Support
The handful of things that actually go wrong, what each looks like from the outside, and the one page that tells them apart.
On this page
Every version of this question has the same first step: open the search and press Activity. Almost nothing else distinguishes a broken setup from a quiet market, because from the dashboard they look identical.
| The log says | The problem |
|---|---|
| Nothing at all, no rows | The search is paused, or it has never run. Check the toggle on the searches list first. |
| Run failed | The Upwork connection expired. Reconnect on Integrations. The failed runs charged nothing. |
| Empty feed, most runs | The filters are narrower than the market. Client minimum spend and minimum hires exclude far more than people expect; drop those first. |
| None relevant, most runs | Postings arrive but score under 0.50. Usually the keywords are catching adjacent work. Check the Upwork profile is synced too. |
| Out of credits | Matches are waiting rather than drafting. Top up and they resume on the next run. |
| Daily cap hit | Working as intended, but the cap is lower than the market. Raise it on the search. |
Press Send a test on the channel. It pushes a real message through the real sending code and records what the provider said, which splits the question in two:
Messages are batched, so some delay is intended
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| Letters read generically | Usually a thin profile. Upload your CV on Integrations — it is the single largest improvement available, because it gives the letter specifics to cite instead of adjectives. |
| Letters describe the wrong you | The profile snapshot is stale. Press Sync profile on Integrations. |
| Bids are wrong | The bid comes from the posting's budget and the search's bid strategy, and knows nothing about how much you want this job. Change the strategy on the search, or edit the bid before sending. |
| A draft failed | Press Try again once. Nothing was charged: credits are only taken on success. If it fails twice, the posting is usually one Upwork has since removed. |
| The same job drafted twice | It should not be possible — postings are deduplicated per account, whatever search found them. If you see it, the two are almost always different postings from the same client. |
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| Paid, but the plan still shows as inactive | Stripe's confirmation arrives a moment after you return. Reload the billing screen; if it is still wrong after a minute, the webhook did not land and support should hear about it. |
| No promotion code field at checkout | It is behind the Add promotion code link under the order summary, on both plans and on credit packs. |
| A code is rejected | Codes are scoped to the plan they were issued for. A monthly code is refused on annual checkout rather than silently discounting a year. |
| Credits went down without a draft | Creating a search costs credits too. The ledger on the billing screen itemises every movement. |
| Cancelled, but still being charged | Cancelling stops the next renewal; it does not refund the period you are in. The billing screen shows the date access actually ends. |
The two screens worth checking before asking anyone: the search's Activity page, which says what the pipeline did and when, and the credit ledger on Billing, which says where every credit went.
Between them they cover almost everything, because almost every report of “it is not working” turns out to be one of: the search is paused, the Upwork connection expired, the filters are too narrow, or the balance is empty.