The scale component is the largest part of the Index Score, worth 40 of 100 points for an agency and 45 for a freelancer, computed from the logarithm of lifetime earnings so that each tenfold rise in earnings adds the same points.
The index takes the base-10 logarithm of total earned plus one and divides by the logarithm of the figure that earns full marks: $10 million for an agency, $1 million for a freelancer. On that scale an agency at $10,000 has 4 of the 7 steps and earns about 23 points, one at $1 million has 6 and earns about 34, and anything at or above $10 million earns all 40. The logarithm is what keeps the ranking from being a copy of the earnings column: the gap between $1 million and $10 million is worth the same as the gap between $1,000 and $10,000.
When the agency keeps its earnings hidden, billed hours stand in, with 200,000 hours earning full marks. Hours leave fixed-price work out, so this scores such an agency as the least it could be, never more. A freelancer whose earnings Upwork shows only as a band, such as "$10K+", is scored at the band's floor for the same reason.
Scale is deliberately the biggest weight because lifetime earnings are the one public figure nobody disputes, and the other four components exist to let smaller, better or faster agencies be seen beside the largest.
How Upwork Insights uses it
Scale is the first bar in the Index Score breakdown on every agency page; across the index the median agency shows $5.3K of lifetime earnings and 58% of agencies are under $10,000 as of Oct 31, 2026, which is why the logarithm matters. Weights in methodology, section 3.