Upwork Statistics 2026: Revenue, Clients, GSV and AI Work

Upwork’s revenue decreased 2% year over year to $191.66 million in the second quarter of 2026, with 763,000 active clients. Gross services volume (GSV) per active client, the average client spend across Upwork’s platforms, reached a record $5,230. Fewer clients spending more each is the pattern behind most of the Upwork statistics below.

Upwork serves customers in over 180 countries. Its platforms and other workforce solutions enabled $4,028.386 million of GSV in 2025. The outlook has softened since then: full-year 2026 revenue guidance now stands at $730 million to $750 million, below the $835 million to $850 million range Upwork set in February. The data below covers revenue, GSV, clients, freelancers, fees, AI work, headcount, and how Upwork compares with Fiverr, drawn from Upwork’s investor releases and annual report.

Key Takeaways

• Upwork’s active clients fell from a then-record 851,000 at the end of 2023 to 763,000 in Q2 2026, while GSV per active client reached a record $5,230.
• Full-year 2026 revenue guidance moved from $835 million to $850 million in February to $760 million to $790 million in May and $730 million to $750 million in August.
• GSV from AI-related work accelerated to 53% year-over-year growth in Q3 2025, then growth eased to more than 22% in Q2 2026.
• Fiverr’s annual active buyers fell 21.9% to 2.7 million as of June 30, 2026, a steeper fall than Upwork’s drop of 4% in active clients.
• Revenue from Pakistan-based talent rose about 51% between 2023 and 2025, faster than any other named talent market.
• Skilled freelancers now represent 38% of US knowledge workers, up from 28% the prior year, per Upwork’s Future Workforce Index 2026.
• Adjusted EBITDA rose 12% to $64.053 million in Q2 2026 while GAAP net income fell 22% to $25.404 million.

Editor’s Choice

• Full-year 2025 revenue: $787.784 million, up 2% year over year.
• Freelance talent pool: more than 18 million professionals across 130 categories of work.
• 2025 GSV: $4,028.386 million, with approximately 71% generated from US clients.
• Full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA: $225.556 million, a 35% increase.
• Employees: approximately 630 as of December 31, 2025.
• Lifetime transactions: more than $30 billion in total transactions and services since Upwork’s founding.
• 2025 Marketplace take rate: 18.7%, up from 18.0% in 2024.

Upwork Statistics at a Glance

• GSV was $966.439 million in Q2 2026, a 3.6% year-over-year decrease.
• GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0.20, compared to $0.24 in the second quarter of 2025.
• Free cash flow was $35.938 million, compared to $65.626 million in the second quarter of 2025.
• Upwork returned $109.7 million to shareholders during the six months ended June 30, 2026, by repurchasing 8.3 million shares.
• Upwork secured a commitment letter to add a revolving credit facility of $150 million, announced with its first-quarter 2026 results.
• Upwork offers access to professionals spanning more than 10,000 skills.
• Gross profit margin slipped to 76% in Q2 2026 from 78% a year earlier.

Source: Upwork second quarter 2026 financial results, August 10, 2026

About This Data

Figures are compiled from 13 sources: 11 Upwork investor releases, Upwork’s 2025 Form 10-K and Fiverr’s SEC-filed second quarter 2026 release. They were published between February 2024 and August 2026. Only company filings and Upwork Research Institute studies qualified. Figures are reviewed on a rolling basis and updated when Upwork publishes new results.

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Upwork Revenue by Year

• Revenue grew 2% year over year to $787.784 million for full year 2025.
• Revenue grew 12% year over year in full year 2024, after 11% growth in full year 2023.
• Marketplace revenue increased to $682.883 million, or 3%, for the year ended December 31, 2025.
• Enterprise revenue decreased to $104.901 million, or 2%, in 2025, as Upwork paused its efforts to acquire new Enterprise clients to prioritize the transition to the Lifted platform.
• Marketplace accounted for 87% of total revenue in 2025, up from 86% in 2024.
• Total revenue rose about 27% between 2022 and 2025.

Recent Developments

• September 9, 2026: Upwork senior management was scheduled for a fireside chat at The Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, September 9, 2026.
• August 10, 2026: Upwork reported second-quarter revenue of $191.66 million and adjusted EBITDA of $64.053 million, a 33% adjusted EBITDA margin.
• August 10, 2026: Built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Upwork announced the Upwork MCP server, which lets a user’s AI agent access Upwork’s Marketplace directly, and it is available for every Upwork client and freelancer at no additional cost.
• July 29, 2026: Fiverr reported second quarter 2026 revenue of $97.8 million, a decrease of 10.0% year over year.
• July 14, 2026: Upwork’s Future Workforce Index 2026 found that over 1 in 3 skilled US knowledge workers now freelance.
• June 2026: Lifted migrated its first wave of enterprise customers onto its new platform at the end of June.

Upwork Quarterly Revenue and GSV

• Upwork achieved record quarterly revenue of $201.73 million in Q3 2025.
• Revenue decreased 2% year over year to $191.66 million in Q2 2026.
• Revenue grew 1% year over year to $195.483 million in the first quarter of 2026.
• Marketplace revenue fell 2% while Enterprise revenue rose 2% in the three months ended June 30, 2026.

GSV, the total client spend that revenue is drawn from, hit its high for this period and then slipped:

• GSV reached $1,020.332 million in Q4 2025, up 3% year over year.
• GSV was $987.11 million in the first quarter of 2026, down 0.1% year over year.
• GSV was $966.439 million in Q2 2026, a 3.6% year-over-year decrease.

How many clients use Upwork?

• Upwork had 763,000 active clients in Q2 2026, down 4% from 796,000 a year earlier.
• Active clients grew 5% year over year to a then-record 851,000 at the end of 2023.
• The number of active clients decreased 6% as of December 31, 2025, driven by slower growth in acquisition of new clients.
• Active clients fell about 10% from the end of 2023 to Q2 2026.

Spend per client moved the other way:

• GSV per active client reached a record $5,230 in Q2 2026, marking the eighth consecutive quarter of sequential growth.
• GSV per active client was $5,129 in 2025, the figure Upwork reports for the fourth quarter of 2025, up 7%, after a 1% decline to $4,815 in 2024.
• GSV per active client of $5,138 increased 5% year over year in the first quarter of 2026.

How many people use Upwork?

Upwork counted 763,000 active clients in Q2 2026, the businesses paying for work. On the supply side, the Upwork Marketplace has more than 18 million professionals across 130 categories of work. The two figures describe different sides of the marketplace: buyers who spend and professionals available to hire.

How many freelancers are on Upwork?

• The Upwork Marketplace has more than 18 million professionals, including a global pool of AI-skilled talent, across 130 categories of work.
• Approximately 25% of GSV in 2025 was generated from US talent, making the United States the company’s largest talent geography.
• Skilled freelancers now represent 38% of US knowledge workers, up from 28% the prior year.
• The Future Workforce Index 2026 is based on a survey of 2,400 US-based skilled workers conducted March to April 2026, with a margin of error of 2% at the 95% confidence level.

Source: Upwork Claude Connector release, Q2 2026 results and 2025 Form 10-K, 2026

The survey covers US skilled knowledge workers, employees and freelancers alike, not only the freelance workforce that sells work on Upwork. It still matters for the marketplace: a growing pool of skilled freelancers chasing fewer active clients puts pressure on rates for routine work.

Source: Upwork Research Institute, Future Workforce Index 2026 (survey of 2,400 US skilled workers, March to April 2026)

Upwork Revenue by Talent and Client Location

• Talent outside the four named countries generated $171.712 million of 2025 revenue, part of the $443.338 million Upwork attributes to talent by billing address; the other $344.446 million of the $787.784 million total is attributed to clients.
• US-based talent generated $113.984 million of revenue in 2025.
• Revenue from Pakistan-based talent rose about 51% between 2023 and 2025, against about 19% for US-based talent.
• Revenue from India-based talent fell about 6% in 2025.
• In 2025, approximately 71% of GSV was generated from US clients, compared to approximately 70% and 69% in 2024 and 2023.
• India and the Philippines were Upwork’s next largest talent geographies after the United States in all three years.

Upwork Net Income and Adjusted EBITDA

• Adjusted EBITDA was $225.556 million in 2025, a 35% increase compared to $167.593 million in 2024.
• GAAP net income was $115.425 million in 2025, compared to $215.586 million in 2024.
• GAAP net income for 2024 includes a non-cash income tax benefit of $140.3 million related to the release of a valuation allowance on certain deferred tax assets.
• Free cash flow was $223.12 million in 2025, compared to $139.119 million in 2024.
• Adjusted EBITDA was $64.053 million in Q2 2026, up 12% year over year.

Upwork Take Rate and Fees

• Marketplace take rate increased to 18.7% for the year ended December 31, 2025, reflecting the growing contributions from ads and monetization products.
• Effective May 2025, talent on the Upwork Marketplace are charged a fixed fee for each new contract ranging from 0% to 15% of their earnings, depending on factors such as project type, job availability, and client demand.
• Revenue from Ads & Monetization grew 19% year over year in Q3 2025, with Connects revenue up 18% and Freelancer Plus subscription revenue up 24%.

Source: Upwork 2025 Form 10-K, 2026

What are the disadvantages of Upwork?

Two figures in the filings matter most for freelancers weighing the downsides: fees and a shrinking buyer base.

Talent pays a fixed fee of 0% to 15% of earnings on each new contract, and active clients fell 4% year over year to 763,000 in Q2 2026. For freelancers, fewer active clients means fewer buyers to pitch, even as average client spend rises.

Upwork AI Work Statistics

• GSV from AI-related work surpassed $300 million on an annualized basis in Q4 2025, up more than 50% from the prior year.
• GSV from AI Integration & Automation, the largest AI-related work sub-category, grew more than 50% year over year in Q1 2026.
• GSV from AI Strategy & Consulting grew over 50% year over year in Q2 2026, while GSV from AI-related work overall increased more than 22%.
• Freelancers performing AI work on the Upwork Marketplace earn 34% more per hour than those not incorporating AI.
• Generative AI and creative production work saw 90% year-over-year growth in contract starts while per-contract earnings declined 13%.
• Freelancers doing more complex work with AI saw earnings increase 45% year over year.

Source: Upwork full-year 2024 results and quarterly results, Q3 2025 to Q2 2026

Key finding: Upwork’s Future Workforce Index 2026 found that AI-augmented professional services, where domain experts integrate AI into established fields, grew 72% in volume with earnings rising 22%. The premium is moving toward judgment-heavy work, while simpler AI execution earns less per contract as more freelancers offer it.

Hayden Brown, president and CEO of Upwork, framed the same shift in the second-quarter release: “While lower-complexity work continues to shift toward automation, we are increasingly seeing what is emerging in its place”. That split explains why demand for AI skills can rise alongside wider AI job loss data: automation takes the routine tasks, and new AI work appears above them. Skills that explicitly reference AI grew 109% year over year, including AI video generation and editing at 329%.

Upwork is also placing its marketplace inside AI assistants. The Upwork Claude Connector is a new app inside Anthropic’s Claude, and it follows the launch of an Upwork app for ChatGPT in April.

Upwork Business Plus and Enterprise Statistics

• For small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), Q2 2026 GSV from Upwork’s Business Plus offering for SMB increased 24% quarter over quarter and 174% year over year.
• Q2 2026 Business Plus active clients grew 16% quarter over quarter and 219% year over year.
• Q4 2025 Business Plus active clients grew 49% quarter over quarter.
• 38% of active clients on Business Plus in Q2 2026 had their first Upwork spend on Business Plus.
• In Lifted’s employer of record (EOR) business, Q2 2026 GSV from the EOR offering within Enterprise Solutions increased 29% year over year.

Upwork’s agentic talent sourcing solution for Business Plus clients, an AI recruitment tool applied to freelance hiring, reduced the median time to receive a high-quality talent shortlist by more than 75%.

Upwork Employee Count and Restructuring

• Upwork had approximately 630 employees as of December 31, 2025.
• Upwork announced a restructuring plan that includes a reduction of the company’s total workforce by approximately 24%, alongside its first-quarter results.
• Upwork estimated approximately $16 million to $23 million in pre-tax restructuring charges, consisting primarily of severance and other one-time termination costs.
• Upwork expects execution of the restructuring plan to be substantially complete in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Source: Upwork 2025 Form 10-K and first and second quarter 2026 results, 2026

Upwork incurred $13.8 million in costs related to the execution of the restructuring announced in May 2026 during the three and six months ended June 30, 2026. It also engaged approximately 1,600 independent team members through its platforms for internal projects in 2025.

Upwork vs Fiverr Statistics

• Fiverr’s second quarter 2026 revenue was $97.8 million, while Upwork’s $191.66 million was about 2.0 times as much.
• Fiverr’s annual active buyers were 2.7 million as of June 30, 2026, compared to 3.4 million as of June 30, 2025, a decline of 21.9% year over year, against a drop of 4% in Upwork’s active clients.
• Fiverr’s annual spend per buyer reached $368, an increase of 15.6% year over year, while Upwork’s GSV per active client was $5,230 in Q2 2026.
• Fiverr’s marketplace take rate was 28.0% for the twelve months ended June 30, 2026, against Upwork’s 2025 Marketplace take rate of 18.7%.
• Fiverr founder and CEO Micha Kaufman said that “Our second quarter results reflect a market that is changing faster than expected, driven by rapid AI adoption”.

Source: Upwork Q2 2026 results and 2025 Form 10-K; Fiverr Q2 2026 results (SEC Form 6-K), 2026

By the numbers: Upwork’s Q2 2026 revenue of $191.66 million was about 2.0 times Fiverr’s $97.8 million, while Fiverr’s annual active buyers fell 21.9% against a fall of 4% in Upwork’s active clients. Both marketplaces are losing low-value work to AI tools, but Fiverr’s buyer base is shrinking faster.

Who is better, Fiverr or Upwork?

Neither is better for every buyer, and the spend figures suggest the two serve different job sizes. Upwork’s GSV per active client was $5,230 in Q2 2026, while Fiverr’s annual spend per buyer was $368. The gap points to larger, longer engagements on Upwork and smaller tasks on Fiverr; the metrics are defined differently, so treat the ratio as indicative.

Upwork 2026 Revenue Guidance

• Upwork’s initial guidance for full-year 2026 set revenue at $835 million to $850 million.
• The latest guidance sets full-year 2026 revenue at $730 million to $750 million and adjusted EBITDA at $225 million to $235 million.
• Third quarter 2026 revenue guidance is $176 million to $184 million.

Source: Upwork fourth quarter 2025, first quarter 2026 and second quarter 2026 results, 2026

Why it matters: The midpoint of Upwork’s full-year 2026 revenue guidance fell about 12% between February and August, while adjusted EBITDA guidance stands at $225 million to $235 million, below the May range in the table above. Upwork cut both its revenue and profit outlook in August, so the year now depends on restructuring savings arriving on schedule.

Why is Upwork stock falling?

Upwork’s results releases do not comment on its share price, but they show the trends behind the question. Full-year 2026 revenue guidance now sits at $730 million to $750 million, GSV decreased 3.6% year over year in Q2 2026, and Brown described “solid execution against our strategic plan in a challenging operating environment”.

Is Upwork in decline?

By client count and volume, yes; by spend per client and adjusted EBITDA margin, no. Active clients fell 4% to 763,000, and GSV fell 3.6% in Q2 2026, yet GSV per active client reached a record $5,230 and adjusted EBITDA margin rose to 33% from 29%.

Upwork is shrinking toward a smaller base of bigger buyers. Whether that counts as decline depends on whether AI-related work, Business Plus, and Lifted can grow faster than smaller clients leave.

Conclusion

Upwork’s latest quarter brought revenue of $191.66 million and 763,000 active clients, with GSV per active client at a record $5,230. The figures describe a marketplace trading breadth for depth: fewer clients, larger budgets and a wider adjusted EBITDA margin. Its own guidance keeps moving lower.

Upwork expects third-quarter revenue of $176 million to $184 million. If AI-related work and Business Plus keep compounding while routine jobs move to automation, spend per client should keep rising; if not, client losses will set the pace of the next refresh.