Form 8-K is the current report a US-listed company such as Upwork Inc. files with the Securities and Exchange Commission to announce a material event, and the one filed each quarter under Item 2.02 carries the earnings release.
An 8-K is filed whenever something happens that investors need to know about before the next quarterly report: a change of officers, a material agreement, a restructuring, or, every quarter, the announcement of results. The results filing is the one that matters for reading the marketplace. It is tagged Item 2.02, Results of Operations and Financial Condition, and attaches the earnings press release as Exhibit 99.1. That exhibit is where Upwork first states the quarter's gross services volume, active clients, GSV per active client, marketplace and Enterprise revenue and adjusted EBITDA, together with GAAP revenue and net income, a list of operational highlights, and guidance for the next quarter and the year. The figures in it are unaudited and the non-GAAP ones are reconciled in tables at the end.
The 8-K is the fastest source and the least stable. It appears on earnings day, weeks before the Form 10-Q that carries the same numbers in a fixed table, and its layout, rounding and the set of metrics it highlights change from quarter to quarter, which is why a series built only from press releases needs checking against the periodic filings.
An 8-K is filed, not audited, and the SEC does not review it before it appears. For the latest quarter it is nevertheless the only source until the 10-Q or 10-K lands.
How Upwork Insights uses it
The Pulse page reads the press release attached to each quarterly 8-K for the newest quarter, Q3 2026 at the moment, until its 10-Q is filed, and takes the operational highlights and guidance shown under the headline figures from the same exhibit. Each row of the Pulse table links to its release.