The biggest news bomb in the freelancing world in March 2025 was the changing Upwork fee. The change is brilliant! Now, when people ask me, “How much is Upwork fee?” when pondering about whether or not to join the platform, all I can say is, “I have no idea!”
Seriously, the Upwork fee is now random! Effective May 1st (coincidentally, Labor Day), 2025, Upwork’s platform fee will be “variable.” In practice, the fee will be something between 0% and 15% depending on some mysterious secret factor… and just guess how often we will get 0%?
My bet is: Hardly ever! 🙂
Maybe, if we’re lucky, we can see the fee dropping all the way down to 14.99%!
Let’s take a short look at the history of the Upwork fee and how it evolved over the years. Let it be our (probably vain) effort to try to understand how the platform keeps changing for the betterment of global freelancing.
A brief history of the Upwork fee
This is how the Upwork fee has evolved over the years.
The Elance era until Dec 2015: 8.75%
In the good old days (yes, saying this makes me feel very, very old), back in the days of the predecessor of Upwork, Elance.com, the platform fee was 8.75%. Everyone loved it! See it for yourself, this is the first transaction list I’ve ever gotten back in 2015 (from the article How to Start Freelancing and Make It to the Global Top – My First Year on Upwork, which is one of the foundations of my e-book, too).
It was sweet. When Elance was rebranded as Upwork, things changed. Most say it’s for the worst, but at least the next couple of years were still pretty decent for freelancers.
The new rebranded Upwork in Fall 2016: 10%
About a year after the merger, the Upwork fee rose to 10% sometime in the Fall of 2016 (according to my Upwork transactions), which wasn’t too bad yet. These were stable times, a glorious era for many freelancers, as the marketplace wasn’t yet saturated with freelancers, most gigs on the platform were good and decent, and most importantly, legit.
Many freelancers made their careers on Upwork in those days. This era lasted about half a year only, though.
Spring 2017–Spring 2023: 20%, 10%, and 5%
These years were stable in terms of the fees. There were lots of changes, most importantly, the introduction of Connects as Upwork’s virtual currency. And the number of Connects required kept rising and rising from 2, 4, or 6 all the way to 26 or so that the maximum seemed to be two years ago.
But the fee structure remained the same. Freelancers had to pay different percentages depending on the size of the gig on a sliding scale:
- 20% on the first $500
- 10% from $501 to $10,000
- 5% from $10,001 on
It wasn’t the size of the gig that determined the fee, the sliding scale was applied to every contract. So, those working on small below-$500 gigs always paid 20% on everything! Those working on bigger gigs for the same client (or a long-term contract), paid proportionally less, e.g. a $15,000 contract would result in fees as follows:
- On the first $500: $100
- On the next $9,500: $950
- The remaining $5,000: $250
So, the total fees on a $15,000 contract summed up to $1,300, which is just 8.67%, about the same as the original Elance fee. And the fee was counted by the client, i.e. doing multiple contracts after that $10,000 only produced a 5% fee!
This, obviously, favored freelancers who could nail big contracts. Those working for peanuts had to pay so much more. And on top of this, you had to buy the Connects… Uhh.
May 2023 to May 2025: 10% (again!)
Apparently, as Connectzilla grew (I came up with this term to illustrate the ever-rising need for Connects per proposal and other features like the Boosted Profile), Upwork figured that those making big money on Upwork should still pay more. No more 5% per client after the first $10K.
Now, the fee was flat 10% again, just like in 2016 and 2017, hahah! 🙂
Well, what can we say? Sometimes, innovation doesn’t mean improvement. So, for two years, we lived like in the good old days with a flat 10% Upwork fee.
May 2025 on: The era of ridiculous fees
Right now, we have no idea what the fee is going to be from May 3rd on. According to the only piece of information given to us, “Variable fees may be based on various factors such as market supply and demand.”
Could anyone be more vague about it? Nope!
Upwork’s official guidance on the new structure of the fee.
So, as everyone can guess at this point, your chances of getting lower fees in general are small. Microscopically tiny. Lower than winning in a national lottery, I bet.
So, prepare for 15% flat fees, everyone! Maybe, if you’re lucky, you only get a 14.99% Upwork fee! 😀
The best part, in my opinion, is that when sending a proposal, you can’t yet know what the fee is! It’s supposed to show only in the offer once the client has picked you as the man for the job.
Why not make it a bit more interesting and entertaining, too? Freelancing on Upwork is now like playing in the casino!
Good luck doing business on a platform where the fees are random!!! I literally mean it because, from the freelancers’ perspective, the fee appears random!
May Lady Luck be on your side.
“Okay… but what can we do about the Upwork fee?”
Here’s what you want to be doing. If you’re in a price-sensitive field, assume the fee is 15% and raise your prices by 5%. Or more. Make your clients pay the difference whenever you can.
If you’re not competing with prices too much, you can keep applying value-based pricing. I don’t think you notice any difference in practice, it’s each gig and client that define how much you make. Picking the right client is more important than the Upwork fee.
For good freelancers, this change isn’t critical. It just feels stupid, basically. You can assume the Upwork fee to be 15% and play your cards accordingly. It’s the lowest percentile of the freelancers who suffer again, I bet. Those competing with prices in a saturated industry will suffer anyway.
So, my final take on this “improvement” on Upwork fees is this: Don’t care. Keep freelancing by finding good clients and factor in an assumed 15% flat fee into everything you do. Just keep going even if everything on Upwork seems to get more and more ridiculous. Or perhaps ludicrous is the word. The speed of Upwork’s “improvements” makes me think of only one thing.
This:
When light speed and ridiculous speed aren’t enough, there’s only one option…
