What Is a Good Job Success Score on Upwork? How JSS Works

Short answer: Upwork itself calls a Job Success Score of 90% or above "excellent", and 90% is the minimum for Top Rated. It warns that below 79% you "may find it difficult to connect with new clients or win new projects." Upwork recalculates the score daily over your last 6, 12 and 24 months and shows the best of the three.

Everything below sticks to what Upwork documents in its Help Center, linked inline. Upwork does not publish the JSS formula or the weight of each factor. Anyone who claims to give you the exact math is reverse-engineering it, and we don't.

What is the Upwork Job Success Score?

The Job Success Score (JSS) is Upwork's measure of how satisfied your clients are with your work. It's a percentage shown on your profile and proposals. It reflects your contract history and feedback: what clients said, why contracts ended, how much they were worth, and how long clients kept working with you. Agencies get one too.

Per Upwork's JSS article, if you're exclusive to an agency, your profile shows the agency's JSS rather than an individual score. You can see your own breakdown in Job Success insights (Profile icon, then Stats and trends, then View insights). Insights aren't yet available for agencies or exclusive agency freelancers.

What is a good Job Success Score on Upwork?

90% or higher. Upwork calls that excellent and makes it a requirement for Top Rated. Below 79%, Upwork says winning work may become difficult. Upwork doesn't label the band between 79% and 89%. Read it as above the warning line but below the badge threshold, so there's room to improve but no emergency.

Source for the two thresholds: All about your Job Success Score. No JSS at all is not a bad score. New freelancers simply don't have one yet.

When do you get your first JSS?

Your score appears once you have two or more contract outcomes within 24 months, and outcomes with at least two different clients. Until then, your profile shows no JSS. You can still earn the Rising Talent badge before you have a score, and Job Success insights shows your progress toward a first JSS.

Sources: When will I get a JSS? and the Rising Talent article. If you're still working toward a first contract, start with how to get your first job on Upwork.

How does Upwork calculate the JSS?

Upwork calculates it daily from three windows, your last 6, 12 and 24 months, and displays the best of the three. The inputs it names are client feedback (public and private), why contracts ended, contract value, and long-term relationships. Higher-value contracts move the score more. The exact formula and weights are not published.

Here is everything Upwork documents about the inputs, from the JSS article, the Job Success insights article and the JSS factors article:

• Client satisfaction. Positive feedback raises the score; negative feedback lowers it. Upwork no longer requests private feedback from clients, so only public feedback counts toward your JSS; a client's optional private note in the workroom does not affect it (source).
• Long-term relationships. A job counts as successful when payments continue more than 90 days past the client's first payment, even if the client leaves no feedback. Not having long-term clients "does not count against you," per the JSS article.
• Contract length. Every 90 days with payment counts as an extra "job" in the calculation, up to a maximum weight of eight jobs.
• Earnings. Higher-earning jobs have a bigger impact, positive or negative.
• Rate changes. Contracts with rate changes can have a greater overall impact, in either direction.
• How contracts end. Contracts that end with no payment or with a dispute count against you (source).

What Upwork doesn't publish: how much each factor weighs, or how the 6, 12 and 24-month windows are combined beyond "best of." Treat any precise percentages you see elsewhere as guesses.

Which contracts don't count toward your JSS?

Contracts are excluded when their last transaction is over 24 months old, when they had no earnings or were cancelled before payment without feedback, when the client left no feedback (unless it was a long-term relationship), or when the client broke Upwork's policies. Feedback from clients Upwork has flagged for poor collaboration doesn't count against you either.

Upwork also says a newly added higher-value contract can outweigh smaller jobs and push them out of the calculation. Each ineligible contract shows its reason in Job Success insights. Upwork's tip: if your score moves without new feedback, a contract probably just became ineligible (source). One more rule: a contract with no payment but negative feedback can still hurt you (source).

What JSS do you need for Top Rated and the other badges?

Top Rated requires a current JSS of 90% or higher, and 90% or higher (or Rising Talent status) for at least 13 of the last 16 weeks. Top Rated Plus requires keeping Top Rated status and adds earnings and large-contract requirements. Rising Talent requires 90% or higher only if you already have a JSS.

Sources: Top Rated, Top Rated Plus and Rising Talent. Upwork describes Top Rated as the top 10% of talent. What counts as a "large contract" for Top Rated Plus depends on the category. It is $5,000 for Writing and Design & Creative and $15,000 for Web, Mobile & Software Development, and the full table is on Upwork's page. Agencies have higher thresholds.

A rule that costs people their badges: if you take or direct payments outside Upwork, or repeatedly communicate off-platform before a contract starts, you lose Rising Talent, Top Rated or Top Rated Plus and can't earn them back for six months.

Why did your JSS drop or disappear?

A drop usually means negative feedback, a contract that ended with no payment or a dispute, a long-term client relationship ending, or a poor review on a high-value job. The score disappears when you no longer have two eligible completed contracts with two different clients in the last 24 months, often after long inactivity.

Sources: Why did my JSS drop? and Why did my JSS disappear? If you think the calculation is wrong, Upwork has a dedicated article on reporting JSS mistakes. If the drop came with restrictions on your account, check your status in the Account Health hub.

Does refunding a client protect your JSS?

Not fully. A full refund removes the client's written public review from your profile, but their other ratings, such as the 1-to-5 scores in specific areas, still count toward your JSS. Upwork says refunding to avoid a bad review "may not have the result you're expecting" and recommends resolving the client's concerns instead.

Source: If I give my client a full refund… Upwork does return the service fee on refunded amounts, so a refund costs you the payment, not the fee as well.

How do you recover a low JSS?

Add good outcomes faster than old ones age out. Because Upwork shows the best of your 6, 12 and 24-month scores, a strong recent six months can surface even if older history is weaker. Longer contracts with steady payments carry extra weight. Avoid disputes, and close stalled contracts carefully, because unpaid contracts with negative feedback still count.

The levers below follow from what Upwork documents. Which one matters most for you is our judgement, not Upwork policy:

• Win the next few contracts cleanly. Choose jobs you're sure you can deliver. A recovery runs on recent, positive, paid outcomes.
• Prefer ongoing work. Each 90 days of payment counts as an extra job, up to eight, so one steady client can outweigh several one-off gigs.
• Agree scope in writing before you start. Most bad outcomes start as mismatched expectations, and disputes and unpaid endings hurt the score.
• Talk before the contract closes. Fix concerns while the client can still see the result. A refund won't erase the private ratings.
• Watch Job Success insights. It shows which contracts are hurting you and when old ones stop counting.
• Make sure the right clients find you. Better-matched clients produce better outcomes. LevelUp's profile optimizer scores your profile against 12 ranking factors, and the proposal writer drafts proposals built around what each client actually asked for.

Frequently asked questions

Sources & method: All JSS rules, thresholds and badge criteria come from the Upwork Help Center articles linked inline, opened on October 26, 2026. Upwork does not publish the JSS formula or factor weights, and we have not estimated them. The recovery advice is our reading of the documented rules, not official Upwork guidance. Badge criteria and large-contract amounts change from time to time, so check the linked pages before relying on a number. LevelUp sells AI tools for Upwork freelancers. Drafting was AI-assisted; sourcing and conclusions were reviewed by the LevelUp team.