When you submit a project, we will look at it before clients can purchase it. We want to help make sure that your project displays professionalism and meets our Terms of Service. We may look at grammar and spelling too. This not only helps build trust with prospective clients, but helps keep Upwork a professional platform.
Our review can take a few business days. We’ll send you an email if we think anything should be changed. Editing is a normal part of the creative process, so don’t be discouraged if we ask you to make some changes. We also encourage you to proofread on your own or ask someone you trust to help.
Keep reading for a section-by-section breakdown of what we look for when we review your projects. While these are the main things we look for, this isn’t a comprehensive list. A reviewer might contact you asking for additional information or edits.
Overview
Your project’s overview consists of its title, category, project attributes, and search tags. The information you include here is your first impression to prospective clients, so you’ll want it to shine.
In the title, our review includes:
- Making sure that your service is clearly described
- Making sure that your service is in a category that is permitted on Upwork
In some cases, we may also review your category, grammar, and spelling.
NOTE:
The category you select needs to reflect a service you can offer on Upwork. For example, you can’t use Upwork to sell pre-made products like crafts or off-the-shelf software, or services we don’t cover, like dog grooming (even though we really love dogs).
Pricing
You set the price of your project, and you also determine what’s included within each package, including any add-ons. If you’re offering a custom add-on or custom tier, we’ll review your title and description to make sure that your text is free of:
- Personal contact information
- Inappropriate content that violates our Terms of Service
If you are offering a consultation project, you’ll decide whether to offer 30- or 60-minute appointments, and the price for each. Since add-ons and tiers aren’t part of consultations, you won’t see an option to offer those.
Gallery
Aside from the title in the overview section, the gallery is one of the most important parts of your project. Where the title catches the attention of prospective clients, your gallery should showcase the quality of your work.
In this section, we may check to make sure that the content you include is high-quality and clearly communicates what you offer. When reviewing content, we look for:
- Aesthetics — We may check your images and videos for cropping, image resolution, density of text, and other aesthetic concerns.
- Accuracy — We may check to make sure your content is an accurate reflection of you, your work experience, and the services you are offering for this specific project.
- Clear and professional content — We make sure that your images have content that is easy to understand and professional, free of clickbait-like qualities, competitor logos, policy violations, etc.
Description
The description of your project is where a potential client can get a deeper understanding of the work you’re offering. You caught their eye with your title and samples — now is your chance to detail your capabilities, process, and more.
There are three parts to the description section: project summary, project steps, and FAQs. We’ll check each section to be sure it is free from personal contact and payment information and meets Upwork’s Terms of Service.
Descriptions and details for consultations
For consultations, you’ll describe the areas of expertise where you can offer guidance. You can choose multiple areas and add your own custom ones. You’ll also be able to describe your service. You can explain the kind of guidance you can provide and the kind of questions you can answer. We’ll review this section to ensure it meets Upwork’s Terms of Service. We may also check for clarity, spelling, and grammar.
Requirements
The requirements section is where you can ask the client for everything you’ll need to successfully complete the project. This can be anything from asking for their standard business information like company name, information resources, or access to their software platforms.
For consultations, you’ll be able to ask the client to describe what they need to get from the consultation and request any other information you need to prepare. We’ll review this section to ensure it meets Upwork’s Terms of Service. We may also check spelling and grammar and the alignment of your requirements with your project steps and deliverables.
Re-review
Once your project is live, you can always make changes or updates. When you do, we may review it again.
If you decide to change the category of your project, we will temporarily remove it from Project Catalog while we take a look. For other changes, we leave the project available to buy while it’s being reviewed again, unless we have a particular concern about the change.
If we see any problems with an edit or something you added, such as a video, we will let you know by email and give you a chance to fix it.
Frequently Asked Questions
The approval process can take a few weeks due to the high number of projects that are submitted each day. We'll be sure to email you when we have finished reviewing.
