Communication outside Upwork

The line is the contract start. Upwork means the start date on the contract or the date it was accepted. Before that, contact information stays out of job posts, proposals and interviews. After it, sharing contact details and using your own tools is allowed, in the contract workroom.

What Upwork counts as contact information. Any way someone could reach you outside Upwork: phone numbers, email addresses, home or work addresses, usernames or IDs for tools such as Skype, Telegram, Slack or WeChat, and social media handles. Your own name and your company's name are fine, and so is a link to a website you built, as long as you ask the client to keep contacting you through Upwork.

Exceptions.

• Enterprise clients, or freelancers working with one, may ask for and share contact details before a contract.
• Legal needs, such as a non-disclosure agreement, a business license or a background check.
• An email address needed for system access to scope a project, such as a code repository, ad analytics, accounting software, a cloud drive or a website host.

Even then, Upwork says, conversation about the job and payment stays on Upwork until the contract starts.

Consequences. Upwork lists temporary restrictions, loss of talent badges and, in some cases, permanent loss of account access. Its article on unsolicited contact goes further: sharing contact information or soliciting payment outside Upwork "will result in immediate and permanent account termination". Contacting someone off Upwork using details found on Upwork is reportable in its own right.

For proposals. A cover letter is pre-contract by definition, so it cannot carry an email address, phone number, meeting link or messenger handle. Suggest a chat or call through Upwork Messages instead.

After the contract ends. Contact details may be shared once a contract is closed, but future contracts with that client still belong on Upwork unless the conversion fee is paid; see fee avoidance.