Upwork

Upwork
Private
Industry
Predecessor Elance-oDesk
Founded Mountain View, California
2015
Headquarters Mountain View, California, United States
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Stephane Kasriel (CEO), Thomas Layton (Chairman)
Website www.upwork.com

Upwork, formerly Elance-oDesk,[1] is a global freelancing platform where businesses and independent professionals connect and collaborate remotely. In 2015, Elance-oDesk was rebranded as Upwork.[2] It is based in Mountain View and San Francisco, California.

Upwork has twelve million registered freelancers and five million registered clients.[3][4]Three million jobs are posted annually, worth a total of $1 billion USD, making it the world's largest freelancer marketplace.[5][1][6]

Operation

Upwork allows clients to interview, hire and work with freelancers and agencies through the company's platform. The platform now includes a real-time chat platform aimed at reducing the time it takes to find and hire freelancers.[2]

Clients pay a 2.75% per payment processing fee;[7] some clients are eligible to pay a monthly flat processing fee of $25. Payments can be made using credit cards, PayPal, or bank transfer.[8] Payments are made through Upwork's escrow system, which transfers the funds to freelancers after a 6-day period.

To ensure the freelancers are billing fairly for jobs billed hourly, the platform offers a time sheet application that tracks time and takes screenshots while the freelancer is working.[9]

History

Upwork was formed 18 months after Elance and oDesk announced their merger on December 18, 2013 to create Elance-oDesk.[10] oDesk was founded in 2003[11] by Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis.[12] Elance was founded in 1999 by Beerud Sheth and Srini Anumolu.[13] With the launch of Upwork, the oDesk platform was upgraded and rebranded and the company announced that the Elance platform would be phased out within a couple of years, resulting in a single freelance marketplace.[14]

In early September 2015, the Upwork service experienced an outage which led to an apology being issued by CEO Stephane Kasriel.[15] This led to the introduction of an Upwork Status page to offer freelancers and clients greater transparency.

On 3 May 2016, Upwork announced that the service fee for freelancers will change from flat rate of 10% to a "sliding service fee" of 5% to 20% based on total lifetime billings with each client: 20% for the first $500 billed to the client across all contracts, 10% for total billings with the client between $500.01 and $10,000, and 5% for total billings with the client that exceed $10,000.[16][17]

As of March 2017, Upwork reported 14 million users in 180 countries with $1B in annual freelancer billings.[18][19]

References

  1. 1 2 "Elance-oDesk Becomes 'Upwork' In Push To Build $10B In Freelancer Revenues". Forbes. 5 May 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
  2. 1 2 Lunden, Ingrid (May 5, 2015). "Elance-oDesk Rebrands As Upwork, Debuts Slack-Like Chat Platform". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 17, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Two Pakistani organizations selected for Upwork Social Impact Program". www.techlist.pk. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  4. ↑ "What's a workforce marketplace? How work will get done in the future | Networks Asia". Networks Asia. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  5. ↑ "Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem".
  6. ↑ Lawler, Ryan (November 25, 2014). "Eight Months After Merger, Elance-oDesk Raises Another $30 Million Led By Benchmark". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 17, 2016.
  7. ↑ "TechDay - 15 Productivity Tools for Your Startup". techdayhq.com. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  8. ↑ Yeoh, Oon (2017-04-23). "The online freelancer". NST Online. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  9. ↑ Hardy, Quentin. "Big Brother in the Home Office".
  10. ↑ Levy, Ari (December 19, 2013). "Elance Merges With oDesk to Boost Service for Freelancers". Bloomberg Technology. San Francisco. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
  11. ↑ "California Secretary of State. Corporate filing date 1/27/2003". Retrieved 22 June 2014.
  12. ↑ "The story behind launching oDesk - with Gary Swart - Mixergy". Mixergy. 19 March 2014. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  13. ↑ Thomas W. Malone; Robert J. Laubacher. "The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy" (PDF). Harvard Business Review. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-01-31.
  14. ↑ "oDesk becomes Upwork, but what about Elance?". news.smallbusinesstrends.com. 5 May 2015. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  15. ↑ Kasriel, Stephane. "Update on Site Performance and Issues". Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  16. ↑ "Upwork changes pricing format". Staffing Industry Analysts. 4 May 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  17. ↑ Pofeldt, Elaine. "Freelance Giant Upwork Shakes Up Its Business Model". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-05-06.
  18. ↑ Snagajob. "Snagajob Appoints Former Upwork CEO to Board of Directors". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  19. ↑ "TechDay - Upwork's SVP of Marketing Explains What It Takes To Perfect An Offering That Relies On People". techdayhq.com. Retrieved 2017-07-28.


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