Upwork is a gig marketplace, like Fiverr, and they charge for their service. In the world of freelancing sites like Upwork and Fiverr are near the bottom in terms of finding quality work, establishing long-term relationships, and earning a decent income. You have to compete with tens of thousands of people, many of whom will charge as little as $5 to $15 per hour or a couple of hundred dollars for a fixed-fee project. The customers are often cheap and disorganized. It's possible to make a living on Upwork, but the people I have met who do make a living on those sites all live in low cost of living countries like Indonesia and Bangladesh.
Competition is always most fierce at the bottom, and that's what you'll see on Upwork and Fiverr.
The best sources of freelance work are, in decreasing order of effectiveness:
- Referrals from other clients, other freelancers, colleagues
- People you meet through your professional network, at meetups and conferences, and through introductions
- Recruiters, many of whom will place freelancers
- Your own online presence and reputation
- Contacting potential customers directly
- Online ads (Craigslist), gig marketplaces (Upwork, Fiverr)
So what you want is a good network of other freelancers, business owners, people who work with businesses like graphic designers and web marketing people, former co-workers and business colleagues, reputable recruiters, etc. Freelancing is a people and relationship business, not something you can do passively online.
You can look at agencies who represent and place freelancers and consultants. I work through 10X Management. Other agencies with a similar model exist, such as Toptal. Of course they all take a cut for their services but they are doing marketing and billing/payment for you, and writing the contracts, so that has some value.
I have a couple of articles on my web site about freelancing you might find useful.
https://typicalprogrammer.com/how-to-start-freelancing-and-g...
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