This article explains what happened if your freelancer profile was switched to private by Upwork. If you haven’t been active or earning on Upwork for a while, your profile may be switched to private to keep search results relevant. This happens if you’re an established freelancer with no earnings for two years or a new freelancer without earnings or proposals within 90 days. A private profile won’t appear in client searches, but clients can still view it through proposals or direct links. To make your profile public again, simply log out and log back in, or adjust your settings.
If you haven’t been active and earning for a while, we may change your profile from public to private. This helps boost your visibility when you’re active and reduce the notifications you get when you’re not. It also helps keep results relevant for clients.
We’ll change your freelance profile from public to private if:
- You’re an established freelancer and don’t earn money on Upwork for two years or more
- You’re a new freelancer and don't earn money on Upwork within 90 days of your first proposal, or you don’t submit a proposal within your first 90 days
We'll notify you by email if we change your profile visibility to private.
What it means if your profile is private
Your profile won’t appear in search results when clients search for freelancers but they’ll still see your profile if you submit a proposal or share your profile link with them.
To reset your profile visibility
You can switch your profile back to public by simply logging out and back into your Upwork account again.
Note:
Your profile will be automatically reset to the visibility option you had. (The options are public, only to other Upwork users, or private.)
Frequently Asked Questions
If you haven’t been active and earning for a while, we may change your profile from public to private. This helps boost your visibility when you’re active and reduce the notifications you get when you’re not. It also helps keep results relevant for clients.
You can subscribe to a Freelancer Plus membership to ensure that your profile visibility is never set to private. If we have set it to private, simply log out and log back into your account, and your profile visibility will be automatically reset to the option you chose before the change. You can also reset your visibility manually in your profile settings.
New freelancers have a 90-day grace period to build up a successful stream of work before their profile visibility is set to private. Don’t forget, you can still submit proposals even if your profile is private — you just won’t appear in search results.
Rules are the same for all freelancers, regardless of agency status, and are based on your contracts’ earnings on behalf of your agency (as well as any individual contracts, if you’re non-exclusive). Exclusive agency freelancers can’t get a Plus membership, but they can switch their profile back to public by logging out and back into their account again or by updating their visibility in their profile settings.
Yes, we will send you an email when we change your profile to private. Even if we change your profile to private based on your activity or earnings, you can reset your profile visibility in your profile settings or by logging back into your account.
