How to submit a proposal on Upwork

Submitting a proposal is the easy part. Deciding which jobs deserve one, and what to write, is where the time and the Connects go. This page covers the mechanics first, then the two fields that actually decide the outcome.

Upwork owns this flow and changes it periodically. Where a number matters, such as the Connects cost of a specific job, read it off the apply page rather than from any guide, including this one.

The seven steps

1. Find a job worth applying to. Before reading the brief closely, look at the client: payment verified, total spend, hire rate, and how many people have already applied. A great brief from a client who has never hired is still a gamble.
2. Open the job and press Apply Now. This opens the proposal form. Nothing is charged yet.
3. Set your terms. An hourly rate, or a fixed bid. For larger fixed price work you can propose milestones, which signals that you have thought about sequencing.
4. Write the cover letter. This is the body of your proposal and the part that gets you shortlisted.
5. Answer the screening questions. Optional on some jobs, decisive on most.
6. Attach only what helps. One or two files that relate to this job.
7. Review and submit. Connects are deducted here.

The two fields that decide it

Everything above takes a few minutes. These two are where proposals are won or lost.

The cover letter

Open on the client's problem rather than your credentials. A client reading twenty proposals is looking for the one person who understood the brief, and stating the problem back to them in your own words is the fastest proof of that.

Then one piece of relevant proof, a short note on how you would begin, and one question you genuinely need answered to scope the work. That last part invites a reply, which is the only thing you are really trying to earn.

For the full structure, openings that work, and how long the letter should run, see the Upwork cover letter guide.

The screening questions

These are where most otherwise good proposals fall apart. The cover letter can be adapted from your own template; the screening answers cannot, because they are written by this client about this job.

Answer each one specifically, and treat them as part of the proposal rather than as paperwork after it. If a question asks for a similar project, name one and say what the outcome was. If it asks about availability, give a real answer rather than "flexible".

What to check before you submit

• The client's name and the project are right, if you adapted this from a previous letter.
• No placeholder text survived from your template.
• Your bid matches the scope you described, not a different version of it.
• The first two lines read well on their own, because that is what gets skimmed first.
• The letter is not longer than the brief it answers.

Where the Connects go

Connects are spent at submission, not at hire, and they are not returned if you lose. That makes the decision before step one the highest-leverage moment in the whole process: every proposal you do not send to a badly matched job is Connects kept.

This is the part software can genuinely help with. Saved filters narrow the feed to your niche, and AI qualification grades each job against criteria you wrote and tells you which one failed, before you open the apply page at all.

Related reading

• Is AI allowed for Upwork proposals?
• Upwork cover letters: structure, openings, and length
• How to write Upwork proposals that get hired