Bid amount

The bid is set in the terms section of the proposal, before the cover letter. On an hourly job it is your hourly rate, with an optional scheduled rate increase. On a fixed-price job it is your bid for the project, paid by project or by milestone, and you also estimate how long the work will take. The client's posted budget or range is guidance, and clients are told to expect competitive bids.

How Upwork tells you to price it. Its submission article lists four factors: what freelancers with similar skills charge, how much time and skill the job takes, the circumstances such as a long engagement or an urgent one, and your own expenses. It adds that a Freelancer Plus membership lets you view competitor bids on specific jobs, which proposal insights show as average bids, including the bids the client answered with a message.

It can move later. Once the editing window has passed or the client has viewed the proposal, the terms, including the bid, can still be edited until the client accepts or rejects it. Tell the client if you change it mid-conversation.

Upwork publishes no minimum or maximum bid in this article.

How Upsight uses it. Each campaign has a rate strategy. On hourly jobs the default bids the top of the client's own range, never below the campaign's floor and never above its ceiling when one is set. On fixed-price jobs it bids the client's budget, a multiple of it, or a custom figure. A posted zero is treated as no budget, not as a price. The reason for every number is shown with the draft, and the sender caps the bid at the job's real posted budget again at the moment of sending.