Fee avoidance

Upwork's rule is that when a client finds a freelancer through Upwork, all work and payments stay on Upwork for the first two years. The help center's word for breaking it is circumvention, which it places in Section 7 of the User Agreement, and it calls its policy zero-tolerance unless a conversion fee is paid. Fee avoidance is the everyday name for the same thing.

What counts. Being paid outside Upwork by a client you met on Upwork. Asking counts too: Upwork says a request to be paid off-platform is a violation "even if the request isn't completed". Both parties can lose access, and Upwork tells users to decline such a request and report it.

The two legal exits.

• The Upwork Conversion Fee has been paid. It is 13.5% of the freelancer's estimated annual earnings, meaning an hourly rate times 2,080 hours. On hourly contracts Upwork uses the highest rate between that freelancer and that client; on fixed-price contracts, the rate on the freelancer's profile.
• The relationship started outside Upwork, came onto it, and then left again, which includes Upwork's Bring Your Own programs.

How conversion works. The client usually starts it. The fee is paid in full, in one payment, and the two parties decide between themselves who covers it. Upwork applies discounts automatically for relationships that began more than two years ago, where only a small fee applies, and based on the total Marketplace fees the client has paid and the length of the relationship. After conversion Upwork offers no customer service, payment protection or dispute resolution for that relationship.

The cost of skipping it. Taking a relationship off Upwork without the fee can mean permanent suspension and losing the account for every other client too.

The pre-contract half of the same rule, sharing contact details, is covered under communication outside Upwork. The fees the rule protects are the freelancer service fee and the client's marketplace fee.