“That’s an Upwork ToS violation!” or “Read the ToS, noob!” is basically what you are told on Upwork Community Forum when you post a question asking how to get your account reactivated after you just got banned from Upwork. No help, no sympathy comes from experienced freelancers to those who don’t yet know what Upwork ToS violation even means. You are advised to contact the platform’s support staff with a support ticket, that’s all.
To help new Upworkers to avoid getting banned before they even got started properly, I wrote this short list of the most important parts that new freelancers tend to get wrong at the beginning.
Oh, what does ‘ToS’ mean, exactly? It is the abbreviation of ‘Terms of Service’, i.e. it is the legal agreement you agree to follow when signing up on the platform as a freelancer or as a client. At the time of writing this, it consists of 17 sections starting from the User Agreement and Terms of Use. ToS is the list of things that you can do and that you cannot do on the platform without violating these terms.
Know your ToS before you start so that your promising freelancer career on Upwork doesn’t come to a sudden and premature end. Think of it as life insurance for your freelance business. Know it so that your business can stay alive and kicking.
The core concepts of how Upwork works
First of all, let us understand how the platform works. In its simplicity, Upwork works like this:
- The client posts a job or browses freelancers’ services and invites some of them for an interview
- During the interview, the client and the freelancer discuss the work scope and compensation
- The client picks the most suitable freelancer and makes an offer
- The freelancer accepts the offer which starts the contract (or rejects it after which nothing happens)
- The freelancer does the work and bills the client (per milestone that the client has paid into the escrow or per hour billed weekly)
- The platform deducts their fees from every monetary transaction
This is how Upwork makes money. Every dollar paid by the client to the freelancer is subject to the platform fee. Additionally, Upwork adds a client-side fee of 5% (previously 3%) and a project initiation fee of max. $9.95. This means, that if any transaction goes outside the platform’s payment system, the platform fee cannot be paid. Therefore, most of the ToS violations relate to people avoiding those fees in some way.
Obviously, if the platform is frequently unable to get its share of the deal, it would die off sooner or later out of financial starvation. Upwork is a platform-based business that connects clients and freelancers and charges a platform fee for making that business happen. To keep the ecosystem running, the platform fees must be paid by the clients and freelancers alike.
(Fortunately, it is the seller, the freelancer, who is able to price her services as she likes. Even high fees are not uncommon for the best services targeted at high-end clients.)
Upwork ToS Violation #1: Sharing contact information before starting a contract
The first issue is obvious. To make sure that the money paid by clients goes through the platform and not directly from the client to the freelancer, contact information such as email, phone number, Skype, or other instant messenger ID, is not to be shared before starting a contract.
This part is simple for anyone to understand. Freelancers should not add any of such information in a proposal or message before the contract is started. And the contact information should never appear in your profile text, ever.
But you might think that because freelancer profiles include photos and first names as well as the last name initial, any client could google you and contact you outside the platform. Yes, that much is obvious and it can happen as long as you are googleable. Yet, you should never include any contact information in your profile to stay on the safe side of a potential Upwork ToS violation.
Upwork ToS Violation #2: Communicating outside the platform before starting a contract
There are a couple of exceptions to the rule, though. First, if you have a portfolio page that showcases your work better than your Upwork portfolio, you can share the link to your online portfolio.
Second, if your quotation process requires that the client shares large files with you, the client is free to do so.
Third, if for any reason the calendar integration Upwork offers is not adequate for scheduling an interview, it is OK to share an email address or your calendar access for the sole purpose of setting up the time and date.
But in all these three cases, it is important that you add a request in the Upwork messages to notify your client that you should keep all the other communication on Upwork until the contract is started. Without mentioning this, you may end up at risk of violating the ToS.
Lastly, Upwork Enterprise Clients, some of the world’s largest companies, may contact you for interviews outside the platform. But, when you’re starting up, you are unlikely to get invited by any Enterprise Client, so don’t worry about mastering this exception at the beginning.
Upwork ToS Violation #3: Getting paid outside the platform
The biggest crime you could ever commit against Upwork ToS is that you would go as far as getting paid outside the platform, thus, actively, avoiding all platform fees on both sides. This is one of the surest ways to get banned for good without any chance of getting your account back to active.
There is no excuse for getting paid outside Upwork. There is no situation where receiving payments outside Upwork is acceptable despite everything that you could imagine being morally acceptable for the benefit of your client.
For every transaction made outside the platform, the platform loses money. And it’s not even a profitable business after all these years, still! Although Upwork’s revenue in 2021 was over half a billion dollars (!), the 2022 Quarter 1 financial report reported “GAAP net loss was $(24.7) million in the first quarter of 2022 compared with GAAP net loss of $(7.8) million in the first quarter of 2021.”
Upwork has never been a profitable business in a single year so far.
Those who understand the concept of profitability and who respect Upwork as a platform that enables freelancers to find good clients for their freelance businesses pay the due fees. It’s the only way this ecosystem works.
Upwork ToS Violation #4: Fake profile
If your freelancer profile photo is a logo or a picture of your dog, your name is not matching with your legal name which would backfire during the ID verification process, or you list an education or employment history that is untrue, you can expect to get banned from Upwork. What you put in your profile must be 100% true and authentic. There is no way to cheat that would turn into your benefit in any way.
Upwork ToS Violation #5: Fake projects or reviews
It is the same case with your work history on Upwork too. Many have asked their friends, relatives, or even employers to “hire” them on Upwork, paying the money (that the freelancer pays back later, perhaps) in order to create a successful-looking Work History section.
This approach won’t work and is likely to get you banned from Upwork for life. Paying for reviews, also known as feedback manipulation, is perhaps the second-biggest crime on Upwork that you could commit. The platform is only for genuine work.
A subset of fake reviews is requesting a good review. Freelancers are not supposed to ask for a 5-star review.
Instead, you are always free to ask for a review without mentioning anything more. “Please feel free to close the project and leave an appropriate review, thank you.” That’s the way to go.
Upwork ToS Violation #6: Underage freelancer
Upwork requires all users, freelancers and clients alike, to be at least 18 years old. Most likely, you shouldn’t be doing freelance online before you reach that age anyway, so this would not be a big limitation. Use those teenage years to build your skill set instead and after that go freelance. It’s a much safer way. Your age would show during the ID verification process and you’d get busted immediately.
Upwork ToS Violation #7: Multiple accounts
One person can only have one Upwork account. Creating a new profile for the second time may lead to both accounts getting banned.
You can use the same account and credentials to be both client and freelancer as well as an agency owner. All three provide different views and features and you can swap between them by clicking on your profile image. Yet, you only need one username and password to access all your account types.
My freelancer and client accounts.
Setting up more than one Upwork account will get you banned. Don’t even consider doing it.
Upwork ToS Violation #8: Multiple Upwork accounts on the same machine
Upwork does not allow the same computer or smartphone to be used to access more than one Upwork account. This situation may arise in households where a couple living together do business on Upwork using the same PC, for instance.
Unfortunately, this is not allowed by Upwork ToS. You may even have issues if having multiple accounts accessing Upwork from the same IP address even if the physical machine is different. No point risking it.
Upwork ToS Violation #9: Multiple machines using the same Upwork account
It works the other way too. It is of course possible to use your Upwork account from multiple machines (I use three) but there is a good chance to get into trouble if your account is accessed from various locations within a short period of time.
Let’s say your account is first accessed from Europe and the next hour from the U.S. As it is not physically possible to travel that distance within an hour, it is obvious that someone else than you is accessing your account.
Why? Because it would look like you have shared your account with someone else! You should never give your credentials to anyone for any reason, this is one of the strictest limitations mentioned in the ToS.
Upwork ToS Violation #10: Subcontracting hourly-paid work
It is possible to have subcontractors who do parts of the work your Upwork client has hired you to do, but only when your client has a fixed-price contract with you. You cannot subcontract hourly-paid work!
This makes perfect sense, particularly when we know hourly-paid work is under Payment Protection only when using the Upwork Desktop App:
- You select the project you are working on
- You start the timer when you start working
- The app tracks keyboard and mouse activity and takes screenshots at a random interval
- You stop the timer when you stop working
- The app rounds up the duration to the next 10 minutes
It would be practically impossible to outsource hourly-paid work when using the Desktop App correctly.
“But I got banned from Upwork anyway…”
If you find yourself in a situation where you cannot log in to your account and the system says something like “account suspended permanently”, you might be wondering about what you could do. If you realize you accidentally did some of the above, there might not be any way to get your account back but you can try to reach Upwork’s support and explain the situation together with your biggest apologies.
From what I read from the community forum, it is rare to get your account back after getting banned once. Just search for topics with the keyword “banned” to see it for yourself.
Of course, the best way to avoid getting banned is not to make any of these mistakes in the first place which is why it is extremely important to know what violations are seen as the most severe ones by Upwork. The best move you could make is to know your ToS and go through all the recommended guides before you even sign up.
