John JonasOwner, OnlineJobs.ph · Scale Your Business with Filipino VAs

Sometimes, 𝙁𝙍𝙀𝙀 isn’t really free at all. 🤔

29 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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Upwork charges a $69 one-time fee to mark hires in the system, then takes a percentage cut from freelancer pay. The platform claims to be free but actually forces clients to inflate wages to cover costs, making it not truly free for anyone involved.

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It'll cost you $69. Now, $69 might seem like a lot to have someone employed through us. That $69 is one time you need to pay to upgrade your account one time so that you can mark people as hired in our system. Let's talk about upwork's freeness. First of all, upwork isn't free. They take a cut of the salary you pay that person, which means wages are inflated at upwork to account for that. Then when you account for how it's so focused on short term work, the wages are inflated even more then so it's really not free.