Upwork is neither good nor bad. It just has insufficiency of active clients

Upwork today is an extremely supply-heavy marketplace. Its public metrics show ≈18 million registered freelancers worldwide (link), yet only 851'000 “active clients” (those who spent at least USD 1 in the past 12 months) (link). That is one paying client for every ≈21 registered freelancers.

In 2024 clients posted about 2.5 million new projects (link), but internal analytics put the hire-rate at just 38% (link), so only ≈950'000 contracts were actually awarded. Spread across the 18 million talent pool, that is one hire for every ≈19 freelancers, or a 5.3% chance that a given profile closed at least one contract in a year.

Client spend that did flow through the platform reached USD 4.14 billion in 2023 (link), implying an average gross contract value of roughly USD 4'358 (4.14 B / 0.95 M). From that amount Upwork typically withholds 10% freelancer service fee and charges clients up to 8% marketplace fee; both fees are subject to VAT in the European Union (23% adds ≈2.3 % and 1.84%, respectively). A non-US freelancer also pays either a USD 50 wire fee or a USD 0.99 local-bank withdrawal plus ~1% FX spread. Altogether, a European freelancer and client pair commonly see ≈23% of the contract value lost to platform charges and taxes, leaving the freelancer USD ≈3'350 net on the average engagement.

How many freelancers are currently needed? We can estimate it in two different ways:

1. Upwork’s own rates guide places the average hourly earnings at USD 39 (link). At that rate a USD 4'358 contract equates to ≈112 billable hours—roughly three weeks of full-time work. A freelancer who succeeds in staying fully booked (2'080 hours per year) could deliver ≈18 such contracts annually. Yet the marketplace only generated 0.95 million hires in 2024, enough work to keep ≈51'000 full-time freelancers busy—just 0.3% of the 18 million registered profiles.
2.  If the threshold of surviving with earnings made at Upwok is at USD 20'000 net per year (≈6 contracts), Upwork can currently financially support only 159'000 freelancers worldwide (950k/(20000/3356)). Because earnings follow a steep Pareto distribution, the viable cohort is smaller—realistically on the order of ≈60'000 individuals worldwide (0.3%). Everyone else must treat Upwork as a supplementary source of income.

Upwork could lose several million dormant profiles overnight with negligible impact on its throughput because Upwork has no work for 99.7% of freelancers registered at their website.