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An invitation to apply signals client interest in a freelancer’s profile or that Upwork has identified the profile as a likely match. Freelancers can accept, decline, or ignore the invite, and responding quickly is recommended. Accepted invites become active proposals with messaging options. All pre-contract communication must remain on Upwork.


Congratulations on being invited to apply to a job post!

An invitation to apply is either:

  • A message sent directly from a client asking you to discuss their job and submit a proposal — it means something about your profile caught their attention OR
  • An automatic invitation from Upwork to submit a proposal — it’s based on your profile being a likely match for a client’s Featured Job post

PRO TIP:

Many successful freelancers have found it's best to accept or decline invitations as soon as possible.

Respond to an invitation

Note:

In some cases, the steps to respond to an invitation may look different than what you see below. You may have to answer questions from the client by completing an instant interview with Uma™, Upwork’s Mindful AI, as part of your proposal instead of doing a cover letter. Learn more about instant interviews.

  1. Go to Find Work > Proposals and offers
  2. In the "Invitations to apply" section, select the job’s title
  3. From there, you can either:
    • Accept and send a proposal: You can accept the terms as offered or propose new terms in your proposal. You can also include a cover letter, additional attachments to prove your expertise, and a message for the client
    • Decline: Select a reason. You can send a message to the client letting them know why you're passing on the invitation. Do not give the client your contact information when you decline (this is against our Terms of Service)
    • Ignore: This moves the invitation into your archived area. While you can accept or decline it later, ignoring an invitation does NOT count as a response

You can also open invitations directly from your notifications — look for them in the bell icon on your nav bar.

Active proposals

After you accept an invitation and send a proposal, the client may or may not respond. If they do, the invitation or proposal becomes an active proposal and a message room is created for you and the client to continue discussing the project. If you work in an agency, you'll be placed in a message room with the client and your agency business manager.

You or the client may have additional questions for each other and can communicate through messages. The client may want to do a voice or video interview using Upwork’s tools in messages as a next step. They may also respond to your proposal with an offer.

Learn more about our best practices for interviews here

Learn more about negotiating terms directly from an offer here

Send a message

  1. Go to Find work > Proposals and offers
  2. In the Active proposals section, choose the job’s title
  3. Write your message to the client and choose Send

To help our users connect as safely as possible, we require that you do not request or share any contact information and keep all direct communications on Upwork until you start a contract. This means you cannot share your contact information in your profiles, proposals, job postings, invites, or other pre-hire contacts.

All introductions, interviews, and project scoping communications need to use Upwork's collaboration tools.

We provide secure tools for clients and freelancers to communicate directly from the Upwork platform. Once a freelancer accepts a client’s offer, you can choose to share your contact information and use other tools to manage your project, too.

Change proposal rate or bid

You may decide to update your proposal before creating a final contract. You can only make updates to some parts of your proposal, such as your cover letter, for six hours or until the client views it, whichever comes first. But you can update some terms, such as your bid rate, until you accept a contract offer. Learn more about editing proposals.

To keep things fair, neither clients nor talent can offer the other extra rewards for winning a contract. For example, a client should never request or offer you anything besides the contracted funds to work with them. And you shouldn't request or offer them anything, beyond the contracted services, to win their contract. Clients can, however, pay a bonus on the contract for excellent work, if they'd like.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who can work on an agency contract?

The agency has full control over who works on their contracts. The best practice is to be transparent with your client on who is doing the work, but it’s not usually necessary for every member working for the client to have their own contract.

However, agency members, like all Upwork users, must not share accounts, so on an hourly contract, only the freelancer named on the contract can log time with the Upwork desktop app. Time from other agency members would have to be added to the Work Diary manually or be paid via bonuses. There is no time tracking for fixed-price contracts.

Who gets invited to an active candidacy message room if I work in an agency?
If you work in an agency, you’ll be placed in a message room with the client and your agency business manager. If you submitted the proposal and you are the business manager of your agency, you and the client will be the only ones in the message room. The agency owner will only be invited to the message room if there’s no business manager available.

Question: Do I need to use Connects to accept an invitation? Will you deduct Connects when accepting an invitation?
Answer: Yes. Currently, freelancers will be charged with Connects when applying for an invitation. As an option, setting up a Project Catalog won't require Connects and it's a great opportunity to start earning.

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