Anyone who has ever looked for clients on Upwork knows this feeling: you see the perfect project, try to submit a proposal, and the system says that you don’t have enough Connects. Upwork Connects are virtual tokens without which it’s difficult to actively pursue new projects on the platform, and they directly affect how many opportunities an agency can apply for. Because of this, agencies often lose money, and lose it for months without even noticing it.
At Convertix, we see this pattern every day across real agency accounts, so in this article we will analyze what Upwork Connects are, how many are given for free, how much it costs to buy additional ones, and most importantly – where exactly agencies are wasting their budget.
What Are Upwork Connects
In short, Upwork Connects are virtual tokens used to submit proposals. Connects are spent when you submit a proposal, and that is why they directly affect how many jobs you can apply for in a day. If you want to apply for a job, you spend Connects, and if you also want to increase the visibility of your proposal in the list, you spend a little more. This is the so-called boosted proposal. If you run out of Connects, there will be no new clients, except for those rare cases when a client sends you an invitation to apply, and for such invitations you do not need to pay at all.
Freelancers have individual Connects balances, while agency members draw from a shared agency Connects balance when applying through the agency. The balance is always visible in your account. Badges such as Rising Talent, Top Rated, and Top Rated Plus can come with Connects rewards and add credibility and visibility in the search.
Upwork New Connects Frequency in 2026
There is no drama here: the basic rules of replenishment have not changed fundamentally, but the way Upwork adds new Connects in 2026 is worth explaining separately, because beginners are constantly confused about these details. Depending on your plan and eligibility, Upwork may add Connects to your account each month. The Connects are added automatically as part of the monthly billing cycle. For freelancer accounts, unused Connects are carried over if they have not expired, while Agency Plus accounts can carry over up to 400 unused Connects.
Some freelancers on the Basic plan may receive 10 free Connects every month, depending on eligibility, and for anyone who is serious about looking for clients, and even more so for an agency with several active profiles, this is literally enough for several days of active work. That is why many agencies eventually start using an upwork automation tool.
Upwork Connects Cost and Price Explained
This is where most freelancers and agencies start counting losses. Connects currently cost $0.15 each, and they can be purchased through the platform when additional Connects are needed.
This is then reflected in the monthly costs: if the agency submits 30–50 proposals a day across hourly and fixed-price projects, Connects quickly turn into a separate and quite tangible expense item every month. That is why it is worth counting not the number of sent proposals, but the cost per reply, that is, how much each client reply actually costs.
Is Upwork Freelancer Plus Worth the Money
Separately, it is worth mentioning Upwork Freelancer Plus – a paid subscription for freelancer accounts with a larger monthly amount of Connects and additional features. For agencies, Upwork offers Agency Plus, where agency members use a shared agency Connects balance. Freelancer Plus and Agency Plus are separate plans, and Connects cannot be transferred between an individual freelancer account and an agency account.
How to Get Free Connects on Upwork
The question of how to get free Connects on Upwork leads among search queries not by chance, because everyone wants to pay less, and there are several legal ways to do this. Here are some working options for getting Connects on Upwork without extra costs:
- Complete available onboarding tasks, such as profile setup, as some of them may award free Connects.
- Earn eligible talent badges such as Rising Talent, Top Rated, or Top Rated Plus, which can come with Connects rewards.
- Keep an eye on the platform’s promotions, as Upwork periodically gives out additional Connects when new features are launched.
None of these methods provide a stable monthly flow of Connects, so you should look at them as a bonus, not as a main strategy. Eligible new users may receive additional Connects through introductory offers or onboarding rewards, but this is not a constant source of customers.
If the agency thinks not only about how to get free Connects on Upwork, but also about how to get more Connects on Upwork in general, paid or free, Agency Plus turns out to be a faster and more predictable way than waiting for one-time promotions of the platform. Relying only on free Connects per month without a paid component won’t get an agency very far if it wants a stable flow of leads, not random part-time jobs once a quarter.
How to Buy Connects on Upwork
When free Connects are not enough, and they are always not enough, you can buy additional Connects directly through Upwork: go to the billing settings, choose the amount and pay using your Upwork earnings balance or an eligible billing method on file.
Purchased Connects remain in your balance until they are used or expire. If a client cancels the project before a contract is made, Connects are returned automatically, without additional requests from your side. If the job simply expires without a hire, the Connects are not refunded.
Where Agencies Actually Waste Connects
This is the most interesting part, because this is where agencies tend to burn through their Connects fastest. A typical agency submits applications haphazardly, without clear job feed filters by type of contract, be it an hourly contract or a fixed-price contract, without focusing on the real client budget, and with the same cover-letter template for every project. Because of this, the result that hurts the most is a low reply rate and a high number of Connects spent per reply.
The most common causes of losses are as follows:
- Submitting applications for projects without a verified client payment method
- Applying to jobs that remain inactive and eventually expire without a hire, while the Connects have already been spent and won’t be refunded
- Using the same cover letter for design, development, and marketing projects
- Lack of analytics, due to which the agency does not see which template gives a higher proposal view rate, and which simply burns the budget without any feedback
Each of these reasons separately seems small, but together they create a blind spot that quietly drains the monthly budget. If you do not count these numbers at least once a week, it is almost impossible to notice the problem in time, and an upwork auto bidding tool can help filter out irrelevant opportunities before a proposal is submitted.
How Convertix Helps Agencies Spend Connects Smarter
This is where Convertix comes in – not as another way to spend more Connects, but as a system designed to use them more selectively. The Upwork auto bidding tool from Convertix works as a second filter after the usual job feed filters: first, vacancies are selected by keywords and budget, and then AI job validation checks whether the project really matches the agency’s portfolio before spending a single Connect. In essence, this is the same Upwork auto bidding tool, built in such a way that Connects spent per reply will decrease over time, not increase.
The second important point is the upwork proposal generator, which turns generic templates into personalized proposals. Instead of the same text for each project, the system generates a cover letter for the agency’s specific portfolio, focusing on what really increases the proposal view rate and leads to an invitation to interview, rather than getting lost among generic proposals. There is also a separate proposal-boosting feature for high-priority applications.
