If you’ve ever tried to manage multiple Upwork accounts, you probably know the risks involved with this, including getting your Upwork account banned. Upwork permits only one account per person and is fairly strict in enforcing this, but there are legitimate reasons for needing more than one Upwork account.
Whatever your case may be, managing multiple Upwork accounts can be a smart way for individuals and agencies to get ahead of the competition or simply separate different brands or services.
In this guide, we will walk through Upwork’s policies and review different methods to safely manage multiple Upwork accounts from one device.
Types of Upwork accounts and multi-accounting policy
Upwork’s policy on multiple accounts is actually quite straightforward, but we need to get a few things out of the way. Upwork wants you to understand these two terms, which it uses in its documentation under the accounts umbrella:
- Account: This is your actual Upwork identity, which is tied to one email or person on the platform.
- Profile: This is the “role” you operate in under that same account (freelancer, client, or agency).
Sometimes these two terms are often used interchangeably, but as we’ve seen, they’re quite distinct to Upwork. People even sometimes say they need a new account when they could be referring to a new profile.
Types of Upwork Accounts
Freelancer Account
A freelancer account is the standard account for anyone offering services on Upwork. With a Freelancer account, you can bid on jobs, build a portfolio and grow your professional experience.
Upwork offers two main tiers for freelancers. Freelancer Basic is the free tier, which gives you 10 Connects per month and payment protection. Freelancer Plus costs $19.99 per month and includes 100 Connects, access to Uma AI, and a few extra bells and whistles.
Client Account
The Client profile is intended for people in search of talent. With a client profile, you can post jobs (and hire freelancers), and you do not need a separate login to create a client account. Rather, just add a client profile to your existing freelancer account and switch between them.
Upwork also offers client plans depending on the size of the business. Currently, the Client plans are Basic and Business Plus for teams that want more support and control.
Agency Account
An agency profile is best for Agencies and users in charge of small teams. It has its own public profile, a shared pool of Connects, and a central place to manage contracts and payments for your team members.
Within the agency, team members can either be exclusive or non-exclusive. Exclusive members can only be contacted through the agency on Upwork, while non-exclusive members can take on independent jobs.
Upwork’s policy on multiple accounts
Upwork does not allow duplicate accounts for the same person, and this is seen as a serious Terms of Service violation. If Upwork links more than one account to one person, all the linked accounts can be temporarily suspended or even permanently banned
Upwork treats duplicate accounts as a trust and safety problemfirst before a productivity hack. If it believes you’re operating more than one personal account, you can lose access to your account, payments, and your clientbase instantly.
However, there are a few exemptions, such as hiring on behalf of an employer, managing tax issues across different countries, or situations where a client or agency needs a corporate-domain account.
Instead of creating a new account, Upwork advocates for you to use profiles. These are the profile limits under a single Upwork account:
- One freelancer profile
- One agency profile
- Multiple client profiles
Note: Upwork does not support deleting and recreating accounts. Closing your old account and opening a new one with the same info is seen as a violation. If your old account was closed, you are expected to contact support and try to reactivate it instead.
Why Does Upwork Prohibit Multiple Accounts?
- Feedback manipulation
Freelancers with multiple accounts could easily falsify their ratings or leave negative reviews on another profile. This threatens to weaken the review system clients rely on when hiring. - Easier to bypass platform safeguards
If a freelancer who gets suspended for violating the Terms of Service can simply open a new account and keep working as if nothing happened, it effectively defeats the purpose of the bans and safety guidelines in the first place. - Financial abuse
If a malicious freelancer has access to multiple accounts, they could easily be coordinated to influence proposal or profile visibility by submitting a lot of bids at once.
How Upwork detects multiple accounts
Platforms like Upwork constantly track and monitor different data in real time to detect and link multiple accounts. Some of these data includes:
- IP address and browser fingerprint
- ID documents
- Activity patterns
- Bank cards
- Cookies
Upwork monitors the IP addresses used to access an account, and if two separate accounts keep showing up from the same IP, that can raise a few eyebrows.
Browser fingerprinting goes much deeper than the IP address. Upwork collects data such as browser type, operating system, screen resolution, installed fonts, time zone, and other data to build a unique digital fingerprint of your device. Even if the IP changes, the same fingerprint appearing across several accounts can still link them together.
How to create a new Upwork account
Creating an account on Upwork only takes a few minutes.
Step 1: Sign up on Upwork
To create your account, go to Upwork and click the Sign Up button. When the prompt appears, choose I’m a freelancer, looking for work (or pick the client option if you’re hiring).
From there, you can create your new account in two ways:
- Sign up with Google or Apple (easier for SSO)
- Or enter your email address manually and create a password
Upwork will then ask for a few info, like your first and last name, a password, and your location.
Step 2: Verify your email
Next, you must verify your email to proceed. Open your inbox and retrieve the confirmation link from Upwork to continue
Step 3: Start building your profile
Once email verification is complete, Upwork guides you through building your profile. You can either fill in everything manually or upload your resume so that Upwork can pre-fill parts of your profile to save a bit of time and give you a starting point you can edit.
Step 4: Choose your category, skills, and services
After that, select your work category and confirm your location, then choose your main skills and services.
Step 5: Complete your profile details
All that’s left is to complete your profile details by adding a professional photo, a title, and a short bio. In the next section, expand your profile by including your skills, work history, hourly rate, education, and a few other portfolio items.
Managing multiple Upwork workspaces from one device
Once your main freelancer account is active, Upwork lets you create different profile views under that same login. This is their preferred way for you to present different services without opening multiple accounts.
However, soon people realise one account with multiple profiles may not fully cover their use case, and some start looking at technical tricks to juggle more than one account from the same device.
Let’s go over some common methods.
- Incognito mode
Private or incognito windows are usually the first natural approach most users tend to take. They clear cookies after you close them, but they do not change your browser fingerprint or device details. Due to this, they are not reliable as Upwork can still see that the same browser, on the same device is used to log into different accounts. - Multiple Chrome profiles
Creating different Chrome profiles is a bit better because each profile has its own cookies and local storage but this is still limited as the deeper browser fingerprint stays the same. Upwork can quickly identify and treat these as the same device using multiple logins. - VPN
A VPN operates at the OS level and can change your IP address. However, your browser fingerprint, cookies, and device information are still unchanged and most VPN proxies announce themselves. - Virtual machines
Virtual machines can create more isolated environments with their own operating systems and separate device footprints, but they are just too heavy on resources to be a viable option. Virtual machines are also slower to run and harder to scale due to the compute costs. - Antidetect browser
An antidetect browser is designed specifically to create separate browser profiles that look like different devices. Each profile has its own fingerprint, its own cookies, and its own proxy. To platforms like Upwork, one profile looks like one device with a consistent identity, and another profile looks like a completely different device.
Some of these these tricks might look clever, but most of them are still very vulnerable to detection and leave your accounts exposed.
How Gologin helps manage multiple Upwork accounts
Agencies and teams are more likely to be flagged on Upwork since it’s not uncommon to share devices or use overlapping sessions.
A capable multi-account tool like Gologin is a much safer option compared to using multiple browsers or VPNs. When you use Gologin antidetect browser, each browser profile gets its own unique IP address and fingerprint. A safe workaround is to login each Upwork account in a separate Gologin browser profile.
This way, Upwork cannot figure out that the traffic is coming from the same device because because each profile acts like a unique device, and hence can’t link them together.
How to set up multiple Upwork accounts in Gologin (Quick Steps)
1. Download and register for Gologin
Navigate to Gologin and download the app from the homepage. It is supported on all major operating systems, so it doesn’t matter if you use a Windows, macOS, or Linux computer.
Once the download completes, simply install the app and sign up for an account. After registration, Gologin gives you a 7-day free trial for testing, and you do not need a credit card to activate the free trial
2. Create a new Upwork browser Profile
When you open your dashboard, you’ll see a few ready-made browser profiles complete with unique IPs and preset locations.
To create a new profile, click Add profile in the top right corner. Give the new profile a name; you can easily rename this later if needed.
Your new Gologin account comes with some free proxy traffic, but you can also add third-party proxies from any provider.
Next, choose a locationand select the proxy type, then click Create Profile to create the new profile.
3. Launch the profile and log in to Upwork
Click the Run button next to the new profile to launch it. This creates an isolated session with its own unique properties, so you can treat it like a dedicated workspace.
This action will open up a preconfigured browser window with your custom settings. Navigate to Upwork, sign in to the associated account, and complete any verification steps if prompted.
Each time you click Run for this profile, you will enter the same isolated browser window with the same saved session and device fingerprint.
4. Create more Gologin browser profiles
To add more accounts, simply repeat steps 1-3. Create a new profile, assign a different IP address, then open Upwork and log in.
You will end up with several Gologin profiles, each tied to a specific Upwork login or profile, each having its own IP and fingerprint.
Even if you run several of these profiles at the same time, Upwork will just see them as separate devices rather than a single user signing in to different accounts.
Final thoughts
Upwork is the most popular freelance platform in the world, and for it to stay that way, it needs to take strong measures on its user account policy.
Managing multiple Upwork accounts is risky, but you can get by if you follow best practices and use the right tools. Gologin makes it easier and safer to handle several Upwork accounts from one device by giving each browser a unique profile with its own fingerprint, cookies, and proxy.
FAQs
How does Upwork detect multiple accounts?
Upwork monitors for simple actions like sharing cookies, using the same device fingerprint, or suddenly changing your timezone or language.
Can I have a client and freelancer account on Upwork?
Yes, you can add a client profile to your Freelancer account (or vice versa). Upwork permits one account to have one Freelancer profile, one Agency profile, and multiple Client profiles
Can I have two freelancer accounts?
No, Upwork allows only one freelancer account per person. Even if you delete an account and try to create a new one, it would be considered a duplicate, and both accounts may be suspended.
Does Upwork check IP address?
Yes, Upwork keeps track of the IP addresses used to access accounts or data on its site
Download Gologin for free and manage multiple accounts without bans!
