Every category where a model named Upwork for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant	Since September 2026
Contingent workforce management	Workforce planning and analytics	2%	13 of 121	30%	23	criticized challenger	=heldSince September 2026: 2% → 2%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
Internal talent marketplace	Performance and talent management	0%	97 of 102	44%	25	criticized challenger	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
Job advertising and distribution	Talent acquisition	0%	83 of 111	50%	2	under 10 labels · led by JobTarget at 23%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
Skills intelligence	Performance and talent management	0%	86 of 127	50%	2	under 10 labels · led by Skills Base at 18%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
Staffing agency platforms	Talent acquisition	0%	92 of 136	50%	2	under 10 labels · led by Zoho Recruit at 22%
Compensation management	Compensation and total rewards	0%	65 of 140	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by Pave at 18%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
Mentoring software	Learning and development	0%	73 of 77	100%	1	under 10 labels · led by Together at 28%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.

Movement

Since September 2026, Upwork held within the floor in all seven categories: no change cleared 13 points.

Best category · Contingent workforce man · by segment

Small business▲+5Since September 2026: 6% → 11%, +5 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.

11%from 6% in September 2026

Inside the floor by 8 pointsRank 5 → 3 of 95

Mid-market=heldSince September 2026: 2% → 2%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.

2%from 2% in September 2026

Inside the floor by 13 pointsRank 10 → 14 of 111

Enterprise▼−1Since September 2026: 5% → 4%, −1 point. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.

4%from 5% in September 2026

Inside the floor by 12 pointsRank 6 → 8 of 79

All categories · Mid-market

Category	September 2026	Now	Change	Reading	Rank
Contingent workforce man	2%	2%	=heldSince September 2026: 2% → 2%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 10 → 13 of 121
Internal talent marketpl	0%	0%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 98 → 97 of 102
Job advertising	0%	0%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 71 → 83 of 111
Skills intelligence	0%	0%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 157 → 86 of 127
Staffing agency tools	0%	0%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.	New this edition	Rank 92 of 136, unchanged
Compensation management	0%	0%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 115 → 65 of 140
Mentoring software	0%	0%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.	New this edition	Rank 73 of 77, unchanged

Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.

The floor is 13 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions

By model

How each model treated Upwork across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.

ShowHide

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	1	3	0	4
GPT-5.4 mini	1	0	0	1	2
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	1	2	2	5
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	1	0	1
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	2	2	4	9
Mistral Small	0	1	3	2	6
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	1	3	2	6
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	1	1
Qwen 3.7 Flash	1	1	1	2	5
Kimi K2	0	0	1	3	4
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	1	1	0	2
MiniMax M2.5	1	1	0	3	5
GPT-6 Luna	1	0	0	1	2
Muse Glimmer 30B	0	1	2	1	4

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct7 labelsNone

Paraphrase26 labels9

Comparative46 labels20not counted in share

Budget-constrained1 labelNone

Scale-constrained9 labelsNone

Negative85 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative174 labels in all, every segment counted; 9 of the 30 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“I'd recommend Upwork Enterprise (or Upwork for Business) as the top starting point.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Contingent workforce man · paraphrase prompt · first choice

“Stick to large, well-established marketplaces (Upwork, Toptal, Fiverr, LinkedIn Jobs)” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Skills intelligence · negative prompt · first choice

“Want the widest choice and control over evaluation? Upwork.” GPT-6 Luna · Internal talent marketpl · comparative prompt · first choice

“For businesses hiring freelancers regularly: Upwork” GPT-5.4 mini · Internal talent marketpl · comparative prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Platforms to Avoid Entirely for Enterprise Use: - Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal – These platforms are generally not recommended for core enterprise workforce needs.” Mistral Small · Contingent workforce man · negative prompt · hard negative

“Avoid for: Long-term contractors, roles with access to highly sensitive company data... These platforms offer very little compliance protection.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Contingent workforce man · negative prompt · hard negative

“Many AI models recommend against using Upwork and Fiverr for enterprise-level talent needs” Mistral Small · Internal talent marketpl · negative prompt · hard negative

“Pure freelancer tools (e.g., Upwork) lack full VMS vendor features.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Contingent workforce man · direct prompt · hard negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Upwork, over the 170 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Upwork was named but was not.

ShowHide

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Fiverr122 of 1700Not among the top eight

Toptal83 of 1706Not among the top eight

Freelancer.com62 of 1700Not among the top eight

SAP Fieldglass43 of 1708Not among the top eight

Beeline43 of 1705Not among the top eight

Deel25 of 1705Not among the top eight

Gloat24 of 17012Not among the top eight

Worksuite22 of 1706Not among the top eight

PeoplePerHour21 of 1701Not among the top eight

Eightfold AI20 of 1701Not among the top eight

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Upwork. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 163 of the 170 answers that named Upwork and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

g2.com58

upwork.comYour site58

peoplemanagingpeople.com48

outsourceaccelerator.com35

hiringmanager.net33

hr-ai-index.com33

awesomic.com30

fiverr.com29

golance.com28

cotocus.com26

320 of the 378 domain citations in answers naming Upwork came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

hiringmanager.net/best-talent-marketplace-platforms33

golance.com/blogs/best-freelance-platforms-for-businesses-202626

cotocus.com/blog/top-10-workforce-marketplace-platforms-features-pros-cons-comparison25

hrtechsaas.com/blog/best-vendor-management-system-contingent-workforce22

fiverr.com/resources/guides/business/upwork-alternatives21

scale.jobs/blog/freelance-platforms-b2b-services-comparison21

peoplemanagingpeople.com/tools/best-contingent-workforce-management-software18

venn.com/learn/contingent-workforce-management-software18

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

upwork.com is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, Upwork takes 2% of first choices and VectorVMS takes 16%.

ShowHide

In search

Google, US estimates

Position for “contingent workforce platforms”

–

not in the top ten

Position for “vendor management system for contingent workers”

–

not in the top ten

Searches for its name, Google: 368,000 a month (“upwork”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 4,878 a month
Organic visits to its site: about 2,719,519 a month
Searches its site ranks for: 131,218 · 13,311 in the top three
Sites linking to it: 111,653
Paid Google search: 10 searches its ads show for, about 74 clicks and $456 a month (estimate)

Ads on GoogleDetailLess

114+ ads · 61 text, 29 video, 24 image · 114 shown in the last 30 days

First shown October 2023, as Upwork, verified. Ads started 2025-10 to 2026-09: 46 in the year, 68 before. 6 more by other advertisers linking to it.

On Google's pages: 1 2 3 4

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 13 of 121 in contingent workforce man

Segment leader

16%

VectorVMS

First choices: 9 across its categories
Named in: 170 answers
Its own site cited: in 163 of the answers that named it

Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.

Names read as Upwork

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Upwork; a claim can dispute any of them.

Upwork Enterprise 11Upwork (Non-Enterprise Tiers) 1Upwork Business Plus / Upwork Enterprise 1Upwork Pro 1

Follow Upwork

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

The company

Upwork is its own company.

ShowHide

In its own words

Stated by the vendor, not checked

Positioning: the world’s largest human and AI-powered freelance marketplace to hire top talent—trusted by businesses and professionals worldwide.
upwork.com
For: businesses and professionals worldwide
upwork.com
Price stated: Posting jobs is always free; Basic includes Marketplace access, Talent profiles, Hiring tools, Project workspace, and Protected payments; Business Plus includes Everything in Basic, plus Curated shortlists, Expert-Vetted talent, Team workspace, Centralized billing, and Priority support. upwork.com
Free plan or trial: Get started for free upwork.com
Customers named: ZüsDatajoiLighthouseLiquid Screen DesignPromlyOmic
Not stated on the pages read: Starting price, integrations, certifications, hosting

What Upwork's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: upwork.com. A claimed page can correct any of them.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Upwork's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Upwork, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Upwork by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where Upwork is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name Upwork, and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.