Upwork Proposal - Proposal and bid

You write the proposal and put a price on it. Two things in one skill because on Upwork they go together: the bid is part of the proposal and neither one can be defended without the other.

Paths are relative to the career workspace (--workspace, env CAREER_WORKSPACE, or ./career-workspace/).

Posting given: $ARGUMENTS

Precondition: the screen

Do not draft a proposal without the /client-screen note. If it does not exist, ask for it and run that skill first.

If the screen came out high risk or DO NOT APPLY and the user wants to apply anyway, they can - but they are told what failed and it is recorded in the note (rule 1 of freelance-guardrails). Connects are money: spending them blind is different from spending them with your eyes open.

Inputs

• The full job post and the 03-Applications/ note with the screen.
• The base profile in 01-Profiles/ - the proof and the net rate floor come from there.
• The estimate from /estimate if the scope is large.
• Comparable past work (closed 08-Contracts/) to calibrate price against reality, not against wishes.

Part 1 - The proposal

How the client reads it

They have 30 proposals in a list and see the first two lines of each one. Anything not there does not exist yet. That is the only format constraint that matters.

Structure

1. First two lines (80% of the work). Something you can only know from having read this post: the real problem behind the request, a concrete technical observation, or the outcome you can bring. If the opening would work for any other job in the field, it is dead.
2. Proof, 2-3 sentences. A comparable project with a number or a link. Not adjectives: "expert in React" is noise, "I migrated a 40k-user checkout to React and cut load time by 60%" is proof.
3. How you would do it, 3-4 points. Enough to show you already thought it through, not so much that you give the consulting away.
4. The price, justified. See Part 2. A bare number invites haggling.
5. One concrete question about the project. Without a question no conversation starts, and it shows you read the post.

150-300 words. Above 300 it is almost never read in full.

Explicit requirements in the post

Many posts ask for something specific: start with a keyword, answer a specific question, send a link. Always look for it and comply. It is an automatic discard and the cheapest mistake to avoid.

Anti-patterns (always cut)

• "I have X years of experience in..." as the opening. The client does not hire experience, they hire the solution to a problem they already have.
• "Dear Sir/Madam", "I hope this message finds you well".
• Reciting the profile in prose.
• Adjectives without evidence: passionate, detail-oriented, fast learner.
• Phrases that give away a template or automatic generation. Upwork clients recognize them instantly and it is the number one reason for discards.
• Promising deadlines you cannot meet to win the contract.

Part 2 - The bid

The floor is net

The rate floor in 01-Profiles/ is what you keep, not what you bill. Upwork keeps a fee, so the bid has to cover it: with a floor of 40 USD/h and a 10% fee, the minimum bid is ~45.

If the calculated bid comes out below the floor, say so loudly and do not dress it up. The right move there is to not apply, or to quote what it takes and lose the posting - not to lower the floor. Lowering the rate is the easiest lever to pull and the hardest to reverse: it lowers the ceiling of every following contract.

Fixed or hourly

Choose fixed when	Choose hourly when
The scope is written and bounded	The scope is exploratory or will change
You can estimate with medium or high confidence	There are client dependencies you do not control
You want to capture value above your hours	The client says "we'll see as we go"

Fuzzy scope + fixed price is the combination that loses the most money. If the screen flagged fuzzy scope and the client insists on fixed, the price has to include the risk or the right move is not to take it.

The calculation

1. Base effort from /estimate, in hours.
2. Risk buffer based on what the screen said: clear scope and a client with history, +15%; fuzzy scope or a new client, +40% or more. The buffer is not fat, it is the price of the uncertainty the client transfers to you.
3. Non-billable project hours: meetings, reviews, back and forth.
4. Multiply by the target rate (not by the floor: the floor is the minimum, not the goal).
5. Add the platform fee.
6. Compare against the client's budget. If it does not add up, that is data for the decision, not a reason to lower the number.

Show the breakdown to the user before writing it into the proposal. The client is shown the total and its rationale, not the spreadsheet.

Process

1. Read the post, the screen and the profile. Verify that the screen exists.
2. Calculate the bid (Part 2) and show the breakdown. If it comes out below the floor, warn and stop to decide.
3. Draft the proposal (Part 1). Then cut everything generic without mercy.
4. Review with proposal-reviewer (fresh context): pass it the post, the draft and the bid inline. Apply its exact replacements and incorporate what fits. One round only. Whoever wrote it read the whole post and is already convinced by their own hook; the client sees two lines.
5. With approval, save it in the 03-Applications/ note, section ## Proposal, with the bid and its justification in ## Quote.
6. If the user wants to rehearse the call, offer discovery-call.

Language

In the language of the post. If the post is in English, the proposal goes in English even if the chat is in another language.

Rules

• Never invent experience, clients, deadlines or metrics.
• Never bid below the net floor without saying so explicitly.
• Never send the proposal: it is shown and the user copies and sends it (rule 4 of freelance-guardrails).
• Never set proposal_sent: /job-outcome does that after sending.
• No em dashes in the proposal text or in the notes.

Handoff

Ask for approval before writing the proposal into the note. Proposal READY when it passed review and the bid is above the floor. The next step is to send it by hand and run /job-outcome to record the submission and the Connects spent; if the client replies, discovery-call to rehearse and then /contract-and-proposal-writer for the SOW.