Public feedback

Both sides rate each other. For the freelancer's rating of the client, Upwork simplified the form as of March 31, 2026: a single overall 5-star rating replaces ratings across several categories, and any private note a freelancer leaves for the client is now visible to the client in their contract workroom.

The timing rules are the same in both directions. You have 14 days from the contract end date to leave feedback, and the deadline is midnight UTC on the 14th day, which can fall earlier than expected in your local time. Feedback is double-blind: the other side can't see what you wrote until both have submitted or the 14-day window ends, which Upwork says keeps feedback "honest and independent".

For the freelancer, the client's public feedback is now the part of end-of-contract feedback that counts. Private feedback is no longer collected, see private feedback, so public feedback is what the JSS reads at the end of a contract. A full refund removes the client's public feedback from the freelancer's profile.

Feedback is also a public record of the client. The ratings and reviews freelancers leave on a client's past contracts are visible to every later applicant, and they are often the clearest sign of how a client behaves after hiring.

How Upsight uses it. Upsight reads the ratings on the past contracts Upwork lists for a job's client and shows the average rating the client gives freelancers in the job details. On the Enterprise plan, freelancers' written reviews of a client are one of the two places the Pipeline's client identity looks for a contact name, kept only with a verbatim quote from the review.