founded mountain view california 2015 headquarters mountain view california area served worldwide key people stephane kasriel ceo thomas layton chairman website www.upwork.com upwork formerly elance odesk 1 is a global freelancing platform where businesses and independent professionals connect and collaborate remotely . in 2015 elance odesk was rebranded as upwork . 2 it is based in mountain view and san francisco california . upwork has twelve million registered freelancers and five million registered clients . 3 three million jobs are posted annually worth a total of 1 billion usd making it the world s largest freelancer marketplace . 4 5 6 contents 1 history 2 description 3 complaints 4 reception 5 references 6 external links history edit upwork was formed 18 months after elance and odesk announced their merger on december 18 2013 to create elance odesk an online workplace with a combined total 8 million registered users . 7 odesk was founded in 2003 8 by odysseas tsatalos and stratis karamanlakis . 9 elance was founded in 1999 by beerud sheth and srini anumolu . 10 with the launch of upwork the odesk platform was upgraded and rebranded and the company announced that the elance platform would be phased out within a couple of years resulting in a single freelance marketplace . 11 after the re branding of upwork in early 2015 criticism surfaced among freelancers because of various bugs and slow loading speed of the upwork platform . citation needed in early september 2015 the upwork service experienced an outage which led to an apology being issued by ceo stephane kasriel . 12 this led to the introduction of an upwork status page to offer freelancers and clients greater transparency . 13 description edit upwork allows clients to interview hire and work with freelancers and agencies through the company s platform . the platform now includes a real time chat platform aimed at reducing the time it takes to find and hire freelancers . 14 on 3 may 2016 upwork announced that the service fee for freelancers will change from flat rate of 10 % to a sliding service fee of 5 % to 20 % . 15 16 as of june 21 2016 freelancers pay a sliding service fee based on total lifetime billings with each client 20 % for the first 500 billed to the client across all contracts 10 % for total billings with the client between 500.01 and 10 000 and 5 % for total billings with the client that exceed 10 000 . 17 clients pay a 2.75 % per payment processing fee ; some clients are eligible to pay a monthly flat processing fee of 25 . 18 payments can be made using credit cards paypal or bank transfer . 19 payments are made through upwork s escrow system which transfers the funds to freelancers after a 6 day period . 20 an overwhelming majority of upwork community members reacted negatively to the payment changes . 21 as of june 2016 upwork reports 1b in annual freelancer billings 12 million freelancers and 5 million clients worldwide . 22 freelancers can be hired for jobs on app and software development engineering and data science creative services such as graphic design and writing business and administrative . the company provides voluntary skills tests in various disciplines from english aptitude to specific programming skills and profiles include a feedback mechanism . to ensure the freelancers are billing fairly for jobs billed hourly the platform offers a time sheet application that tracks time and takes screenshots while the freelancer is billing . 23 upwork has a mobile app for both android 24 and ios 25 as well as a time tracking app for windows osx and linux . complaints edit upwork has an increasingly growing number of complaints from both freelancers and clients mostly because of a poor level of customer support and legally questionable practices of freezing users accounts while still holding on to the money uploaded to users accounts . 26 reception edit bersin by deloitte whatworks award 2013 27 third party source needed odesk ranked 543 in the 2012 inc. 5000 441 in the 2011 inc. 500 286 on the 2010 inc. 500 and 110 in the 2009 inc. 500 28 third party source needed alwayson global 250 top private companies 2012 29 and 2011 30 third party source needed alwayson ondemand 100 2012 31 and 2011 32 third party source needed silicon valley business journal fastest growing private company list 2011 33 2010 34 and 2009 35 third party source needed san francisco business times fastest growing companies list 2011 36 and 2010 37 third party source needed samceda innovation & entrepreneurship awards 2011 fastest growing innovator award of excellence 38 third party source needed 2011 tie50 internet social networking winner 39 of tie50 awards program . third party source needed techcrunch50 demopit winner 2010 40 third party source needed silicon valley business journal emerging technology award 2009 41 third party source needed international association of outsourcing professionals 2009 global outsourcing 100 rising star 42 third party source needed deloitte technology fast 500 43 third party source needed finalist for the red herring 100 global awards 2007 and 2009 44 third party source needed 2007 rising star in deloitte s technology fast 500 program 45 third party source needed finalist in pc magazine s 2006 small business awards 46 third party source needed references edit elance odesk becomes upwork in push to build 10b in freelancer revenues . forbes . 5 may 2015 . retrieved 5 may 2015 . lunden ingrid may 5 2015 . elance odesk rebrands as upwork debuts slack like chat platform . techcrunch . retrieved may 17 2016 . about us . tech in asia connecting asia s startup ecosystem . elaine pofeldt 5 may 2015 . elance odesk becomes upwork in push to build 10b in freelancer revenues . forbes . lawler ryan november 25 2014 . eight months after merger elance odesk raises another 30 million led by benchmark . techcrunch . retrieved may 17 2016 . levy ari december 19 2013 . elance merges with odesk to boost service for freelancers . bloomberg technology . san francisco . retrieved january 18 2014 . california secretary of state . corporate filing date 1 27 2003 . retrieved 22 june 2014 . odesk about us page . retrieved 7 june 2011 . thomas w. malone ; robert j. laubacher . the dawn of the e lance economy pdf . harvard business review . odesk becomes upwork but what about elance . news.smallbusinesstrends.com . 5 may 2015 . retrieved 6 may 2015 . kasriel stephane . update on site performance and issues . retrieved 12 may 2016 . upwork status . lunden ingrid . elance odesk rebrands as upwork debuts slack like chat platform . techcrunch . techcrunch . retrieved 21 june 2016 . pofeldt elaine . freelance giant upwork shakes up its business model . forbes . retrieved 2016 05 06 . upwork s new pricing a message from the ceo . upwork blog . freelancer pricing upwork . www.upwork.com . upwork . retrieved 21 june 2016 . fee and ach authorization agreement legal pages . www.upwork.com . upwork . retrieved 21 june 2016 . payments and productivity on upwork . www.upwork.com . upwork . 28 january 2016 . retrieved 21 june 2016 . weekly billing cycle . upwork help center . upwork . retrieved 21 june 2016 . pricing announcement follow up . 4 may 2016 . about us . upwork.com . upwork . retrieved 21 june 2016 . hardy quentin . big brother in the home office . upwork get work done android apps on google play . play.google.com . retrieved 2016 05 26 . upwork get work done anytime anywhere on the app store . app store . retrieved 2016 05 26 . upwork reviews . sitejabber.com . bersin by deloitte announces winners of the whatworks awards . bersin by deloitte . odesk company profile . inc. announcing the 2012 alwayson global 250 top private companies . alwayson . retrieved 30 april 2013 . announcing the 2011 alwayson global 250 . alwayson . retrieved 30 april 2013 . announcing the 2012 ondemand 100 top private companies . alwayson . retrieved 30 april 2013 . announcing the 2011 ondemand 100 top private companies alwayson . alwayson.goingon.com . 2011 03 30 . retrieved 2012 01 12 . fastest growing silicon valley private companies named . silicon valley business journal . retrieved 30 april 2013 . valley s fastest growing companies honored . october 14 2010 . 70 fastprivate valley companies hailed . october 9 2009 . slideshow the fastest growing bay area companies . san francisco business times . retrieved 30 april 2013 . young eric october 25 2010 . ceos say staying nimble efficient aids growth . chan stacie april 1 2011 . despite slow economy six county companies are posterchildren for growth . patch.com . welcome to tie50 awards . monday september 14 2009 2009 09 14 . tc50 demopit winner odesk launches a real time work stream for your iphone and desktop . techcrunch . retrieved 2012 01 12 . cs1 maint multiple names authors list link emerging tech award winners honored . december 4 2009 . the 2009 global outsourcing 100 sub lists . iaop . retrieved 2012 01 12 . http www.deloitte.com assets dcom unitedstates local % 20assets documents tmt us tmt us tmt 2010 % 20technology % 20fast % 20500 % 20winners % 20brochure 191010.pdf xceedium is now ca technologies pdf . 2007 technology fast 500 quain john september 27 2006 . small business awards by pc magazine outsourcing finalists . pc magazine . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title upwork & oldid 744302379 categories telecommutingonline employment auction websitescompanies based in redwood city californiainternet companies of the united statesfreelance marketplace websitescompanies established in 20152015 establishments in californiahidden categories cs1 maint multiple names authors listall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from february 2016all articles lacking reliable referencesarticles lacking reliable references from april 2016official website different in wikidata and wikipedia navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages edit links this page was last modified on 14 october 2016 at 11 22 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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