Hourly Protection

To qualify, Upwork says all of the following must be true:

• You have an hourly contract.
• You logged the hours with the time tracker in the Upwork Desktop App.
• The activity in the screenshots relates to the contract.
• Your memos or activity labels describe the work.
• Your activity levels were adequate and fair.
• You stayed within the contract's weekly limit.
• You have verified your identity.
• Your client uses a verified billing method.
• Your Upwork account is in good standing.

Upwork then excludes work diary segments that are added manually, idle or empty, over the weekly limit, showing non-work activity, or missing memos or carrying inadequately described ones.

Two items on that list are outside the freelancer's control. A client without a verified billing method, see Payment verified, takes protection away from every hour on the contract. And manual time is never covered, however legitimate the work.

Protection is about the hours, not the outcome of the project. If a client disputes and the hours qualify, the freelancer is paid; hours that do not qualify can be refunded to the client. Bonuses and fixed-price work sit outside it, and fixed-price work has its own Fixed-Price Protection. In practice the rules read as a checklist to run every week before the invoice: tracker on, memos written, hours under the limit, client verified.