I Spent 30 Days Freelancing on Upwork

[Music] all right so i ended up freelance programming on upwork for 30 days and uh it turned out a lot better than i expected my first week on upwork it was rough not gonna lie and if you haven't seen my first video on that let me give you the quick rundown i ended up spending multiple hours applying for jobs it even cost me 10 i had my very first interview that didn't go very well after about 24 hours on the platform i ended up landing my first job and after i finished that job i made ten dollars plus a five dollar tip after my first ten dollar job i got a five star review on my profile which kind of propelled me into landing my first real gig so this gig was for fifteen dollars now we're working on a simple music streaming app once i completed this job working on the music streaming app i made 82.50 and by the end of week one i brought in a grand total of 97.50 after my first week on upwork i was kind of determined that upwork really wasn't worth my time because it cost me ten dollars just to apply for jobs and when i did get my first hourly contract i made less than minimum wage after upwork's cuts and i even said this now is one week too early to judge the platform uh maybe but i don't think i'll be returning well something happened obviously after my first week i got a late reply on a proposal that i put out on a job offer now if you don't know what a proposal is on upwork basically it's just an application to work on somebody else's uh project so pretty much as i was wrapping up my first week i got another offer to work on a different piece of software basically this project was to get a mobile app up to snuff with apple's review guidelines anyways i figured what the hell i'll help him out and then i'll be done with upwork for real so the terms of the contract were 19 an hour at a 10 hour week maximum and to be honest the app wasn't too difficult i got the app to be compliant with apple's uh review guidelines and in total it took me about a week to complete i ended up finishing that contract making 164.67 and also not to mention i got another five-star review on my profile and at this point i'm sitting at three five-star views within two weeks and i'm starting to notice the trend that with every five-star review and every job i'm slowly making more money on the platform and like i said i told myself that i would kind of wipe my hands of upwork after this project that was until i hopped on a call with this guy so this guy was super stoked with the work that i did apparently he spent months trying to get his ad passed apple's review guidelines and even told me that he was about ready to give up on the project at some point so it's super dope that i was able to help him out there anyways after a long conversation he kind of made me a verbal offer to keep working on his mobile app and like i've said multiple times already i was ready to be done with upwork completely so i basically told him that i would love to keep working on his mobile app but at 19 an hour it just wasn't worth my time i told him this in the nicest most professional way possible and uh he completely understood that's when he asked me the question well how much so i gave my honest answer of fifty dollars an hour and i didn't think he would say okay to that but sure enough within the next couple days we had a contract in place for fifty dollars an hour which really for this project was 40 an hour after upwork's cuts but whatever so this was a pretty pivotal point in my upwork journey because this is when i kind of realized that there are people on the platform who are willing to value a quality over just getting the best deal over the course of the next two weeks i ended up spending five hours working on this project in total and that's mostly because i was pretty busy with my real job and there was a lot of back and forth with the client trying to figure out project specifics by the end of this contract i ended up bringing in a total of 241.67 and for five hours of work i'd say that's pretty good and also another great review on my profile i'm very convinced from all my research that i've done that having good reviews on your upwork profile is the surest way to get clients and to make decent money on the platform anyways when that contract ended that pretty much concluded my one month on up work in total i spent 19 hours working according to my upwork profile now this number is kind of skewed because it doesn't factor in the time i spend applying for jobs but for the sake of the video let's just say i spent 19 hours total i ended up finishing four contracts one for a flat fee of ten dollars one for fifteen dollars an hour one for nineteen dollars an hour and then one for fifty dollars an hour and at the end of the thirty days i brought in a grand total of five hundred three dollars and eighty four cents so if we take the 503 divided by the amount of hours that i work i ended up making 26 an hour on upwork and uh this is obviously before upworks cuts after the cuts i think i brought in a total of 400 which boils down to 400 divided by 19 21 an hour now this is where i want to admit i was wrong about up work at the end of my first week i didn't think up work was worth it after having to spend money to apply for jobs and after making minimum wage after upwork's cuts i was ready to be done with the platform i think i made that pretty clear in my first video but what i learned is upwork is a grind i think i definitely had some success over the course of the month and if i were to take this even further i could probably earn decent cash after these 30 days i don't think upwork is as bad as some people make it out to be but i still don't think it's that great to be honest if i had to describe upwork in one word it would be meh now is there money to be made on upwork absolutely is it the best option for freelance devs or freelancers in general probably not at least here in the united states now i think using upwork as a tool to kind of supplement your clientele and your income as a freelancer may be a good idea but going all out on upwork you know i'm not too sure about that and the reason for that is when you work on a website such as upwork you have to work around all their rules and regulations and you kind of add some unnecessary level of competition so my very first uh hourly contract that i got the guy that i work with said he received 42 proposals and i think it was three hours is what he said which is crazy you're basically butting yourself up against like 50 people whenever you apply for a job that mixed in with the fact that sometimes it costs money to apply for jobs the 5 to 20 fees that upwork charges and possibly getting fined if you take your clients outside of the platform to me those are all indications that it's not the greatest option as a freelance dev at least here in the united states so take that with a grain of salt you know upwork isn't that great also it's not that bad it's just okay at least in my 30-day experience and like i said take my opinion with a grain of salt because at the end of the day you got to do you you got to figure out what's best for you so if you're thinking about trying up work go sign up and see if you can make good money on it anyways that's pretty much it for the video before you go make sure you like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video anyways thank you so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one peace you

Channel: Kenny Gunderman

Views: 350,573

Rating: 4.9547753 out of 5

Keywords: upwork, freelancer, freelance programmer, programming, freelancing, software developer, how to become a freelancer, upwork.com, upwork tips, software development, tech, freelance programming

Id: ARqAJQo24rs

Length: 7min 22sec (442 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 24 2021