Upwork just released the following statement:

Hi Matt,

I’m writing to tell you about an upcoming change to Upwork’s Connects pricing and Terms of Service.

Starting in May, Connects will cost $0.15 each, with no free Connects for agencies and freelancers.

Connects will not be included for free on your Agency membership plan but will be available for purchase for $0.15 each, highly reduced from the current cost of $1.
You’ll need between 1 and 6 Connects, depending on the job, to submit a proposal.
Proposals submitted for invitations you receive from clients will continue to be free.

Why are we making this change?
We want to help professional agencies, like yours, to win more jobs. With paid Connects, we expect freelancers and agencies will submit fewer proposals, increasing your agency’s likelihood of winning projects and making it easier for clients to identify high-quality talent.

What does this mean for your agency?

This change will take effect between May and June. We’ll follow up with a reminder.
With this change, you can keep any unused Connects in your account, up to 160.
Because you’re a Top Rated agency, we’ll also provide you with an additional 60 free Connects to help you transition.

We understand this is a big change but feel this is the best way to create more opportunities for you through Upwork in the long term. To learn more about this change, visit our resource page.

Thank you for your business,

Stephane Kasriel
CEO, Upwork

It has been very curious that for years all jobs (as far as I know) have ever only cost 2 connects no matter the size. It seemed that the intention from the beginning was to move to a more complex system, and it seems that that day is finally here.

So what is this announcement really saying? Here are what I see as the pros and cons:

Cons:

  • No more free connects at all for anyone. That means the 70 connects I get as a freelancer (10 extra past the 60 for $10/mo.) and the 80 we get as an agency (60 to start + 20 for $20/mo.) will now cost us an additional $22.50/mo. that we were not paying previously just to bid on jobs.
  • Monthly subscriptions – I already subscriptions them on the freelancer and agency side, but if you don’t, you’ll probably want to get one just to save money on connects if they will really charge $1 to non-subscribers but $0.15 to subscribers. That’s a no-brainer.

Pros:

  • Less Competition? – If everyone has to pay for connects, then it could reduce the amounts of bids on each project since everyone is paying for bids and therefore they might use them more sparingly. It will also likely cut down the amount of extra accounts that have been created so that users can get free connects which again could mean less competition.
  • Free Connects – As an agency, we apparently get 60 free credits which is cool, so I guess there’s that! 😀
  • More Larger Jobs? – It would seem to follow that, for agencies which are profitable, they will continue to have the cash to bid on larger jobs vs smaller jobs.

So while it’s possible that competition will go down, it remains to be seen if that will actually be the case or if we will all just end up spending more money to land the jobs we were already landing. In any case, Upwork will likely see a huge uptick in subscriptions so that they can collect on users who otherwise might just let their accounts sit idle.

How do you feel about the change? Let me know in the comments below!

BTW… I’ve just come up with something to help speed up the job finding process a TON! I am able to find good jobs and bid on them faster then ever before. If you’re interested, get in touch, and I’ll tell you about it.