Freelancer service fee

The freelancer service fee is the percentage Upwork deducts from every payment a freelancer or agency receives through the marketplace, a flat 10% of the gross amount at the time of writing, which replaced a sliding scale in 2023.

The fee is taken at the moment a payment is made. On an hourly contract it comes off each weekly invoice; on a fixed-price contract it comes off each released milestone and each bonus payment. Upwork issues its own invoice for the fee, so the freelancer's books show gross income and a fee expense rather than a reduced sale. Where Upwork must collect VAT or an equivalent tax, it is charged on the fee, not on the whole payment.

Before 2023 the fee slid with lifetime billings per client, charging a higher rate on the first part of a relationship and a lower one once the relationship was large, which rewarded long engagements. Upwork replaced that with a single flat rate for all marketplace work, and Direct Contracts, where the freelancer brings the client, carry a lower rate of their own. The published rates are in Upwork's Help Center and Upwork changes them from time to time, so a quoted figure should be checked against the current page.

The service fee is not Upwork's whole income from a contract. Clients pay a client marketplace fee and a contract initiation fee on their side, and freelancers buy Connects to bid. All of it together is what the take rate measures.