 

“One day, everything (on Upwork) blew up and I started to have 10 to 15 interviews per week,” said Thiago Major, owner of the EZOps Cloud agency. “At the same time, I realized that my peers were struggling to work in Brazil, which is why I asked them to work with me.” 

Major wound up hiring a recruitment specialist on Upwork to help him find great talent to join EZOps — eventually growing from his initial role as a solo freelancer to the head of an agency with over 50 workers.

Find your first freelance job on Upwork today

If you’re considering freelancing, there’s no better time to get started. Freelancer hiring at large businesses is up by 31% month-over-month for high-value work, and the freelancer economy generates $1.5 trillion in earnings annually. 

It’s easy to see what freelance opportunities are open to you on Upwork — create your free account to get started.