UI/UX Designer Victoria Boyarchuk shared her experience of finding a customer on Upwork and volunteering to work for a small fee without assessing the scale of the work.
UI/UX Designer Victoria Boyarchuk shared her experience of finding a customer on Upwork and volunteering to work for a small fee without assessing the scale of the work.
«Finally, I got my first project on Upwork. And what do you think? $50 for the entire project. I knew perfectly well that I was agreeing to a fixed-rate project. $50 for the entire job — no more, no less. But without experience, it’s hard to really assess the scope of the tasks, and I think I slightly underestimated the scale…», she admits .
At that moment, the girl thought: this is a start, a first step, a chance to get a real case in the portfolio and understand how everything works. «But when I immersed myself in the process, I realized that the volume of tasks clearly did not match the price. This familiar feeling appeared: „Maybe it was worth waiting for a better offer?“,» says Victoria.
Despite this, the specialist got down to work: «I decided that it’s not so much about money as about opportunity and experience. After all, every start is something. It’s a chance to create a portfolio, understand how the platform works, how to interact with clients, what they really want. So I agreed. But now I’m thinking: was it a really useful experience, or just a lesson on how not to get a cheap client?»
The girl published the results of her work and asked the community for their opinions on the task and its cost. «I did it in about 4 days, because the client wanted everything as quickly as possible. I worked 12+ hours a day to make it happen,» Victoria said.
Now she admits that she doesn’t regret anything, but she wouldn’t agree to such an offer again. «How do you distinguish 'useful experience' from banal dumping?» she asked the experts.
There are over 70 comments under Victoria’s post.
Mykhailo Dolynsky, Strong Middle UI/UX & Web Designer, said that his first commercial project was the design of an online store, for which the man was paid 1,000 UAH, which the intermediary gave from his own pocket.
«I worked on it for several weeks, if I’m not mistaken, and the customer simply took the mockups and stopped responding,» he said.
According to Mikhail, $50 for such a project is not enough. «But, I think, for a start, it is much better than not having such experience or working for free,» the specialist says.
Mykhailo advises to continue to price your work based on market conditions and not to devalue yourself and your time. «As I already mentioned, for starters, the most important thing is to gain experience, and good money will come over time, given today’s market, so „dumping“ at this stage, in my opinion, is normal,» he says.
«If you want to pump up your profile, you need to be prepared for such orders and budgets. Also, such projects can be a test drive for further long-term cooperation,» says Nata Sheker, AI-Driven Product Strategist & UX Business Architect.
Team Lead and Product Engineer Yevgeny Turovets said that he actually did the first projects on Upwork for people in exchange for reviews. «The strategy was to get 2-3 reviews as quickly as possible and earn rising talent. And it worked! After 2-3 reviews, it’s much easier to take orders. So we think you’re investing in promotion,» he said.
«I remember I did my first commercial project for $10. And even though it was just a landing page, it took me 11 hours to do it. Now, of course, I make creosote more expensively, but I am very grateful for that experience because it helped me understand the value of my work and bring in new, more expensive clients. So use this case to get new clients who, like you, will understand your value,» advises Senior Product Designer Igor Dobzhansky .
«It’s good that you took on this, even if it’s almost free. I did the same thing at the start. Learning from a real client is very valuable for your career. In general, it turned out really cool!», noted Yulia Bilonog, UI/UX designer.
