Unanswered invites

Clients use invites to reach out to specific freelancers or agencies after posting a job, and Upwork tells them to track the responses on the job post: answered invitations appear among the proposals, and those still waiting sit on the Invite Freelancers tab as unanswered. The job page shows the same split to freelancers, with invites sent and unanswered invites on separate lines.

It is not counted anywhere else. Upwork's proposal insights, the exact counts available to Freelancer Plus accounts, do not track unanswered invites at all, and the job's proposals range includes only invitations that were replied to.

Reading it. A high unanswered share means the client's chosen candidates are busy, selective or slow. For an open-market bidder that is useful: the client wanted someone specific and has not got them yet, so a strong proposal now competes with silence. A job where most invites were answered is a client whose shortlist is full.

For the invited, answer either way. Declining an invitation costs no Connects and does not affect future invitations, while leaving it unanswered keeps the client waiting and the lead going stale.

For agencies, your own pending invitations are the other side of this number. Every unanswered invitation to your agency is a free lead sitting on a client's job page.

How Upsight uses it. Upsight records unanswered invites with each reading of a job, beside invites sent and the interviewing count. It also lists the invitations each connected login receives in one inbox, with replies and new leads, so an agency sees its own pending invitations in one place.