Note that the 20% is only for the first $500 with a client. After that, it's the old 10% rate.

They have also added a new tier - if you do more than $10,000 with a client, the the price drops to 5%. I know of companies with several full time remote contractors through upwork. This will be a nice improvement.

This article quotes a freelancer who says it will make no difference to his business. For those who think otherwise:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/How-new-pricin...

In addition I think it's weird for a company who should be all about scaling and automation, to say that smaller jobs are costing them significantly more to service than bigger ones. The differential should be negligible. I'd be interested to see the detail on that.

I have recently had 2 very negative experiences with Upwork.

In the worst of the two, A freelancer defrauded me and several other clients through the Upwork platform, taking our money hourly while promising work but never delivering anything and then stopping all communication. I have had a "customer care" case open for 33 days so far and after dozens of emails they are standing by the freelancer even though his account has been suspended and they acknowledge he did the same thing to other clients.

I emailed the Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel about this,skasriel@upwork.com, but he did not respond :(

Any other sites for freelancers

With these rates UpWork will simply die. They DON'T provide 20% of the earnings value. To be honest, they provide very little value.

Title: Freelance Giant Upwork Shakes Up Its Business Model