Upwork Connects: costs, free Connects and a calculator

Connects are Upwork's virtual tokens. Freelancers spend them to send proposals and to use promotion features such as boosted proposals. Each project shows how many Connects a proposal needs, so you know the cost before you send anything.

Connects work as a filter as much as a fee. Because every proposal has a price, sending fewer, better-targeted proposals costs less than sending many generic ones, and it usually reads better to clients too.

Upwork help center: understanding and using Connects

Upwork sells Connects for $0.15 (USD) each, in bundles. That is the price on Upwork's help center as of October 27, 2026, and you need a verified billing method on your account to buy them.

Upwork pays for Connects from your earnings balance first. If the balance does not cover the whole purchase, it charges your billing method for the full amount instead: it does not split one purchase between the two.

Upwork help center: how to buy Connects

The number of Connects varies from project to project, and Upwork shows it on the project before you send a proposal. If you boost a proposal, the Connects you add for the boost come on top of that cost.

Because the cost changes with each project, track the Connects you actually spend in a typical week instead of guessing from a single project. That weekly figure is the starting point for the calculator above.

Upwork help center: how many Connects a proposal needs

There are three ways to get Connects:

• Buy them: Upwork sells Connects in bundles from your account settings.
• Earn free Connects: Upwork grants free Connects for selected activities and milestones, such as onboarding steps and earning talent badges.
• Freelancer Plus: the paid membership includes a monthly allowance of Connects.

Upwork changes the free amounts and conditions from time to time, so check its own pages for the current numbers before you plan a budget.

Upwork: how to get free Connects

The price of one Connect is the smallest part of the picture. The numbers that matter are what you spend for each reply and for each client you win:

• Cost per proposal = Connects per proposal × price per Connect.
• Cost per reply = cost per proposal ÷ reply rate.
• Cost per client won = cost per proposal ÷ (reply rate × win rate).

A worked example, with illustrative inputs rather than benchmarks: 12 Connects per proposal at $0.15 is $1.80 a proposal. At a 10% reply rate that is $18 per reply, and if 20% of replies become clients, it is $90 per client won. Change any field in the calculator to see your own figures.

The cheapest proposal is the one you never send to a project that was not a fit. Before you spend Connects, check:

• Fit: does the project match the service in your profile title?
• Clarity: is the brief specific enough to answer with a concrete plan?
• Client signals: is the client's payment method verified, and does their history show past spend and reviews? Upwork client red flags lists the warning signs to look for.
• Budget: does the budget match your rate?
• Competition: how many proposals has the project already received?

upwin's match score runs this kind of check for you. It compares each project with your profile and goal, so you can decide where your Connects go before you spend them.

It depends on what a client is worth to you. Compare your cost per client won with the value of a typical first project: if one client pays back many times what you spent to win them, buying Connects is a normal business cost.

If your cost per client won is high, buying more Connects rarely fixes it. Raising your reply rate does: a clearer profile (see the Upwork profile optimization guide) and better-targeted proposals lower every number in the calculator.

Boosting spends extra Connects to place your proposal higher in the client's list. It makes sense when your fit with the project is strong and the client is active, and it rarely rescues a proposal that does not fit.

Count boosted Connects as part of your cost per proposal when you use the calculator, and check Upwork's help page for how boosting works today.

Upwork help center: how to boost your proposal