Upwork Job Success Score: what moves it, what does not, and why it dropped

Upwork recalculates your Job Success Score every day over three windows, 6, 12 and 24 months, and shows the best of the three. At a high level it is successful outcomes minus negative outcomes, divided by all outcomes. Public end-of-contract feedback, how contracts end, contract value and relationships that keep paying past 90 days move it. Private feedback no longer counts, and a contract with no earnings and no feedback has no effect. Top Rated needs 90% or higher for 13 of the last 16 weeks.

How Upwork calculates the score

The score is a ratio of good outcomes to all outcomes, taken over three windows, with the best window shown. Upwork's calculation page describes it, at a high level, as successful contract outcomes minus negative outcomes, divided by total outcomes. Every day Upwork takes a snapshot of your last 6, 12 and 24 months, scores each, and displays the highest (When is my JSS calculated?).

Three rules follow, and they explain most surprises:

• The clock is the last transaction. A contract counts in a window if it had a transaction inside it, measured from its most recent transaction, not the day it ended. Transactions show in your insights within 48 hours.
• A contract leaves the 6-month window at six months and one day after that transaction (Why did my JSS change?). If the 6-month score is your best, an old good contract ageing out can lower it with no new feedback at all.
• You need a minimum to have a score. A JSS appears once you have two or more contract outcomes within 24 months, with at least two clients (When will I get a JSS?). It can disappear if you fall below that, or complete no new contracts in 24 months (Why did my JSS disappear?). No score is not a low score; it is no score.

The JSS is computed by an algorithm and cannot be adjusted by hand, per Upwork's page on disputing a calculation. Support will not change it; the insights page is the only explanation you get.

What counts and what does not

Most confusion comes from contracts people assume count and do not, or the reverse. The table collects every rule Upwork states across its JSS pages, read on 3 November 2026. Where two Upwork pages disagree, we say so below the table rather than pick one.

Item	Counts?	Upwork page
Public end-of-contract feedback (stars and review)	Yes	View and share your feedback (215917628)
How the contract ended, including disputes and contracts ended without payment	Yes, can lower it	Why did my JSS drop? (38440123106195)
Long-term relationship that ended with no feedback	Yes, assumed positive	Job Success insights (32389629156755)
No-payment contract with negative feedback	Yes, can lower it	What factors affect my JSS? (38439816969875)
Star ratings on a fully refunded contract	Yes; the written review is removed	Full refund and feedback (40323101202707)
Enterprise client contracts	Yes, though hidden from public work history	View and share your feedback (215917628)
Private feedback	No longer requested, no effect	View and share your feedback (215917628)
A client's private note	No	View and share your feedback (215917628)
Contract with no earnings and no feedback	No	What factors affect my JSS? (38439816969875)
Contract where the client left no feedback (not long-term)	No, ineligible	Job Success insights (32389629156755)
Contract whose last transaction is over 24 months old	No	Job Success insights (32389629156755)
Feedback from clients flagged for poor collaboration or suspended	Not against you	All about your JSS (211068358)

Upwork's insights page also says a lower-value contract can be made ineligible when a higher-value one outweighs it, without saying how.

Private feedback is gone; public feedback carries the weight

End-of-contract scoring now reads only what everyone can see. Upwork's feedback page says clients are no longer asked for private feedback, and it no longer affects reputation or the JSS. In its place a client may leave an optional private note. The note is visible to the freelancer and to agency managers, never shown on the profile, and has no effect on the score.

Public feedback is unchanged: one to five stars and a written review. It is double-blind. Neither side sees the other's until both have submitted or 14 days have passed, and then both appear within 24 hours. It shows on your profile once the client has paid at least $1.00 and the payment is available to withdraw.

Two consequences matter. First, the old fear of a silent private rating sinking a score is obsolete; the exclamation mark the insights page shows on some contracts most often flags a contract where private feedback differed from public, which can only come from contracts rated before the change. Second, a refund is not an eraser. Upwork says a full refund removes the written public review but the client's ratings still count toward the JSS (refund and feedback).

Long relationships and big contracts weigh more

Not every contract counts once. Upwork's Job Success insights page gives two weighting rules that matter more than any single review.

Length. A job counts as a success when its payments run beyond 90 days from the client's first payment to you. And each further stretch of paid time adds weight, capped at eight jobs. A client who has paid you steadily for a year has crossed four 90-day marks, so that one relationship already carries the weight of several ordinary contracts, and the cap is reached within roughly two years of steady payment. Losing such a client does not erase what it earned, but the repeat client relationships are the strongest ballast a score has.

Value. Higher-earning contracts have a larger effect, and Upwork says this amplifies both sides: a good outcome on a big contract helps more, a bad review on one hurts more. Contracts with rate changes can have a greater overall impact, positive or negative. While the contract is active, the insights badges read the current rate term; once it ends with public feedback, earnings from all rate terms count.

“Every 90 days with payment is weighted as an extra “job” towards your JSS”

Contracts that end without feedback. These are ineligible and simply drop out of the calculation, unless the relationship was long-term, in which case Upwork assumes it was positive, since the client kept working with you. So a short contract that ends quietly is neutral, while one that ends without payment, or in a dispute, can count against you (Why did my JSS drop?). Ending a contract is therefore not a formality; see ending a contract.

How the score connects to Rising Talent, Top Rated and Top Rated Plus

The badges sit on top of the JSS, each with its own earnings floor over the last 12 months. Upwork's ladder, from its talent badge pages:

• Rising Talent is for freelancers who may qualify before they have a JSS: an Upwork invitation, or an average rating of 4.8 or above with at least $250 earned in 12 months, plus a 100% complete profile and identity verification. If you do have a JSS, it must be 90% or higher (Rising Talent).
• Top Rated needs a current JSS of 90% or higher, and Rising Talent status or 90%+ for at least 13 of the last 16 weeks, a first project more than 90 days ago, $1,000 earned in 12 months, a 100% complete profile, up-to-date availability and activity in the last 90 days. Eligibility is re-checked every two weeks (Top Rated).
• Top Rated Plus keeps Top Rated and adds more than $10,000 earned in 12 months and at least one large contract in that time with no negative outcomes (Top Rated Plus).

The 13-of-16-weeks rule is why one bad week rarely costs a badge and a slide over a month or two does. The "eligible weeks" counter in My Stats shows how many of the 16 you have. Directing payment off Upwork removes all three badges for six months, whatever the score.

"Large contract" depends on the category, and the bar is higher for agencies. Upwork sets it from current opportunities in each group, so it can change.

Web, Mobile & Software Dev

$15,000

$30,000

Customer Support / Service

$20,000

$20,000

Accounting & Consulting

$10,000

$20,000

Admin Support

$10,000

$20,000

Data Science & Analytics

$10,000

$20,000

IT

$10,000

$20,000

Sales & Marketing

$10,000

$20,000

Design & Creative

$5,000

$10,000

Engineering & Architecture

$5,000

$10,000

Legal

$5,000

$10,000

Translation

$5,000

$10,000

Writing

$5,000

$10,000

$0$10,000$20,000$30,000

• Freelancer
• Agency

Hover or tab through the chart for exact values.

Source: Upwork help center, How to reach Top Rated Plus status (360050417233), read 2026-11-03.Upwork's freelancer table says Customer Support and IT and Engineering; its agency table says Customer Service and IT and Networking.

Show the data

	Freelancer	Agency
Web, Mobile & Software Dev	$15,000	$30,000
Customer Support / Service	$20,000	$20,000
Accounting & Consulting	$10,000	$20,000
Admin Support	$10,000	$20,000
Data Science & Analytics	$10,000	$20,000
IT	$10,000	$20,000
Sales & Marketing	$10,000	$20,000
Design & Creative	$5,000	$10,000
Engineering & Architecture	$5,000	$10,000
Legal	$5,000	$10,000
Translation	$5,000	$10,000
Writing	$5,000	$10,000

An agency has one score for everyone

An agency JSS is calculated like a freelancer's, over every contract the agency holds, by exclusive and non-exclusive members alike (agency JSS). Once the agency has enough outcomes to qualify, exclusive members show the agency's score on their profiles instead of their own. One member's weak contract therefore sits on every exclusive member's profile.

Roster changes do not move it at once. When an exclusive contractor leaves, their contracts stay in the score until they fall out of the best window. Hiring someone with a high personal score does not lift the agency's number, because their earlier contracts were not done for the agency.

Agencies also work blind. Job Success insights are not yet available for agencies or exclusive agency freelancers, so there is no contract-by-contract breakdown. Agency Top Rated needs an agency JSS of 90% or higher for 13 of 16 weeks, an owner JSS of 90% or none yet, and $10,000 earned in 12 months. The practical substitute for insights is your own record of which contracts closed, with what feedback, and when each will age out of the 6-, 12- and 24-month windows.

Upsight does not compute a JSS and cannot change one. It reads the score Upwork shows, every day, for each member on an agency's roster and for each profile on page one of the keywords the agency tracks, so a drop in rank can be set against the scores and badges of the profiles that moved above you. See why a profile is not showing in search for the search side.

What to do when your score drops

1. 1

   Open Job Success insights first

   Profile icon, Stats and trends, View insights. Each contract shows a check mark (helped), an exclamation mark (a discrepancy, usually old private versus public feedback) or an X (hurt). Ineligible contracts list their reason.

2. 2

   Work out which window is showing

   If nothing new happened, an old contract has aged out or become ineligible. A contract leaves the 6-month window six months and one day after its last transaction, so you can date when a bad one stops counting there.

3. 3

   Do not add transactions to a contract that went badly

   The windows run from each contract's most recent transaction. A late payment or bonus on a troubled contract keeps it inside the windows longer.

4. 4

   Agree the ending before you end it

   Settle the last milestone or hours, confirm the client is satisfied, then close and ask for public feedback. The client has 14 days, and a contract that ends without payment or in a dispute can lower the score.

5. 5

   Protect the big and the long

   Higher-value contracts and relationships paying beyond 90 days carry the most weight. Give them the senior people and the closest attention.

6. 6

   Do not refund to dodge a review

   A full refund removes the written review but the client's ratings still count toward the JSS. Fix the problem with the client instead.

7. 7

   Count your eligible weeks

   My Stats shows how many of the last 16 weeks met the bar. Top Rated needs 13, so a dip that recovers within three weeks costs nothing; a longer one does.

Questions

Why did my Upwork JSS drop without new feedback?

Usually an older contract left a window or became ineligible. Upwork shows the best of your 6-, 12- and 24-month scores daily, and a contract leaves the 6-month window six months and one day after its last transaction. Your Job Success insights page lists each contract and why it does or does not count.

Does private feedback still affect Job Success Score?

No. Upwork no longer asks clients for private feedback, and it no longer affects reputation or the JSS. Clients can leave an optional private note, visible only to you and agency managers, which has no effect on the score. Only public end-of-contract feedback counts.

Does a contract with no feedback hurt my JSS?

Not on its own. A contract where the client left no feedback is ineligible and drops out, and one with no earnings and no feedback has no effect. The exception is a long-term relationship, paying beyond 90 days, which Upwork assumes was positive. A no-payment contract with negative feedback can still hurt.

What JSS do you need for Top Rated on Upwork?

A current JSS of 90% or higher, and either Rising Talent status or 90%+ for at least 13 of the last 16 weeks. You also need $1,000 earned in 12 months, a first project over 90 days ago and a 100% complete profile. Upwork re-checks eligibility every two weeks.

How long does a bad contract affect my Upwork JSS?

Up to 24 months from its most recent transaction, since the 24-month window is the longest. Because Upwork shows your best window, it stops weighing on the 6-month score six months and one day after its last transaction, which often lifts the displayed score earlier.