In this instructional video, Michael Elliott explains how freelancers can treat Upwork Connects as a strategic investment to maximize earnings. He begins by outlining the cost of Connects (15 ¢ each, sold in bundles of 10 for $1.50) and argues that the true value lies in the return on investment rather than the nominal expense. Elliott then presents a systematic framework for evaluating job postings, considering factors such as client location, total spend, hire rate, average hourly rate paid, industry, and competition. Using three concrete case studies—a high‑value Google Ads client, a mid‑tier B2B SaaS company, and a low‑quality French lighting business—he demonstrates how to assign a project score, decide how many Connects to bid, and calculate the potential payoff. He emphasizes the mindset shift required to view Connects as capital for business growth, noting that strategic over‑bidding (e.g., spending $45 on a $2,500‑$4,000 monthly project) can be justified by the expected revenue. The video concludes with a teaser for a follow‑up where he will apply the described strategy live, showing the exact Connect spend for each job. Throughout, Elliott stresses that disciplined Connect investment, informed by data‑driven project assessment, is essential for freelancers aiming to earn six figures on Upwork in 2026.
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So if you're stuck applying for Upwork jobs, not understanding how to use your connects properly, this video is for you. Connects are a crucial part of winning any project on Upwork in 2026. I've made over half a million on the Upwork platform, and today I'm going to be showing you the logic that goes into applying for jobs and what their value is. And I've got some great examples lined up. Firstly, why is this important? Well, this is important because when you are applying for jobs, you have to understand the value proposition. If the job has the potential to pay you $2,000 a month and you close 1 in 5 that you apply for, or 1 in 10, or whatever your number is, then you can reverse engineer the cost. Individual projects look expensive, but when you actually dig deeper and realize that the projects that you are applying for, if they get seen by boosting with more connects, you have a higher chance of winning them and ultimately increase the return on investment that you make instead of just being cast into the wilderness. The first one that I've got is a great example, but firstly, how much does a Connect cost? So when it comes down to buying Connects, you get 10 Connects for $1.50, and that's the lowest amount that you can buy, I believe. I don't think you can go lower with custom, but if you're gonna buy a Connect, you have to pay 15 cents per Connect. Well, why is that important? Well, the reason is because if you spend 10 Connects on a project, then you've spent $1.50 applying. If you spend 100 Connects, you're spending $15 And if you spend 1,000 connects, you'd be spending $150 to apply for a job. And I know that that sounds crazy. I don't think I've ever gone quite that high. I think the highest bid I've ever made was around like 400 connects, 500 connects. But I'm going to show you today why the math is what matters and not the actual overhead as a cost. Well, it's difficult for freelancers to understand, and it's very difficult to change your mindset to focus as if you were a business. But buying connects is an investment. So when we look at this individual project, I'm a Google Ads expert. I have background in AI, etc., but Google Ads is my core strategy. So I'm looking for clients in tier 1 countries that are in industries where I know I can scale them, that are likely to have budget. Then you go to the second rung, and it's their reviews, you know, what do other people say about them, how much is their hourly rate that they've paid. And whenever I'm applying for an Upwork job, all of these things come and determine my decision, with the final factor being when you look at what other people have bid, is it worth it to be in that position for you? So going through this project, I'm not going to make you read it all, but straight down the right-hand side here we can see they've got basically 5-star reviews from 6 projects. They're in Boston in the US, which is great. They post jobs and they hire, so they've got a 60% hire rate from 15 jobs. That's decent. And they've spent $26K in total with 2 active clients spent, $60 an hour average hourly rate paid, health and fitness industry, and they've on the platform since 2023. This is a seasoned Upwork user that is used to paying a good average hourly rate for the right talent. You can tell just by looking at about the About Client section. So I've skimmed through this before. What they want is they want somebody that's able to develop and scale their ad account in the correct way with a proper structure. And then their requirements are basically experience in their niche, which I have, experience managing campaigns with policy restrictions, which I have, improving lead quality, not just traffic, strong analytical skills and the ability to communicate recommendations clearly. All of those things I nail. So this ticks every box. If I was to score this out of 10, I would probably say that this is— with an $80 an hour cap, this has got to be a 9 out of 10. The only question that you get asked is, have you managed, uh, for Google Ads for healthcare industry before? If we hit apply, I'm thinking here straight away, we know it's 15 cents. Remember, this is important, the maths. Why? Because what we're about to bid is ultimately what the investment is and the likelihood is of us winning projects on an ongoing basis. And you have to use your own maths for that. How many calls do you need to get on to win a project? How many applications do you need to send, or invitations do you need to receive? Hourly rate on my profile is $47.77 because the number 7 draws attention, you know, go and Google it, it's cognitive, etc. But what I'm focusing on here, because I'm not actually applying in this video, is the, is the connects. Now this might scare you— 250 5, to be in the top 4 you need 251 connects. Let's say we wanted to be top, and that would be 256. 256 connects times by 0.5, to apply for this job and be in position 1, it's costing you $38.40. That sounds like an incredible amount of money, but if you compare it against what the project has the potential to pay me— I know they don't mention budget in their brief, but I know they're in a serious industry that has serious spend. They're likely spending 5 figures plus monthly, and they have a good hire rate of $60 an hour, which means that you could work for them for 40 minutes and be paid back based off of their average. That is how you do the maths based around what you would apply. And in my next video, which you're going to see in a few days' time from now, I'm going to apply for all of these, or any of them that make sense. But I, I'm going to bid on this, and I'm going to bid 300 Connect. 300. So I'm going to actively go out, beat the competition, and bid $45 of my money to win this project. I'm going to do it with the applications as I'll explain, and you'll see it in the next video. But that might sound insane to you. I have to explain the causation behind why, because this is a good investment from my side to spend $45 on a project which could potentially pay me between $2,500 and $4,000 a month. You have to look at it that way. So moving on to the next one. This is a search. Let's move on to the next one that I pulled out. So this was a B2B SaaS company. Now they're based in Canada, again tier 1 country. Great. They have a low hire rate, a little bit of a negative. They've spent very low amount. They've been on the platform for a very long time and their average hourly rate is $83 an hour. So I would apply for this. The brief is pretty vague, but I would apply for this project. The result in terms of the, the reviews that you can see, they're decent. And it was for a LinkedIn manager as well here. That's, that's actually live, an open job. So they've got somebody actively in my— not in— well, yeah, in my arena that they're paying. So you know that they're paying for services, and you know that this is the average hourly rate that they're paying. But if we apply, the key is where are the connects sat? We— so they tick the box as similar to the first one. You see how the connects are now set at $65? Why is that? The reason for that is because this job is not as valuable as the one that I just showed you at the start of this video. This project does not ring alarm bells in a positive way, the way that the first project that we looked at did. It's not as big, they haven't spent as much. Their hourly rate paid is higher, but they've been on the platform for 5 years and they've only spent like $1,000. So as you're weighing all of that up, that's about right. I would bid 100 connects for this project, which would mean it's $15. I would be happy to make that investment knowing that this is like a 5 out of 10 as a project. And that's the way that I would go with it. Going through this, so this is an example here, French premium lifestyle lighting business. They're asking for a lot of responsibilities. They are new to Upwork, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but they're not in a tier 1 country in terms of where I would want to work. They don't have a verified payment method. This is probably 1, 1 or 2 out of 10 for me, like how I get— how I would grade it. If we hit apply for job and see anything above 30 connects, this is something— look at all the questions that they're asking for. You see here why the connects are so low? There's a reason for that. So you can see exactly the process. I don't think there is any need for me to go through any further detail around the individual connects in terms of bidding projects, which is why I just closed them. Because we have just had, just by luck, a really good lead that you— it has high connects, but there's an understanding as to why it's worth the $40 to $45 it would take. You've then got a mid-range one which would cost you $15 to apply for, and we've then got a really low quality lead which the connects extremely low, and you could bid 20 connects for it. And you know, like, you would pay next to nothing to apply. You would pay $3. The importance of Connects should not be understated. The usage of Connects— you should not be afraid. You need capital to invest in yourself in order to win projects on Upwork in 2026. It is just a fact. And getting you in touch— to flip this on its head, the positives around this are you could never do this before. I've been on Upwork pre-Connects and post-Connects. If you didn't have Connects and you had no profile that was seasoned, you were applying into the wind. Because if I applied for a job you were a Google Ads account manager that had no projects on it, the chances of them opening your project versus mine would take a very stellar application and for them to be able to find you in a, in a whole host of individual other applications. Well, Connex removed that. You can put yourself in position 1 for every single project that you apply for if you choose to do so. What I'm going to do now is check this video out here. This video is me applying for all of these individual projects. I'm going to apply for these 3. I'm going to then show you the connects amount that I use, and you're going to see exactly how I apply. I've covered it before. I think it's important to see live now. I've gone through these 3 exactly how— 15 cents per connect. You need to understand the value proposition of what you're going to charge them and what you think you can make them pay. That is what you— based off of what your value is. Remember that it's always off your value, not what the hourly rate that they've said as a position is. Listen, I've won clients that have paid me $4,000 a month that have put $20 an hour on the job brief. So go and check this video out. My name is Michael Elliott. Like, subscribe. I'll catch you in the next one.
