Case Study: Upwork doubles community traffic and boosts member earnings with Khoros

Upwork Creates Economic Opportunities Behind Strength of Online Community

Upwork, the world’s largest marketplace connecting millions of businesses and freelancers, faced a stalled community that was largely a support forum rather than a place for proactive collaboration, personalized learning, and career growth. To relaunch its community and create clearer learning journeys, Upwork partnered with Khoros to upgrade its online community experience and better surface opportunities for members.

Khoros helped Upwork rebuild the community around education, excitement, and empowerment—adding learning paths, courses and coaching, badges and personalized emails, 100+ user groups, and features like the Freelancer+ program and rate calculator. The results were strong: community traffic doubled in 18 months, the community grew to more than 50,000 members with 50,000+ new Academy users, Freelancer+ subscriptions jumped by triple digits (3x growth), learners saw a 10% earnings increase within 30 days of a course and were 18% more likely to land a contract within 90 days—outcomes driven by Khoros’ community solution.

Upwork

Stan Gromer

Director