How to Get Jobs on Upwork (High Budget)

You’ve probably heard advice on how to get jobs on Upwork such as:

• “Learn new skills”
• “Do cheap jobs to build reviews”
• “Get 5-star reviews for cheap jobs”
• “Spend a year building your profile and reputation”
• “Get top-rated status”
• “Only apply to jobs with high budgets”

And probably another 100 other pieces of advice relating to getting clients with high budgets on Upwork. 

Here’s some honest advice on how to get jobs on Upwork.

1. “Clients Don’t Have the Budget”

The first belief that freelancers have that don’t sell their services for $2,000-5,000 is that “clients don’t have the budget”. They don’t have the budget, because when they post a job, they set the budget to $5-500. Typically that’s the range of budgets that people post on Upwork. Not all jobs, but most of them.

The budget clients set on Upwork is not real. It does not accurately reflect what they can pay you for the project. 

They don’t know how much to set it at. They are just filling out a form. It says budget, and then they just type an approximate number. A lot of the time they don’t have experience in accurately pricing what it is they are trying to buy. 

They don’t have a specific understanding of exactly what they need to be done. They just have an estimate of what they need to do.

It is your job when you talk to Upwork leads on a call to consult them. Be a trusted advisor and help them figure out what the real goals they want to accomplish are. 

If you’re able to help them, consult them on the correct scope of the project, duration, and recommended budget for the project. Their opinion on the budget is probably incorrect as they don’t have the expertise, and that’s what they’re paying you for. 

2. No Jobs Are Available

The real question you should be asking is, which clients can afford to pay for which service on Upwork that results in high creation of value? Where is it justified? Plus, what is currently in high demand that isn’t too easy to deliver?

Find services with a high number of job posts that are written in a way that it’s clear the client needs a lot of help and would be able to afford $2,000-$5,000 or more. 

You can tell by the fact that they’ve spent a lot of money on Upwork before, or the type of project is quite big, or it’s a complicated type of project, or the client simply needs a large volume of work done. In these cases, it makes sense to charge over $2,000.

3. You Don’t Have to Deliver

One misconception is that freelancers or agencies think that they have to deliver the service themselves. The truth is that you can have a team in place to deliver the project to the client. 

Some people say it’s not ethical, it’s not nice, I can’t afford to pay them. It’s normal to think this and there’s nothing wrong with thinking this. If you’re new and don’t have experience delegating your work, there’s nothing wrong with this. 

The truth is that the whole world runs on businesses that hire employees and freelancers that they delegate work to. That’s simply how business works, one person delegates to another, and another person delegates to another.

The Bottom Line

There are many misconceptions about how to get jobs on Upwork, especially high budget ones. People think clients don’t have the budget, there are no jobs available, and that they have to deliver the service themselves. The truth is that you can hire a talented team and deliver high-quality jobs that pay well to multiple clients simultaneously.