Upwork Badges: Top Rated
A few weeks ago, I posted about the Rising Talent badge, one of Upwork’s four badges earned by freelancers. Rising Talent is the easiest badge to receive since freelancers can attain this badge without completing any contracts. However, the other badges on Upwork–Top Rated, Top Rated Plus, and Expert Vetted–are much harder to earn. These badges are more influential to a freelancer’s platform identity and directly affect their ability to secure contracts. They must be achieved in order, reinforcing a hierarchy on Upwork. With each badge earned, the freelancer unlocks new perks on the platform. Today, I’m going to dive into the Top Rated Badge, which can be earned after a freelancer amasses a positive work history on Upwork. Like other badges, the Top Rated status appears on a freelancer’s profile, their proposals, and their projects on the Project Catalog.
Becoming Top Rated is the first step on the path to earning Top Rated Plus or Expert Vetted status and marks a freelancer’s entrance into Upwork’s badge hierarchy. The Top Rated badge requires extensive qualifications, but not as many as the Top Rated Plus and Expert Vetted badges. The higher the qualifications needed for a badge, the harder it is to get. Having any badge positively affects a user’s platform identity, but the benefits experienced by the freelancer are more significant as they work their way up the badge hierarchy.
While the Top Rated badge is the base within the hierarchy, it is still extremely difficult to earn. Only the top 10% of users are Top Rated on Upwork, and this status serves as proof of a strong reputation and positive feedback from previous clients. The Top Rated badge is intended to give successful freelancers a leg up and greatly influence a freelancer’s platform experience.
Despite the benefits this badge provides and its importance to freelancers, it is a calculation performed by the platform. As with all metrics on Upwork, a freelancer can lose their badge for various reasons, in turn affecting their platform identity and, therefore, their ability to secure work.
Earning Top Rated Status
Every two weeks, Upwork recalculates user metrics and updates who is eligible to earn Top Rated status. To qualify for the Top Rated badge, a freelancer must consistently complete quality work for several clients. Upwork uses platform metrics and mediation to gauge the quality and quantity of a user’s past contracts to determine who qualifies for the Top Rated badge. The badge, designed to demonstrate a freelancer’s successful work history, can only be earned by freelancers who have been consistently active or Upwork for over 3 months.
To understand how the badge is earned, freelancers must have a clear idea of what the Job Success Score is and how it is calculated (check out my blog post about how a freelancer’s JSS is determined). To earn a Top Rated badge, a freelancer must maintain a JSS of at least 90% or the Rising Talent badge for a few consecutive months. In addition to a strong JSS, the Top Rated badge requirements include an earnings history of at least $1,000 in the past year-to-date, alongside an accurate and updated profile including the freelancer’s current availability. Freelancers who have a hold on their account cannot qualify.
Perks of Being Top Rated
The Top Rated badge gives users control over their profile– freelancers can periodically request the removal of client feedback from their profile, offering Top Rated users the ability to control their JSS (since it is calculated based on client feedback.) The option to remove negative client feedback helps the freelancer maintain both their JSS and Top Rated status.
Being Top Rated helps freelancers gain recognition on the platform. This badge unlocks access to Upwork’s talent specialists and Job Digest email, both of which present customized contract opportunities to freelancers. In addition to assisting freelancers in identifying and completing proposals that best align with their skills and availability, Top Rated users gain access to faster payments on hourly contracts.
Clients prefer freelancers with badges. Since they demonstrate the user’s positive track record on the platform, clients have an assumed trust in these workers. Clients will often prioritize reviewing the proposals and interviewing these freelancers, as those who have a badge are considered the platform’s best. Since the Top Rated badge makes it much easier to secure work, users are very concerned with earning and maintaining their badge.
Here’s how a couple of the Top Rated freelancers from our study feel about the badge:
“I think probably the badge stuff is, I think, the nicest addition that I’ve seen, that I think just to have different people distinguished more… I know that to keep a Top Rated badge you have to stay over 90%, so there’s that number, and then I think people can filter by that. I imagine that’s looked at, because if I was looking for someone, why wouldn’t I want people in the echelon for that?” P45
“Since I have the Top Rated badge from Upwork, that helps a lot because they send me jobs, or I think they mark me as somebody who can complete the type of job that the client is posting and they send me the direct invitations, and sometimes I just reply to that direct invitation. I think it’s really important to pay attention to those badges that Upwork gives, because they do help.” P95
The benefits of the Top Rated badge mean that freelancers who achieve this status have to be strategic to maintain their platform identity. While the feedback removal feature provides freelancers some control over their JSS, freelancers have to carefully consider how every action they take on the platform could affect their metrics and, ultimately, their ability to maintain a Top Rated status. Badges are performance-based, meaning users must actively maintain their status by demonstrating continued success in every project they complete, maintaining adherence to Top Rated requirements.
Here’s one of our Top Rated freelancers reflecting on maintaining her status:
“Especially after I have the baby, I’m trying to think now of what I can do to just keep my top rated badge until I’m ready to ramp back up, so I’ve been trying to strategize that a little bit. Right now I’m mostly just doing the minimum I can do to give myself a little bit of something interesting to do. And then, yeah, going forward, especially after the baby comes, I’m really interested in just doing the minimum to keep that top rated badge.” P23
Although digital freelancing theoretically provides users with flexibility, platform metrics do not accommodate for changes in a freelancer’s work schedule. Once a user has solidified their platform identity, a level of flexibility is lost– freelancers have to continue to engage with the platform in a manner that allows them to preserve that platform capital. Taking a step back from Upwork can threaten a user’s reputation, so freelancers have to strategically take on contracts in order to maintain their adherence to the Top Rated requirements. Stay tuned for future blog posts about the Top Rated Plus and Expert Vetted Badge, each a subsequent step up the hierarchy of platform identity.
Written by Clea O’Neil.
