Quick answer
Upwork recalculates the Job Success Score (JSS) every day from your contract outcomes over the last 6, 12 and 24 months and shows the best of the three. Its published formula, at a high level, is (successful contract outcomes - negative contract outcomes) / total outcomes. Good public feedback and long relationships, where payments run more than 90 days, count as successes. Bad feedback, disputes and negative reasons for ending a contract count against you, and bigger contracts weigh more. Contracts that end without feedback (unless the client kept paying for over 90 days), work whose last payment is more than 24 months old and feedback from clients Upwork has flagged or suspended don't count. A score appears after two or more contract outcomes in 24 months, with at least two clients. Private feedback no longer counts at all. I checked Upwork's help pages on 15 October 2026.
The formula Upwork publishes
I work on cold email and LinkedIn outbound for B2B companies. Many of the lead generation freelancers and agencies that founders shortlist sell through Upwork, and the Job Success Score is the first number on each of those profiles. Here is how it works, from Upwork's help pages.
Upwork's page on how the score is calculated gives the formula at a high level:
(successful contract outcomes - negative contract outcomes) / total outcomes
Two things follow from that line. A negative outcome hurts twice: it comes off the top and adds to the bottom. And with equal weights, nine good contracts and one bad one give (9 - 1) / 10 = 80%, not 90%. Upwork weights contracts differently, so treat that as an illustration of the shape, not a calculator.
The score is recalculated daily. Per Upwork's page on when the JSS is calculated, it takes your 6, 12 and 24 month history, works out a score for each window and shows the best one. Only contracts with a transaction inside the window count, and the clock starts from the contract's most recent payment, not the date it ended.
What counts toward the score
These come from Upwork's main JSS page, its Job Success insights guide and the pages linked in each row:
| Input | What it does to the score | Upwork page |
|---|---|---|
| Public feedback (1 to 5 stars and a written review) | Good feedback raises it, bad feedback lowers it | Job Success insights |
| The client's reason for ending the contract | A negative reason can mark the job unsuccessful, and the client can't change it later even if they edit their review | Changing feedback |
| Disputes | Count against the score | Factors that affect JSS |
| Long-term relationships | A job counts as successful when payments run more than 90 days past the client's first payment, with or without feedback | Job Success insights |
| Contract length | Every 90 days with payment counts as an extra "job", up to a weight of 8 jobs | Job Success insights |
| Contract value | Higher earnings move the score more, up or down | Main JSS page |
| Rate changes | Contracts with rate changes can have a bigger impact, positive or negative | Main JSS page |
| Enterprise clients | Hidden from public work history, still counted | Viewing feedback |
| Full refunds | The written review disappears from the profile, the rest of the client's feedback still counts | Refunds and feedback |
Upwork doesn't publish how many stars separate a good outcome from a bad one, or exactly how much extra weight a bigger contract gets. Guides that give star cut-offs or weight tables aren't quoting any current Upwork page I could find.
What the score leaves out
The Job Success insights guide lists the cases where a contract is "ineligible", meaning it isn't part of the calculation:
- Old work. Contracts whose last transaction was more than 24 months ago.
- Small jobs next to a big one. A higher-value contract can outweigh lower-value jobs and push them out.
- No money, no feedback. Contracts with no earnings, or cancelled before payment without any feedback.
- No feedback. Contracts where the client left none, except long-term relationships, which Upwork treats as positive "because the client keeps working with you".
- Problem clients. Clients who broke Upwork's policies. Upwork also tracks freelancers' feedback on clients, and feedback from a client it has flagged for poor collaboration, or suspended, doesn't count against you.
Two more things never reach the score: mid-contract feedback, which shows in work history but doesn't affect the JSS, and the optional private note a client can now leave at the end.
Disputes are not excluded. Don't assume a contract settled through Upwork's dispute process drops out of the score. Upwork's own pages say the opposite: "Disputed contracts and poor client experiences" are on its list of negative factors, and its page on why a JSS drops says a contract that ends "with no payment or with a dispute" lowers it. Unpaid contracts are the subtle case: with no feedback they don't count, but with negative feedback they can.
Private feedback no longer counts
For years the score also used a private rating that clients gave at the end of a contract and freelancers never saw. Plenty of guides still describe it. Upwork has removed it. Its page on client feedback now says private feedback "is no longer requested from your clients and no longer impacts your reputation, including your Job Success Score", and that only public feedback is considered.
In its place, a client can leave an optional private note. The freelancer or agency sees it after leaving their own feedback, or once 14 days have passed, and Upwork says it does not affect the score. One older page, the Job Success insights guide, still mentions private feedback that "may differ from public feedback". I'd go by the feedback pages, which describe the change directly.
When a score appears, changes or disappears
- Appears: once there are two or more contract outcomes within 24 months, with outcomes from at least two clients, per Upwork's page on when you get a JSS. The page names no minimum of billed hours.
- Changes with no new work: contracts age out of the windows. Upwork's example: a contract stops counting in the six-month window once it is six months and one day old.
- Moves before you see the review: feedback stays hidden for up to 14 days under Upwork's double-blind system, but the score updates daily, so it can move first. Upwork says so on its client review page.
- Disappears: when there are no longer two completed jobs with two different clients in the past 24 months, or when the contracts that remain are ineligible (Upwork).
- Can't be corrected by hand: Upwork says the score comes from an automated algorithm and its calculations "cannot be manually adjusted" (Upwork).
How an agency's score works
Per Upwork's page on agency scores, an agency's JSS is calculated the same way, but over all of the agency's contracts, from exclusive and non-exclusive members alike. Three details matter if you're hiring one:
- A member who is exclusive to the agency shows the agency's score on their profile, not their own. If the agency doesn't have enough outcomes yet, the member's personal score shows instead.
- When a member leaves, the score doesn't change straight away. Their work stays in it until it falls out of the best window.
- Adding freelancers with high scores doesn't lift it, because only contracts done for the agency count.
Agencies also don't get Upwork's Job Success insights page. The score is the main input to Upwork's Top Rated and Top Rated Plus badges, which need 90% or more. The thresholds and the rest of the badge rules are in what Upwork's agency badges measure.
How to read a score before you hire
Upwork's own guide for clients says small gaps, "say 91% versus 93%", matter less than large ones. Here is its scale with what I'd look at next:
| Score | What Upwork says | What to check next |
|---|---|---|
| 90% and above | Has "consistently delighted" clients | Whether recent contracts look like your project |
| 80 to 89% | Solid work, with indicators clients "see some room for improvement" | Which contracts ended badly, and why |
| 79% and below | "May indicate" trouble meeting clients' expectations | Usually a pass, unless the history explains it |
| No score | Not enough outcomes yet | Their work off Upwork and references |
Then keep in mind what the number hides:
- It's the best of three windows. A weak last six months doesn't show if the 24-month score is higher. Read the most recent contracts in the work history yourself.
- Some counted work is invisible to you. Enterprise contracts don't appear in public work history, and a fully refunded contract loses its written review.
- It only covers Upwork. An agency that finds most of its clients elsewhere can have a thin record and still be good.
- For an agency, it's everyone's work. The score next to the person pitching you may describe colleagues' contracts.
So ask. One question like this tells you more than the percentage:
"What were your last three Upwork contracts and how did each one end? Would the people who ran them work on my account?"
For the rest of the questions, use my 12-point checklist for vetting an outbound agency.
If it's your own score
Upwork's pages point one way: long, paid relationships help, and badly ended contracts hurt more than they look.
- Long contracts count extra. Each 90 days of payments weighs as another job, up to 8, and a client who keeps paying past 90 days counts as a success even without feedback.
- The ending matters as much as the review. A client can update a public review within 14 days if you enable it, but not the reason they chose for ending the contract.
- A refund doesn't erase a bad rating. It removes the written review from your profile, and Upwork says the rest of the client's feedback "will still be considered".
- A dispute is a negative outcome whichever way it's resolved, so settle problems before they get there.
Key takeaways
- Upwork's high-level formula is (successful outcomes - negative outcomes) / total outcomes, recalculated daily and shown as the best of the 6, 12 and 24 month windows.
- Feedback, the reason a contract ended, disputes, long relationships, contract length and contract value all count. Bigger contracts weigh more.
- Left out: contracts without feedback (unless paid past 90 days), unpaid contracts without feedback, work older than 24 months and flagged or suspended clients. Disputes are not left out.
- Private feedback no longer affects the score. Only public feedback does.
- An agency's score pools all its members' contracts. Read the recent work history and ask how the last contracts ended.
FAQ
How is the Upwork Job Success Score calculated?
Upwork describes it as (successful contract outcomes - negative contract outcomes) / total outcomes. It calculates a score for your last 6, 12 and 24 months every day and shows the best of the three, with bigger and longer contracts weighing more.
How many jobs do you need to get a Job Success Score?
Two or more contract outcomes within 24 months, with outcomes from at least two clients. Upwork names no minimum of billed hours, and contracts without feedback or earnings may not count toward that total.
What is a good Job Success Score on Upwork?
Upwork calls 90% or more excellent, and it's the level its Top Rated badge requires. Below 79%, Upwork says it may be hard to win new work.
Do disputes and refunds affect the Job Success Score?
Yes. Disputed contracts count against the score. A full refund removes the client's written review from your profile, but the rest of their feedback still counts.
Why did my JSS change when I had no new contracts?
Usually because older work aged out of one of the 6, 12 or 24 month windows, or a contract became ineligible. Upwork recalculates the score every day, so it can move with no new activity.