u/Nearby_Pizza_7567

This is just a lil rant, so this was my first client on Upwork, and honestly I still don’t know how to feel about the whole experience.

The client had just created his account that same day and personally invited me to apply for his job (SMM role). I’m a social media manager and I applied, we got on a call, and he told me he could only pay $100 total even when he invited me for the job he had mentioned the price range of $10 - $16. My usual rate is (usd) $16/hr for SMM + graphic design and $13/hr for content/graphics, but he said it would only be around 4 hours a week and if they liked my work, they’d move me into a proper SMM role (even though he mentioned he already had one… which I found a bit odd).

I was skeptical but said yes since I’m new to freelancing and wanted to get started.

From the beginning, communication was messy. I kept asking for guidelines. No clear answers.

We had another call (this time on Zoom), and he asked me to move communication to WhatsApp because he’s “not active on Upwork.” I didn’t know better at the time, so I agreed.

I started working: Created content, Planned and created reels, Scheduled posts on their platform, Followed their Instagram as asked

He kept saying he liked my style and gave me “full creative freedom.”

But then I found out he had hired another person for the same role. That person’s content (which honestly looked very AI-generated and had visible mistakes) was getting approved and scheduled.

Meanwhile: None of my posts were approved, No feedback was given, No communication despite multiple follow-ups

I kept asking for clarity and direction. Nothing.

Eventually, he ended the contract after almost 2–3 weeks of hiring me.

Thankfully, I had set it up hourly ($7/hr for 4 hrs/week), so I did get paid. But I also did extra work outside of Upwork (like editing short-form content) and didn’t track that time… so that effort basically went unpaid. That part was my fault though, and I’m definitely not doing that again.

It honestly made me question: do clients actually value original, strategic content? Or is it just about quick AI-generated volume? (which, from what I saw, got them basically no real community.)

Another thing that stuck with me was when I asked him to increase the pay a little at the start before the contract started, he told me he wasn’t willing to pay “full price” if he was outsourcing from a cheaper country. And I get budget differences exist, but does that mean underpaying and ghosting workers?

Just to clarify, this happened a while ago and I’m honestly glad I didn’t end up working with him long term somehow. I treated this project more like a test gig and learned a lot from it. If youre someone new into freelancing i wish you the best but please make sure that you do not get exploited.

Hellaur ! I’m pretty new to freelancing, although I’ve been working as a social media manager for a while now. I just wanted to reach out and ask experienced freelancers if there’s something I might be doing wrong or anything I could improve on.

This month I did receive a few invitations, but most of them were either super low budget projects (under $10), obvious scams, or clients expecting full end to end work for very little pay, which I’m honestly not comfortable with.

I’d really appreciate any advice, tips, or feedback from people who’ve been in this field longer. Please be nice I genuinely want to learn and improve. Thank you for your time

oh my god guys i just got an invitation from an Upwork enterprise client and they are willing to spend a whole $18 freaking dollars on me for a SURVEY. A SURVEY!!!!!

this is huge. life changing. I might actually pass out from the excitement and the best part??? they only invited 5000 other people too

i LOVE competing with thousands of people for the opportunity to maybe possibly get selected for a dead end survey gig.

Literally my favorite hobby as a third world country survivor

AND OH MY GOD???? i’m a social media manager and they invited me for a random survey that is not related to my field AT ALL. This might actually be the opportunity of a lifetime guys. we are reaching levels of career growth never seen before.

oh my god guys i just got an invitation from an Upwork enterprise client and they are willing to spend a whole $18 freaking dollars on me for a SURVEY. A SURVEY!!!!!

this is huge. life changing. I might actually pass out from the excitement and the best part??? they only invited 5000 other people too

i LOVE competing with thousands of people for the opportunity to maybe possibly get selected for a dead end survey gig.

Literally my favorite hobby as a third world country survivor

AND OH MY GOD???? i’m a social media manager and they invited me for a random survey that is not related to my field AT ALL. This might actually be the opportunity of a lifetime guys. we are reaching levels of career growth never seen before.

This is my third week on Fiverr

I’ve been kind of experimenting with my gigs to understand what actually helps with impressions, clicks, and conversions as a new seller with no reviews instead of just randomly changing things every day. Three days ago, I made these new three gigs and these are the views I got from that. Nothing huge yet ( Actually way lower then of the gigs i last posted ) , but I’m trying to pay attention to patterns instead of expecting instant results.

Now I’m testing something new on two of my gigs (not the Canva one). I’m going to add a proper introduction video and also upload my portfolio as a PDF in the gigs gallery section because I realized a lot of buyers probably want to see work samples quickly without digging through everything. I feel like adding more trust and personality to the gigs might help people stay longer and maybe click more.

So for the next three days, I’m going to leave everything else untouched and just track what changes happen from adding those two things alone - mainly impressions, clicks, and whether the engagement improves at all.

I’ll probably come back with an update after a few days because I’m genuinely curious whether gig videos and PDF portfolios actually affect traction or if people overestimate them.

Lately I’ve been getting a noticeable increase in invites on Upwork, especially from Indian clients, and it’s kind of throwing me off a bit. It’s not like I’m getting flooded or anything, but compared to before, it’s definitely more frequent. I think I’ve received around 3–4 invites in just the past two weeks, which is unusual for me.

What’s confusing is that a lot of these clients actually look legit. Their payment methods and phone numbers are verified, and some of them are even posting their very first job. On top of that, a few of them are offering budgets that are better than what I usually expect, which is why I’m a bit unsure how to approach this.

For context, I do social media management and I charge around $13/hour, so I’m used to a certain type of client and pricing range. This sudden shift just feels a little unexpected.

I’m not sure if I should take this as a good sign and start accepting these invites more confidently, or if I should be a bit cautious here. Has anyone else been experiencing something similar recently?

So I applied to a job on Upwork for a social media role (13/hr is my rate), and things started off pretty normal.

They liked my cover letter and messaged me, so I was like okay, great. Then they started asking more questions what I’d post, how I’d grow their page, content direction, how i'd do influencer management etc. I didn’t mind at all because I actually enjoy this stuff, so I went ahead and did proper research on their niche, current content, and audience.

I alr had given them a pretty detailed breakdown, including what a week of content could look like and how I’d approach growth via the cover letter.

Then they asked a whole lotta questions again about strategy and stuff more knowing about my approach after that… nothing. Completely ghosted.

I followed up a couple of times, and only then they replied asking if I’m available for a Zoom interview when i said i have some creator names available for their brand but it felt like an afterthought. Like they were already interviewing others and basically said we weren't planning to interview you to begin with but someone ditched on us so why not you ?

What bothered me wasn’t even the rejection it was the fact that they basically got a bunch of usable ideas for free, said they liked them, and then treated me like I wasn’t even worth a proper response.

What bothered me wasn’t even the rejection or ghosting it was the fact that they basically got a bunch of usable ideas from me, said they liked them, and then treated me like I wasn’t even worth a proper interview or a response.

What would you guys would have done in this ? am i overthinking or is this normal ?

so yeah, day 8 on Fiverr… and honestly not much has changed
my clicks are still super low, like as low as ever.

weirdly though, I’m not even getting spam messages (which I thought was like a starter pack thing on Fiverr lol). but yeah… no real messages, no orders either.

i’ve been trying to tweak my gigs here and there (titles, thumbnails, descriptions) and even adjusting stuff on Upwork to push things a bit… but it doesn’t seem to be doing much so far.

starting to feel like Fiverr might just be a bit disappointing? or maybe i’m just being impatient idk.