Offer

A client usually sends an offer from a job post after reading proposals, though a client can also send a direct offer without posting a job. The offer carries the project details and payment terms: a rate and weekly limit for an hourly contract, milestones for a fixed-price contract.

The freelancer or agency can do one of three things: accept it, and there is a contract; decline it, which also withdraws their proposal; or message the client to discuss other terms. Each time a client submits an offer, the freelancer has 30 days to accept, and if nobody acts "the offer will be revoked". Until it is accepted the client can modify or withdraw it, and resend one that was cancelled. On an hourly offer the freelancer cannot log time before the start date. Upwork's hiring guide on its resources site gives a shorter expiry; the figure here is the help center's.

For an agency, the offer is where a proposal sent for one member becomes a contract held by the agency. Accepting it on the agency's behalf is a Business Manager permission. An offer that cannot be accepted is usually a billing or account problem on one side, not a mistake in the terms: Upwork points first to the client's billing method or an account restriction.

How Upsight uses it. Upsight's Pipeline has no separate offer column. A lead moves to Closed won when a contract appears on its conversation, so an offer that was sent but never accepted leaves the lead at the stage it had already reached.