Glossary
Client spend
Client spend is the total a client has paid through Upwork, shown as total spent on the client's job posts and to freelancers the client messages, and used by Upwork itself to decide how many freelancers that client may direct message.
Updated
Also written: Total spent, Client total spent, Amount spent.
Upwork lists it among the facts a freelancer sees before answering a client's direct message: "Your total spend, average hourly rate paid, and number of hires". The same total sits in the About the client section of a job post. Upwork does not publish a page that says exactly what the figure includes, such as whether fees or refunds are counted, so read it as a lifetime total, not an invoice.
Upwork uses it as a trust signal too. On the free Basic plan, a client can direct message up to five new freelancers a day only with a verified billing method, an account in good standing, and either $1,000 USD or more spent in the past 12 months or a payment made more than 90 days ago. On Business Plus, a company that has spent up to $99.99 USD gets five direct messages in total as a one-time allotment; from $100 USD it can message up to 15 new freelancers each day. Enterprise clients have no daily limit.
Reading it. Spend says the client has paid before, not what they will pay you. A large total spread over many hires can be many small contracts, so set it beside average hourly rate paid and hire rate before treating it as budget. A client with no spend is usually new, which is not the same as unreliable.
How Upsight uses it. A campaign can set a range on Total spent in its Client tab. The bound has an escape for new clients, so a client with only a few past contracts is not shut out by a spend floor, and the campaign decides whether a job with no published figure passes. The suitability scorer sees the total, or the word unknown when Upwork gave none.
Source
Upwork's definition: How to use direct messages, read on .
Where Upsight measures it: the bidder.