Top Rated and Top Rated Plus

What are Top Rated and Top Rated Plus?

Top Rated and Top Rated Plus are Upwork's two highest talent badges, displayed directly on the freelancer's profile and proposal card. Both signal that a freelancer has cleared sustained quality requirements - a strong Job Success Score, an account in good standing, and a meaningful track record on the platform. Top Rated is the entry tier into the program. Top Rated Plus is the higher tier, reserved for freelancers who additionally demonstrate consistent earnings on larger contracts. For clients, the badges function as a shortcut: instead of digging through history, they see at a glance that Upwork's own data backs the freelancer.

How Top Rated works on Upwork

The Top Rated program is a status, not a one-time award. Upwork evaluates eligibility on a rolling basis, so freelancers can move into the program, fall out of it, and re-qualify later depending on their recent performance. The criteria fall into a few buckets:

• Job Success Score. A sustained JSS above Upwork's published threshold over adefined trailing window.
• Account standing. No serious violations of Upwork's terms of service, no recent suspensions, no significant disputes.
• Tenure and earnings. A minimum amount of completed work on the platform, measured both in time on Upwork and in lifetime earnings.
• Profile completeness. A finished profile with a real photo, identity verification, and a meaningful body of work.
• Activity. A recent contract within Upwork's defined activity window - long dormancy can cost the badge.

Top Rated Plus uses the same foundation and adds a requirement around recent earnings on larger contracts. The intent is to identify freelancers who not only get hired often but also operate at the higher end of the budget range, which matters for enterprise clients sorting talent.

For exact JSS thresholds, earnings minimums, and qualifying windows, refer to Upwork's published Top Rated and Top Rated Plus criteria, as Upwork adjusts these over time.

Top Rated vs Top Rated Plus

The two badges share the same baseline (JSS, tenure, account standing, activity) and differ on contract scale. Top Rated recognizes consistent quality across any contract size. Top Rated Plus additionally requires recent earnings concentrated in larger contracts as defined by Upwork. In practice:

• Top Rated is achievable for freelancers running many small or mid-size contracts with strong outcomes.
• Top Rated Plus is more common among freelancers working on retainers, long engagements, or higher-budget projects.

Both badges grant the same core perks (a visible badge, access to enhanced support, occasional Connect benefits). Top Rated Plus carries additional weight with enterprise and high-budget clients who use the filter as a hiring shortlist.

Example

A freelancer who has spent two years on the platform finishing a steady stream of mid-range web design contracts with happy clients and a strong JSS qualifies for Top Rated. A second freelancer with the same JSS but who has spent the last year running two long SaaS development retainers may instead qualify for Top Rated Plus, even with fewer total contracts. Both badges represent quality, but they sort freelancers into different shortlists for different kinds of clients - the small-job client and the enterprise client are not the same buyer.

Why Top Rated matters for freelancers

The badges do three things at once. They raise the response rate on proposals - clients filter by them. They come with perks like priority support and, in some cases, Connect benefits. And they compound: a badge on the profile improves the proposal-to-interview rate, which leads to more hires, which protects the JSS that keeps the badge alive.

The risk is symmetric. A few bad contracts in a short window can drop JSS below the threshold and remove the badge until the score recovers. So the playbook for badge holders is mostly defensive: be selective about which jobs to bid on, scope contracts clearly, end bad fits cleanly, and avoid clients with patterns that predict refunds or disputes.

This is the part of the workflow Upwex was built for. Red Flags and Check Fit filter postings before a Connect is spent, so badge holders stop bidding on the contracts most likely to damage the score that keeps the badge. For more on earning and keeping your Top Rated status, see mastering Upwork badges and building your reputation.