Connects refund

Upwork's list is short. Connects are returned "if a client cancels a project before a contract is made (does not apply to expired posts)" and "if Upwork removes a project post for violating Terms of Service". They are not returned when the client rejects your proposal, chooses someone else, lets the job expire, or when you withdraw. "Returned Connects are credited back to your account for reuse, not for a refund of their cash value", and Upwork states no timing for the credit.

Boosts have their own rule. Upwork charges the bid when you place it, refunds it when the auction closes while results are sorted, then charges the winners again. If you are not in the top four at the close and the client did not interact with your proposal while it was boosted, the boost comes back; if you are still in the top four, it does not, even with no interaction. Only the boost portion is ever refunded this way; the base Connects of the proposal stay spent. Ad credits used for a boost are never refundable.

So a Connects history is full of charges that were later reversed and reversals that were later re-charged, and a balance read on one day says little about what a month of bidding cost.

How Upsight uses it. Upsight reconciles each refund in the Connects history to the proposal and boost it belongs to, so an outbid boost is recorded as free, a held boost as its final price, and a cancelled job as a proposal that cost nothing. Our own ledger shows that refunded boosts still earn views before the refund, which is why outbid boosts are not counted as waste.