Upwork Rolls Out New Features and Site Updates for August 2024

Upwork, the world’s largest freelance marketplace just implemented several notable updates to its platform. Some changes were formally announced, and others we were able to identify through subtle verbiage modifications to the site. In this article, we provide a roundup of these updates to help you stay on top of the latest happenings for August 2024.

1. Paid features are now referred to as “ads”

Earlier this week, several terminology updates were detected across multiple premium feature pages. Site-wide verbiage now formally refers to paid features like Boosted Profiles, Boosted Proposals, and the Availability Badge as “ads”.

While no formal announcement was made about the change in marketing strategy, it appears that Upwork may be trying to not only simplify their paid offerings but also provide more clarity as to their intent. 

The ads page also offers relatively new insights based on internal data from the company on how they say these features can benefit platform users. According to the company:

• Boosted Profiles can increase freelancers’ chances of getting hired by up to 2x.
• Availability Badges can increase freelancer job invitations by up to 50%.
• Boosted Proposals can deliver 10x more earnings on ad spend.

2. Updates made to the “Boost Your Profile” page

We also noted several revisions to the “Boost Your Profile page this week in what appears to be an effort to make Boosted Profiles less tied, exclusively anyway, to the Invite Freelancers screen.

Previously, the “Boost Your Profile” page frequently referred to Boosted Profiles showing up on the “Invite” screen when a client creates a new job post. That verbiage has since largely been removed and replaced with “eligible pages” within a “client’s view”, including the “Invites” page.

While this verbiage tweak may be nothing more than a simple clarification, it could also be a clue about a potential expansion of the Boosted Profiles feature in the near future.

3. Termination of the feedback removal 

Earlier this year, Upwork announced it planned to terminate its feedback removal feature. 

According to the announcement, the change is part of Upwork’s commitment to maintaining a “trustworthy” marketplace. 

Previously, Top Rated, Top Rated Plus, and Expert Vetted freelancers were able to request feedback removal from their profiles once every three months. Beginning September 3, 2024, feedback removal requests will no longer be an option for those freelancers.

However, it is important to note that freelancers can still respond to feedback or report misuse including extortion or bullying. No word yet on whether or not this change will also apply to Expert-Vetted freelancers.

4. New features added to Agency Plus

Finally, two new features are expected to be added to the premium Agency Plus subscription sometime in August 2024:

• Access to Upwork Chat Pro – an AI chat tool.
• The ability to Boost Agency Profiles using Connects.

What do you think about these changes to the Upwork platform? Let us know in the comments below.